Nobody Cares About Your Progress

And That’s the Most Liberating Thing You’ll Hear Today

“Character is what you are in the dark.”

- Dwight L. Moody

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You’re exhausted, aren’t you?

Not from the work itself. From performing it.

From the endless cycle of capturing, curating, and crafting your life into consumable content. From turning every small victory into a shareable moment. From the constant pressure to prove you’re making progress to an audience that exists mostly in your head.

You’ve become your own surveillance system, your own harshest critic, your own prison guard.

The Weight of Phantom Eyes

Every morning, you wake up and immediately feel the weight. The pressure to post that workout selfie. To update your progress thread. To share today’s agenda. To prove you showed up.

You’ve turned your life into a performance, and you’re both the desperate actor and the harshest critic, playing to an audience you’ve imagined into existence.

You’re suffocating under the weight of phantom eyes.

My Own Empty Theatre

I know this intimately because I’ve been that desperate performer.

Earlier this year, I convinced myself I’d crack the code. Daily motivational videos on Facebook. Every. Single. Day. I lasted three weeks before the familiar exhaustion crept in. The daily grind of filming, editing, uploading. Watching the views. Checking the engagement. Wondering why yesterday’s video got 200 views but today’s only got 12.

Then came the guilt when I missed a day. Then two. Then the whole thing collapsed and I disappeared from Facebook altogether, adding another “failure” to my collection.

This has been my pattern for years. Sporadic bursts of content creation followed by the inevitable realisation: I hate Facebook. I hate the performance. I hate who I become when I’m chasing digital validation.

The worst part? Nobody noticed when I stopped. Not one message asking where my videos went. Not one comment wondering if I was okay. The only person tracking my inconsistency was me.

The Performance Trap We Built Ourselves

This is the trap we’ve built for ourselves in the age of public productivity. We’ve confused doing with showing. We’ve mistaken progress for performance. We’ve turned the deeply personal act of becoming into a public spectacle that nobody asked for.

Nobody cares about your progress. Not in the way you think they do. Not with the intensity that keeps you up at night. Not with the investment that makes you feel guilty for taking a day off.

And before you mistake this for cynicism, understand what I’m really saying:

This is the most liberating realisation you’ll ever have.

Everyone’s Too Busy With Their Own Show

Your co-workers aren’t tracking your daily LinkedIn posts about professional development. Your followers aren’t maintaining spreadsheets of your consistency. Your friends aren’t judging the gap between your last two progress updates.

They’re all too busy directing their own performances to audience members who aren’t watching either.

We’re all actors on empty stages, performing our hearts out to ghosts.

When Documentation Becomes the Point

The woman who posts her daily meditation streak? She’s not inspiring the masses. She’s imprisoning herself. The guy sharing every business milestone? He’s not building authority. He’s building a cage. The friend documenting every workout, every meal, every moment of growth? They’re not creating accountability. They’re creating exhaustion.

The performance becomes the point. The documentation becomes more important than the doing. The proving overtakes the becoming.

What Happens When You Stop Performing

Last week, I had a Zoom chat with a fellow runner who’s been “documenting his fitness journey” for eight months. His Instagram stories showcase dedication: 5 AM gym check-ins, meal prep Sundays, transformation Tuesday posts.

“I missed three days last week,” he confessed, staring into his coffee like it held absolution. “I just couldn’t bring myself to post about it. I felt like such a fraud.”

I asked him a simple question: “Who noticed?”

The silence stretched between us like a taut wire.

Nobody had noticed. Nobody had messaged asking where his morning workout post was. Nobody had commented on the break in his routine.

He’d been performing in an empty theatre, convinced the seats were full. Just like I’d been with my motivational videos. Just like we all are with our carefully curated lives.

You know what happened when he stopped posting? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The world kept spinning. His muscles still grew. His fitness still improved. But something magical happened in that silence: he started enjoying it again.

Without the pressure to capture the perfect gym selfie, he could focus on his form. Without crafting the post-workout inspiration, he could sit with the satisfaction. Without performing strength, he could actually build it.

This is what we’ve lost in our addiction to public progress: the private joy of becoming.

The Lost Art of Private Growth

Remember when you used to read books without reviewing them? When you could learn something without posting about it on Facebook? When you could grow without broadcasting every inch?

That wasn’t ignorance. That was freedom.

The most profound transformations happen in silence. In the dark. In the spaces between posts. In the moments nobody sees and you don’t document.

The musician practising scales in their spare room. The writer filling notebooks that will never see light. The runner hitting pavement before the world wakes up. The artist sketching in cafés without photographing their sketches.

They’re not building audiences. They’re building themselves.

The People Who Actually Matter Don’t Need Your Updates

The people who actually matter in your life (the real ones, not the follower count) don’t need your progress reports. They don’t require your daily proof of effort. They see your growth in how you show up, not in how you post about showing up.

Your partner notices you’re calmer, not your meditation app screenshots. Your kids see you’re more present, not your productivity metrics. Your true friends feel your evolution in conversation, not in your carefully crafted captions.

The performance you’re killing yourself to maintain? It’s for strangers who scroll past in half a second. It’s for people who “heart” your post while sitting on the toilet. It’s for an algorithm that doesn’t care about your soul.

The Liberation of Silence

So here’s my invitation (no, my challenge):

Stop.

Stop posting your progress. Stop documenting your journey. Stop proving your worth through public display.

Do the work anyway.

Go to the gym and don’t tell anyone. Write the pages and don’t share the word count. Build the business and skip the LinkedIn humble brag. Meditate without the app screenshot. Read without the Goodreads update. Grow without the growth hacking.

Do it all in glorious, liberating silence.

What Freedom Actually Feels Like

Watch what happens when you remove the audience. Notice how the pressure evaporates. Feel how the joy returns. Observe how the work becomes yours again.

You’ll discover something profound: You never needed witnesses to validate your worth. You never required applause to justify your effort. You never needed proof of progress to make the progress real.

The only person who needs to know you showed up is you. The only validation that matters is the quiet satisfaction of honouring a commitment to yourself. The only audience worth performing for is the person you’re becoming.

Nobody’s Watching (And That’s Your Superpower)

Nobody cares about your progress. They’re not watching. They’re not judging. They’re not keeping score.

That’s not a tragedy. That’s your liberation.

In the absence of an audience, you’re free to stumble. Free to rest. Free to progress at your own pace. Free to slip without shame. Free to transform without testimony.

Free to become who you’re meant to be without proving it to anyone.

The Permission You’ve Been Waiting For

So close Instagram. Step away from the progress post. Put down the phone and pick up the weight, the pen, the practice.

Do it because it matters to you. Do it because you said you would. Do it because the only person you need to answer to is yourself.

Nobody’s watching.

And that’s exactly why you’re finally free to become whatever you want to be.

The work continues.

-Chris