Escaping the Performance Economy

Why your burnout isn’t personal (and how to build something slower, saner, and stronger)

You wake up tired. You reach for your phone, scroll through the feed, follow the same old advice - discipline, consistency, just keep showing up - you chase the latest tactics, rebrand your identity and take pride in your productivity, even when your body is screaming no.

You tell yourself this is what it means to be ambitious. That visibility equals value. And slowly, without even realising it, you stop asking the more important questions. Like is this me? Is this what I stand for? Do I really like who I’m becoming?

There is a deep sickness buried in modern culture, one we’re trained not to see. It lives in the routines and rituals of daily life, where who you are matters less than how you appear. And where your worth (professionally, socially and creatively) is quietly reduced to metrics, anything from impressions and growth charts to achievement ladders and public validation.

This is the performance economy. It’s the invisible operating system behind almost every part of modern life. It’s there in the workplace. It’s there in online business. It’s even there in wellness culture, where healing becomes another thing to optimise.

If you’ve ever caught yourself “performing competence”, managing perception, or sacrificing your own pace to match someone else’s timeline then you’re already inside it. And once inside, it becomes very difficult to leave.

So that is what we are going to cover here:

How to recognise the performance economy for what it is.

How to take back your creative sovereignty and realign.

And how to build something sustainable from the inside out.

I. The Invisible System

There are systems that control us through force, and others that control us through familiarity. The latter are harder to notice because they operate in the background, embedded in routine, dressed in the language of ambition and personal growth.

The performance economy is one of those systems.

It presents itself as opportunity. A chance to build something of your own. But beneath that surface lies something more corrosive, a subtle distortion of meaning that creeps into every aspect of how we live, work, and even rest.

At first, it looks like freedom. The promise that anyone, with enough discipline and drive, can carve out their own corner of the world. But over time, it becomes something else. Something more frenzied. The metrics that were meant to support your creativity become the very thing that define it. The engagement numbers that now sit like judges beside every word telling you whether you’ve done well or not.

This isn’t just a social media problem. It’s in the workplace, where value is measured not by insight but by visibility. Studies show that those who are more present (as in spend more hours) in the workplace get more attention from management and ultimately are more likely to be considered for promotion.

Everywhere you look, presence has been replaced by presentation. We’ve trained ourselves to be legible before we’ve even figured out who we are ourselves and to prioritise being understood quickly over being understood deeply.

What began as an invitation to share has become an obligation to prove, and proof in this world is always external.

The consequence isn’t always dramatic. More often it’s slow and internal—a dulling of the creative impulse, a growing distance from the work that once felt meaningful. You begin to move through your days as a persona rather than a person. You become competent at showing up, but increasingly disconnected from what you’re showing up for.

This is the trap of “just show up” or “consistency is key” it places the focus on a mechanical repetitive action rather than the deeper meaning behind it.

So how do we get out?

II. What Escaping Really Means

So what does escaping the performance economy even mean?

Disappearing into the woods? Deleting every app? Quitting your job to become a barefoot freelancer in Bali?

Not quite.

Escaping doesn’t mean rejecting society. It means refusing to be ruled by the metrics it rewards. It means remembering (and repeatedly coming back to) what matters to you, and designing your life around that. It means rebuilding your sense of worth around something deeper than productivity, popularity, or polished optics.

It requires creating alignment architecture: The inner structure that helps you live by your values, not by algorithms. And no, it’s not theoretical. There’s a framework to it. A process you can return to anytime you find yourself drifting back into performance mode (because it will happen, the pull is real and to pretend it is not would be foolish).

Here are the three foundations:

1. Awareness: Map the Invisible Rules

Before you can escape, you need to see the trap. Start noticing which invisible rules you’ve been obeying.

• What are you measuring your life against?

• Whose attention are you trying to earn?

• What do you believe you have to do in order to be “enough”?

Most of us don’t even realise we’re performing until we’re exhausted.

Try this: For three days, track every time you feel the urge to check stats, prove your worth, or say yes to something misaligned. Patterns will emerge. That’s your map.

For example, I disabled all notifications for Substack and YouTube a long time ago, because it became destructively distracting.

2. Realignment: Define your inner metrics

Once you’ve seen the trap, you get to choose what replaces it. What would success look like if no one else was watching?

Pick three values that matter most to you (e.g presence, integrity, autonomy, creativity). Then define how they show up in real life.

Try this: For each value, create one clear rule or ritual.

• If presence matters → Phone away after 8PM.

• If autonomy matters → Start each day with your own writing, before checking emails. (this is one rule I live by religiously).

• If creativity matters → 30 minutes of analog work every morning.

These are not habits. They’re commitments. They’re how you begin to live differently.

3. Integration: Build scaffolding that supports you

No value survives without structure. Will power alone will not get you there, this is about intentional design.

Try this: Choose one weekly rhythm that protects your priorities.

• It might be a no-meeting Monday.

• A two-hour solo ritual every Sunday.

• A strict rule to publish before consuming.

I write for 30 minutes to 1 hour per day before work. This is a natural rythm that I now miss if I for whatever reason can’t keep it up.

These are the bones of alignment. They keep your attention rooted in what matters so you don’t drift back into the discipline spiral.

True escape begins with self awareness. Knowing what you want, what you are prepared to do to get there and relentlessly implementing the actions required to get you there.

If you found this helpful please consider sharing it with someone you care about.

That’s it for now.

Take care,

Ben