Speed Traps and Invisible Chains: Reclaiming Your Inherent Worth Inside Corporate

The shift from external validation to internal fulfillment.

This is a continuation of the Corporate Crossover series! Read Kelly’s recent post, “Two Managers, Two Lessons: How Opposite Leadership Styles Taught Me to Stop People Pleasing,” and subscribe to her Life Between the Systems newsletter!

On Saturday, October 25, at 12 PM EST, we will have another Substack Live! Join in on the discussion on navigating the ins and outs of the corporate work-life maze! 💙

Catch up on the Corporate Crossover series:

1. The Performance Hangover: Learning to Create Without a Manager

2. The Corporate Creativity Paradox: Balancing Day Job Performance as You Work On Your Craft

There’s a certain ache when it comes to giving your all for a job. You spend years chasing that next approval, that next promotion, and that next pat on the back with a “great job” from leadership.

That external validation tends to linger in your thoughts, even if you don’t want it to.

Unfortunately, many of us have been conditioned to seek that corporate approval as if it were the mark of guaranteed stability.

Just because you do a great job and have received that external validation, it doesn’t mean anything if, all this time, you were actually expendable.

But do you know what is not expendable? Your take on the work you provide.

No one, I mean, no one will ever do the work like you. Even if it’s the same task.

You may not own it…but it has your signature all over it:

• Your instinct for what works

• The way you solve problems no one else saw coming

• The creative choices that feel obvious only after you’ve made them

These are all yours. And it always will be.

I now straddle this weird line as corporate creative in the exciting happenings of agency work (as well as the occasional freelance gig). You’re on the bubble, walking in the shoes of lives you won’t ever experience.

This distance made me realize…why do I always default to the approval of those who asked me to take on this work to begin with?

What if the instability we fear in choosing ourselves is less dangerous than the false security of waiting for corporate validation that may never come?

The greatest work of your career might be designing a life where performance reviews don’t measure your worth.

And you don’t need anyone’s permission to start.

The Corporate Conditioning Speed Trap

I’ve talked more than once about this constant need for “more” when it comes to content production in corporate.

There’s also this insane pace that never seems to let you breathe.

The constant anxiety of “Am I doing this fast enough?” became a background hum I didn’t even notice until I started working on my personal creativity.

The corporate world conditions you to equate speed with value: if you’re not moving fast, you’re falling behind.

There’s an invisible chain that wraps around your neck, set a bit loose, but still clings to your skin, reminding you what happens if you slow that momentum down.

You neglect yourself for the sake of making sure you appease the eyes of leadership, stakeholders, or whoever holds the power to decide if you’re “enough.”

You rush to get the task in on time. But those who wanted that report yesterday, take their time to get back to you.

Then, the fury eats at you because you realize the urgency was never about the work at all.

They just wanted to control your creative resources.

Because if they kept you spinning fast, you don’t have the time to question what it’s all for.

And here’s the trap. You start to actually believe that speed is your value. That if you move fast enough, produce enough, respond quickly enough…you’ll finally earn the stability you’re chasing.

But every time the chain rope tightens and snaps our neck, we’re reminded once more that it is not the case.

Now, speed is not at all a bad thing. But when you are running at a breakneck pace, this all depends on the people surrounding you in maintaining this output.

Because even one person not hauling their weight can cause a rift in the ground gained.

Or worse…an idea that can be hijacked by those who do not want to put in the brain power to let it fly.

When Your Work Ethic Becomes Another’s Weapon

The worst type of betrayal may not be by leadership, but by the people who are supposed to help share the load with you. There can be coworkers who see your work ethic and decide that you will be the one to handle the problem fires from now on.

As the good little worker you are, you don’t want to see the flames burn all that work down to ash. So you heft the hose over your shoulder and pray your back doesn’t break from the pressure.

But you learn quickly that the generosity with your ideas can become a liability. All you wanted was to collaborate with those who can spark more igniting ideas, not engulf the environment in flames.

But then they see your passion, and they’d rather you take on that burden, as the creative fire within you becomes this simmer that many want to extract.

Because warmth without effort is easier than generating heat on their own.

It’s tragic to think that the system rewards those who know how to position themselves near good work rather than those who do the work at all.

So you start holding your best work close.

This is the start of giving yourself that creative permission to establish your own systems for fulfillment.

The match only lights with a strike of your own doing. And you get to choose what surface is worth the friction.

The Creative Permission to Uphold New Systems

There’s no time like the present to redirect the energy you’ve been expending for others. If you’re guarding your best ideas from being hijacked or diluted at work, channel some of that energy toward projects that are entirely yours.

Because not every ask deserves your best thinking.

And not every project deserves your problem-solving skills that no one else notices (or appreciates).

Building your own system while in a system means defining your own metrics, rather than placidly accepting the ones imposed on you by outside forces.

Success, in this case, isn’t about speed, approval, or who gets credit.

Ask yourself, does the work align with your values? Does it speak to your integrity?

You get to decide what work feels true to you. And it doesn’t have to be anything grand or spectacular.

No one even needs to see it.

It’s all about creating something, anything, that exists beyond the approval matrix and answers only to you.

And no, you’re not here to seek revenge or prove anyone wrong. You’re expressing yourself in an internal system that’s built for your freedom towards fulfillment…

While denouncing that tenuous connection of systematic validation.

Reclaiming Time and Unlearning Fear

The permission you’re waiting for doesn’t exist. No one at work will tell you it’s okay to prioritize yourself.

Because the system benefits when you don’t.

The fear of “falling behind” is manufactured by a society that wants you to feel as if your worth only belongs to those who hold your monetary value in their hands.

But what if there was no designated finish line…no fear for a system that expels every ounce of your tenacious hold on your sanity?

Your worth isn’t contingent on anyone else’s approval. The scoreboard you’ve been staring at was designed by people who profit from your anxiety.

As my dad always tells me when work panic creeps in to rule my thoughts, “See the job, do the job, and stay out of the mud.”

Release yourself from any urgency that treats your creativity like a renewable resource that they’ll never run out of.

And that external validation we all crave will no longer feel appetizing to ingest.

— Imelda 💙

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