The Quiet Grief of No Longer Feeling ‘Exceptional’

exceptional (adj.)

unusually good. outstanding

When I think about these last couple of years, I realise I unintentionally built my identity on being “exceptional”, which, in hindsight, is a crazy amount of pressure to have put on myself.

Now, I know “exceptional” is quite a bold word to use. But when I look at what I achieved, especially at the ages I achieved them, it feels like a pretty good catch-all to embody that. On the flip side, I can pinpoint the exact moment I stopped feeling that way. 

When I quietly began grieving a version of myself that I can't seem to get back.

Before I get to the grief, I guess it only makes sense to talk about the years leading up to my “peak”

Going back to my childhood, I was one of the few that knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to work in tech/software and spoiler alert! I do. Many thanks to my older brother who would buy me computer parts for my PC and we’d sit together and build websites when I was barely even 10 years old.

Throughout school, I wasn’t necessarily a straight A student or top of the class, but I wouldn’t say I found education particularly hard. Of course I struggled and didn't understand everything, but generally I did pretty well. 

By college, I was already thinking 10 steps ahead, applying for insight days at the big banks, doing summer schools, going to talks, all to puff up the good ole LinkedIn. Fun fact: they did a “LinkedIn wrapped 2025” and I found out I created it when I was 11!. Alongside events, I was building projects beyond the computing spec purely for the love of the game. I even found my old blog and seeing 16/17 year old me with so much ambition and excitement for coding, lowkey feels a little bittersweet. 

Now these things aren’t “exceptional” per se, but they fit the pattern. A pattern where things just worked out naturally, a tad accelerated, but ultimately kept me on a good trajectory. 

In 2019, I started uni, and over those 3 years my identity became very tied to what I call my "pillars". These were the areas of my life, like education and career, where I could succeed without feeling like I was struggling and it felt secure. Even when my mental health was poor and my actual attendance was in the gutter (I spent most of my first year crying and feeling like I was “fighting for my life”), my grades didn’t slip. Things like getting a First every year was one of the things I felt I had control over.

Thanks to the time I’d invested during college with networking and going to events, a JP Morgan recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn for a summer internship. Now for a first year student, summer internships were pretty rare, typically it would be a spring week, maybe insight days. But that one LinkedIn message turned into a fast track for my corporate career: internship after internship, leading straight to a graduate role. Meaning that I fortunately didn't have to go through application season year on year.

I stumbled into the startup space during my second year through my friend Sam. I had joined his MedTech startup as the main developer, did that for about eight months before they as founders called it a day. Which was fine by me, as I wasn’t fully invested in the product idea, but it was great for learning and technical development. Then came my third year, I joined my friends (including Sam) as a Co-Founder and CTO for Nestwork, a career social platform for uni students. It was an idea I could fully get behind because I was a student, our fellow students were our consumers. Finally an idea I was so excited to get behind and build out from scratch!

Overall, between building a startup from scratch, juggling a final-year project. Which if I told you I restarted it a month and a half before the deadline and nearly drove myself insane (I have pictures to prove it), you wouldn't believe me. Plus preparing for the corporate world. My third/final year of uni was truly chaotic. 

But I enjoyed the thrill of it all, although it required a pace that honestly was not sustainable (at least not for the next 4 years). Once I graduated, I was working at JP Morgan 9-5 and building Nestwork 5-bedtime aka I’d wake up early, work on the startup, do my 9-5 at the office, and then come back and do startup until I went to bed. Even with the craziest of schedules, work-wise, I still traveled and saw friends because it was very important to me to still have fun, you know “Work Hard, Play Hard”, albeit my calendar was essentially booked 24/7 and well in advance.

For a while, the "side-hustle" worked. I was winning awards of the back of it, speaking at events about it, and I even managed to negotiate my way up to a 20% equity stake (from 5%) and get the Co-Founder title (story for another day) within Nestwork. 

But after three years, we hit a ceiling. Despite the previous investment, user traction and the hard work from the team, we couldn't get it to the next level. Now, it wasn't because of a lack of effort or trying, it was just the reality of the market and the timing. So in January 2025, we decided to shut it down and that was the moment the "exceptional" version of me stopped existing. 

I had spent years running from my burnout by staying busy, and suddenly, the thing I was staying busy for was gone. The goal I had of leaving JP Morgan for the startup had vanished. One day I was building a company that put me in rooms my younger self couldn't have dreamed of, and the next I was taking it off the internet and we’re shutting down all operations.

Meanwhile, the corporate space I’d worked so hard to get to since I was young stopped being a positive environment. It started making me feel like I was failing at the one thing I was supposed to be good at. For the first time, the pillars I had built my entire identity on weren't there to hold me up. The false sense of control was slipping away and I felt trapped in an identity that was no longer a true reflection of who I was.

Looking back, I wonder how I did it. People used to ask, “How do you balance it all?” and I never had a good answer. In reality, I was just running. I spent years distracting myself, both intentionally and unintentionally, to avoid dealing with my own thoughts, and in return, burning myself out on repeat.

Fast forward to now and I'm doing better mentally and actually taking time to breathe again. Sometimes I do feel like I've gone too far to the other end of the scale, where I’ve lost the motivation to learn or build random projects for fun. That flame that once burned a tad too bright now feels like a small candle in the rain. And that’s part of the grief, because I miss that flame. For over 10 years, I had an intense desire to learn, nothing could stop me, I felt like I found/was finding my purpose in life. My identity validated entirely by milestones and being part of something bigger.

It's 2026 and I’m still trying to discover who I am without all these “cool” achievements. I have to constantly remind myself that I’m only 25! There is so much more life to live and room for new “flames” to ignite. I’m six months into a new job at a smaller company with a better culture, I’m finding new hobbies and healthier ways to fill the time.

It's funny because, whenever I tell people about the startup and the ending they ask “Why not start another one?”. And to be honest it’s not a write off but it’s definitely a “not right now”. Mainly because I’m still deciding if tech is my passion or just my career. But if I take anything from my startup era, it’s that I thrive and give my best when I truly back the idea and have a well rounded team to weather any storm with.

So while I still grieve no longer feeling "exceptional", it is finally becoming a lot quieter.