You Were Never Meant to Win: The Myth of Meritocracy
They told you that if you just worked hard enough, stayed twice as late, swallowed your anger, and dotted every damn "i," you'd be safe.
You believed them.
So you became the most qualified in every room—and the most overlooked.
You carried whole teams on your back and still got passed over.
You became the go-to, the fixer, the dependable one... and still had to prove your worth every day.
This is the cruel genius of the meritocracy myth:
It keeps you grinding for acceptance inside systems that were never built to recognize your brilliance.
It exhausts you just enough to keep you from asking better questions.
It promises safety in exchange for your silence.
Let’s be clear: Meritocracy was never designed to liberate Black women.
It was designed to use us.
What is meritocracy, really?
It’s the belief that success is earned through talent, hard work, and discipline—and that the best rise to the top because they deserve it. Sounds fair, right?
Until you realize who decides what “talent” looks like. Who sets the rules.
Who benefits when you break yourself trying to win a rigged game.
Who Actually Wins When You Overwork?
Meritocracy rewards performance, not truth. And it especially rewards the performance of resilience in Black women.
White-dominant institutions win when they can say, "Look how far she’s come," while still paying her less than her less-qualified peers.
Corporate leaders win when they can hide behind "DEI goals" while still denying promotions, mentorship, and rest.
Higher education wins when it markets diversity brochures with your face while excluding your ideas from real decision-making.
The nonprofit and social impact world wins when it milks your passion while underpaying and emotionally draining you.
But you?
You’re left depleted.
Disillusioned.
And somehow still doubting yourself.
Because the lie is sticky.
The lie says, Maybe I just haven’t done enough yet.
The Emotional Toll of Chasing Safety Through Labor
This isn’t just about being tired. It’s about the slow death of believing your dignity must be earned.
You stay late not out of ambition, but anxiety. You over-deliver not out of excellence, but fear.
You smile in meetings not out of joy, but survival.
We internalize the idea that if we just stay grateful, stay polished, stay quiet, we will finally arrive at peace.
But peace doesn't live at the end of perfection.
It lives at the edge of truth.
What No One Told You About Being Exceptional
The better you perform, the harder it is to leave.
The more you prove, the more they pile on.
Excellence becomes your prison—because no one thinks to ask if you’re okay when you’re outperforming pain.
And here’s the trap: when you finally break, they call it a personal failure.
Not a structural one.
"She just couldn’t handle the pressure."
"She was doing so well... then just unraveled."
They don’t talk about the emotional labor.
The code-switching. The microaggressions.
The meetings you had before the meetings just to be taken seriously in the meeting.
Your burnout becomes your burden—and they keep the system intact.
So If Working Harder Won’t Save You, What Will?
Your healing won’t come from another certification, another late night, another round of proving you belong.
It will come from breaking the agreement you never consciously made: The one that said your worth is measured by your output.
It starts with sacred refusal.
To shrink. To explain. To carry what isn’t yours.
It deepens with ancestral return.
To ways of knowing that center rest, intuition, boundaries, and joy.
It flourishes in spaces that don’t demand performance.
Spaces that hold your wholeness, not just your excellence.
You Don’t Need to Be Chosen.
You Need to Choose Yourself.
You were never lazy.
You were never fragile.
You were never ungrateful.
You were just exhausted from trying to earn safety in places that feed on your over-functioning.
And the moment you stop trying to win at a rigged game?
That’s the moment you begin to live.
You don't owe them another ounce of your becoming.
Ready to Exit the Myth?
If this truth landed in your body like release, it’s not a coincidence. It’s a crossroads.
I lived this too. And I built Beneath the Bloom for the woman who is done chasing worth and ready to return to it.
🌀 This Time, I Choose Me —a guided journal for choosing yourself, on your terms.
Preorders open July 15. When you're ready, it will be waiting.
🌀 Sister Circles that hold your truth without requiring your polish.
🌀 1:1 Bloomkeeper Sessions to help you untangle from grind and root in grace.
🌀 A retreat where your body remembers it was never built for burnout.
You don’t need to prove yourself to rest.
You don’t need to earn clarity, softness, or care.
🖤 You just need a place to lay it all down.
And you have one now.
