Joy often enters through activities that would look pointless on a résumé.

The things that most reliably lift you are usually the ones that produce nothing anybody would list on paper. Cooking slowly, playing an instrument badly, walking a long way for no reason. They have no output, which is exactly why they escape the part of you that measures everything, and why they can restore something achievement cannot.

Make a short list of what actually makes you feel alive, and notice how few of those items would ever make it onto a résumé. Then protect one of them this week the way you would protect a meeting. The lack of an outcome is not a flaw to be corrected.