Why You Can’t Stop Chasing the Next Thing - And How Your Nervous System Can Help You Slow Down

on identity, ambition, and the radical art of doing nothing.

hello you,

this week’s letter is a remembering i’ve had to repeat like a mantra - whenever my pause stretches longer than i think it should, whenever my winter feels endless🌀

everyone wants to be someone. we want to be known, admired, and just different enough to stand out. we want what others have, do what others are doing, be where they are. social media makes it seem not only possible but necessary: glamorous trips, michelin-starred meals, curated wardrobes, spotless homes. yet behind the lens, many of us are quietly exhausted, quietly aching, and quietly wondering when we will finally feel like enough.

i know this chase intimately.

i grew up in a middle-class entrepreneurial family, swinging between periods of great stability and moments of real scarcity. from a young age, the message was clear: i had to become someone. someone successful, financially secure, admired. this urgency shaped the whole of my adult life.

by 18, i was already building - tutoring students, taking odd jobs while studying abroad, working in a fortune 500 company, managing a team at an IT boutique agency, freelancing in AI product research, prototyping a grassroots lifestyle brand, teaching yoga online, and co-hosting a podcast.

on paper, it looked impressive. but inside, it was hollow.

it wasn’t passion that kept me going - it was fear. fear of being invisible. fear of failure. fear of stillness. my busyness was an armour, shielding me from pain, rejection, and the ache of unprocessed grief.

when ambition becomes a nervous system loop

this is not just a mindset problem - it’s a nervous system one.

when our identity becomes tied to constant doing, the body begins to link movement with safety. the sympathetic nervous system - the fight-or-flight response - learns to stay “on” even in the absence of real danger. cortisol and adrenaline drip steadily into the bloodstream. muscles stay slightly tense. the mind keeps scanning for what’s next, because stopping feels unsafe.

this is the biology of overachievement.

your body does not differentiate between the threat of missing a work deadline and the threat of being chased by a predator. it responds to both by mobilising: work harder, move faster, do more.

over time, this creates what neuroscientists call “a dysregulated baseline.” your nervous system no longer knows how to rest. parasympathetic states - those associated with calm, digestion, and restoration - become rare visitors. and the strange thing is, when rest does come, it feels wrong. boring. guilt-inducing. even dangerous.

the rupture beneath the skin

but the damage isn’t only physiological. there’s another fracture happening - one you can’t measure in hormones or heart rate.

when you live in a constant state of doing, you begin to lose touch with the part of you that simply is. the part that doesn’t need to prove or produce. the part that belongs without performance.

this is the rupture of the soul:

you can no longer hear your own longing because it’s buried under the noise of achievement.

you forget how to recognise joy that isn’t monetised or optimised.

you measure worth in output, not in aliveness.

and perhaps most painfully - you stop feeling at home in your own body. because a body that is always on high alert cannot feel like home.

learning to stop

for me, the turning point wasn’t one dramatic collapse, but a thousand small ones - year after year, my body breaking in quiet ways, leaving me stuck and hollow. i realised my life was no longer about creating, but about avoiding collapse. i was surviving, not living. and somewhere in between, i began learning the hardest thing of all: how to do nothing.

so i began to experiment with doing nothing. not as a withdrawal from life, but as an act of repair.

doing nothing is not the absence of work - it is the work.

it is the slow teaching of a nervous system that stillness is not a threat. it is the practice of letting the body come down from its survival high without rushing it back into the race. it is the moment you stop negotiating with the present to give you a better future before you can rest.

it’s awkward at first. uncomfortable. my old reflexes would flare - guilt, anxiety, the restless urge to fill every pause. but over time, the quiet became less foreign. my breath deepened. my mind stopped scanning for the next crisis. my body began to believe me when i told it we were safe.

redefining seasons of life

these days, success and stability look different. they are not milestones on a career ladder, but moments of full presence: mornings without alarms, conversations without clocks, meals eaten without checking emails.

and no, this is not me quitting the workforce. this is simply another season - one with a different rhythm and a different kind of work. right now, my work is building a safe home, both for myself and for the people i love, internally and externally.

teaching your body to trust stillness

if you recognise yourself in this, know this: your body isn’t broken - it’s brilliant. it has adapted to keep you alive in a world that equates worth with productivity. but adaptation can change.

the nervous system rewires through repeated experiences of safety. every moment you slow down without catastrophe is a moment your body learns a new truth:

we are safe here. we can rest here. we can belong without earning it.

and one day, when someone asks, “what are you working on right now?” you may find yourself smiling and saying:

“nothing.”

and you’ll mean it - not as a surrender, but as a reclamation.

until next time, more from my deepest and brightest place.

light and love,

janki

🌸 past reflections 🌸