The goal is not to look successful to people who do not know what your life costs.

Performing success for an audience that has no idea what it took is one of the emptier uses of a life. They cannot see the hours, the compromises, or what it is doing to you, so their impression is based on almost nothing, and yet it is expensive to maintain.

Work out which of your current efforts exist mostly to produce an impression. Take one of them off the list this month and notice whether anything actually worsens. Usually the only loss is the impression itself.