You ever stop and realize that you’ve been lying to yourself? Not in the “I ate one cookie” when you really ate five kind of way, but in the I’ve built an entire belief system around something that isn’t even real kind of way.
It sneaks up on you.
You don’t wake up one day and decide to buy into your own hype. It happens gradually. A little confidence here, a small win there, and suddenly, you’ve got this narrative playing in your head about who you are and where you’re going.
And it feels amazing—until it doesn’t.
I once told myself a story about inevitability. That my path, my success, was just meant to happen. It wasn’t arrogance exactly; it was more like blind optimism. I’d see one good thing happen and immediately connect it to the next, as if life were a series of perfectly aligned dominos, and I was standing in front of a golden finish line.
The funny thing about hype is that it doesn’t feel like hype when you’re in it. It feels like truth. Like the way things are supposed to be.
And when it’s going well, there’s no reason to question it.
But then something happens—something small at first. Maybe you notice that the momentum you’ve been riding starts to slow. Or maybe you start looking at the story you’ve been telling yourself and realize, Wait, this doesn’t even make sense.
For me, it wasn’t one big event. It was more like this series of tiny cracks in a wall I thought was unbreakable.
The hardest part about stepping away from your own hype is that it’s not just about letting go of a belief—it’s about letting go of a version of yourself.
I’d built this idea in my head of what my life was supposed to look like, what I was supposed to be achieving, and who I was supposed to become. And for a while, it all seemed to align. The wins were coming in, the stories were getting bigger, and it felt unstoppable.
But the moment you start questioning it—just a little—the whole thing starts to wobble. And let me tell you, that wobble is terrifying.
Because if the story isn’t true, then what is?
I still don’t have a perfect answer to that. But here’s what I’ve learned so far:
The stories we tell ourselves aren’t inherently bad. They’re necessary, even. They keep us moving forward, give us a sense of purpose, and help us make sense of all the chaos around us.
The problem is when the story starts running the show. When it becomes more about the illusion than the reality.
There’s this thing that happens when you stop believing your own hype—it’s not what you think. You’d expect it to feel like losing something, like a piece of yourself has been stripped away.
But for me, it was the opposite.
Letting go of the story I’d built around myself didn’t make me feel small. It made me feel free.
I didn’t have to live up to the imaginary version of myself anymore. I could just … be.
The truth is, we’re all going to buy into some kind of hype at some point in our lives. Maybe it’s about our careers, or a relationship, or the way we think we’re perceived by others. It’s inevitable.
But if you’re lucky, there’s a moment when you get to step back and ask yourself: Is this real?
And if it’s not, you can rewrite it. Not with another story about how everything’s going to be perfect, but with something simpler. Something honest.
I’ll admit, it’s still a work in progress for me. I don’t have all the answers. But I’ve stopped worrying so much about what could’ve been, or what I thought should’ve been, or what I assumed was meant to be.
What’s real is enough.
If you’re curious about the messier side of this realization, the full story is in the video.
Leave a Reply