Maturity is recognizing when being impressive would interfere with being content.

The pursuit of an impressive life and the pursuit of a good one overlap only partly. Impressiveness requires an audience, escalation, and comparison, and it tends to demand more just as you are ready to want less. Contentment is quieter and mostly invisible, which means choosing it often looks from outside like settling.

When you are weighing a step up, ask honestly who it is for. If the main return is how it sounds when described, that is worth knowing before you commit years to it. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be impressive; it is only worth being clear that it is a separate goal.