The high achiever wound: why success doesn’t feel enough
The other day I had a dream where my mind was telling me…
“you’re in your late twenties and still haven’t achieved anything worthwhile”
And I felt it. The constant shamer that lives inside the head commanding me on what I need to do, achieve, and accomplish by x number of age.
I grew up with her. She made me get 100% grade on every exam I took and would beat me up whenever I couldn’t.
She was obsessed with becoming “her best self.” From the need to have six-pack abs all year round to becoming a 6 figure earner in business.
Goals after goals after goals.
To her, you’ve always gotta be pushing yourself. Because if you don’t, you’d be a “loser, an average person, a failure” (at least those are the words she used to tell me).
And I know that this voice wasn’t just inside of me. She lives in the minds of many other women… including many of whom are well-distinguished, outstanding in their career.
In other words, the high achievers .
I know them because I’ve been one of them.
I.e. The ones who “have it all together” and people would point to us as “perfect.” The ones who have painted a glamorous coating on our outer lives.
But on the interior life, not feeling quite so. Because deep down, it never feels enough.
And I know exactly why…
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The restless mind
What makes a high achiever a high achiever is the constant need to “try hard.” Because otherwise, success is pure luck and so it wouldn’t mean much.
But that also comes with the cost of thinking all the time. Wondering if you would get the goal you’ve set for the year/month. Figuring out the best way to go about a task/project. Imagining possible worse case scenarios and worrying what could happen next.
And the thing is, the restless mind usually doesn’t stop even when you want to rest (for example, when you want to take yourself out on a date or go to bed at night).
I remember when I was in eighth grade, wanting to sleep soundly at night, so I could ace an exam the day after. But the restless mind would be plotting and scheming all night– which led me to doing the exam poorly with panda eyes the next day.
However, it’s also possible that you may have somehow pulled off success while having little mental rest. In fact, this is why a lot of high achievers feel like they can’t rest well, because you feel as though the busy mind has led you to achieving the success you have had.
When the truth is, the restless mind is what’s exhausting both the body, the spirit, and the mind itself. An overthinking mind drains your energy, stifling the body from channeling your life-force energy toward the things you actually want to experience.
A restless mind is like a speed racing car trying to “get ahead” but it’s accelerating while being stuck in the mud.
If you want to test it out, try ruminating on 10 possible best & worst scenarios of a goal you want to accomplish for 1 hour (let’s say a goal you want to accomplish is to write a blog post). And you will see that overthinking is actually way more tiring than actually going ahead to write the post!
In sum, a restless mind of a higher achiever deprives the soul from experiencing inner serenity that you deserve. It is also the root of why many women find themselves unable to slow down and rest– which therefore prevents you from fully nourishing yourself…
2. Self-worth issues
To a lot of high achievers, the reason why we get started on the achievement journey in the first place is because we feel the need to prove our worth.
To me, it happened after my dad scolded (yelling) at me in fifth grade, about why I couldn’t earn top-tier grades. He worked so hard to send me to an expensive private school yet there I was… being an average kid which upsetted him greatly.
From that moment onwards, I knew I had to always be the top-tier kid. Because if I wasn’t, I wasn’t going to be loved, appreciated, and valued for who I was.
This is how the narrative goes for a lot of high achievers. That if you don’t meet the expectations (of your parents/ society), you are going to be a shame and a disgrace.
And so a lot of high-achievers spend their entire lives trying to achieve their way to worthiness. I was in that camp once– trying to be a 6 figure business owner while I was still in graduate school because I wanted to be THAT girl whom my friends would talk about and be impressive in the eyes of social media.
And the Universe sent me failures: which were actually blessings in disguise. Like receiving a pile of rejections from prospects for a whole year of starting my coaching business. Or feeling lost on what I wanted to do after I hit my first 10k month.
Now looking back I see that I needed them. I needed the wakeup call to find that I am not defined by my goals, nor my worth is. Those failures stripped away my ego (and my personal agendas) so that I can actually be of service through leading with my heart instead.
And now I also see that this is why success doesn’t feel enough– when you’re trying to achieve as a high achiever.
Because the high-achiever is trying to achieve not out of your pure love for what you do, but for the validation and likings of other people. And because external validation is never enough– aka it’s like salt water where the more you drink, the more you become thirsty, you never feel like it’s enough. For that reason, success that seeks for validation also never feels enough.
3. The need to maintain a perfect image
I know this one because I used to be the type of high achiever who would get overly excited by finally attaining “the perfect image” from my manifestation vision boards.
Such as, the perfect image of me finally getting a thick, round butt and having thousands of likes on Instagram. The perfect image of being a #girlboss who would throw parties on luxury yachts… just to name a few.
But the thing is, perfect for whom?
Perfect to people on instagram? Perfect for your childhood friends? Perfect for your mom?
Most of the time when we are trying to be perfect, it’s usually for an impression that we are trying to establish in the eyes of other people. And the thing is, what looks good to others may not even feel good to you.
That is because perfection is an ideal set up by the ego (the false self). It’s a defense mechanism to combat you from being looked down by others and not being liked/valued. In other words, perfectionism is like a box that you feel you need to be in in order to prevent others from actually seeing who you are.
And high achievers are usually stuck to the image of being perfect. And so you become scared of trying new things you would love– which includes being a beginner again, experimenting, and failing (happily). Thus, rather than having fun in the process, you become stuck and limited to the image of “success” you have crafted for yourself.
True success comes down to being able to be all of yourself (that includes perfect as well as imperfect moments).
It’s just like being in love with your partner– you love them even more so when you can be imperfect as you are. Just like that, you begin to fall more in love with life when you are unafraid of being imperfect.
And you can only experience that when you go beyond the definition of what you thought were your achievements.
~
To me, when I finally let go of the identity of being a high achiever, it feels like now I finally get to create a life that is even more meaningful to me.
Because now, there are no identities to uphold nor at stake anymore. For instance, if I want to try out a new strategy in my business, I would do that in the heart of curiosity and play–instead of being afraid of “losing the momentum” of what I’ve built.
To me, that’s what peace is. That is, not caring whether people see me as a “high achiever” or not anymore. Because when you no longer do, you get to freely find (people/ places/ opportunities) that resonate most to you rather than sticking with something just because it’s maintaining a facade of a high achiever.
Letting go of the high achiever takes courage, self-trust, and lots of self-love. But on the other side of taking off that polished, put-together mask, you will become freed to satisfy the desires that you actually want.
