Why sensitive, high-achieving women struggle with happiness (and how to actually heal)

As a sensitive, high-achieving woman, you may feel a deep desire to be happier, more joyful, and more in love with your life. Your passion and your drive are examples of how intensely you long for it.

But here’s the catch: the direct path to true happiness is rarely discussed in the self-development world. Instead, what you’ll find most commonly on social media are advice that offers ways to hopefully lead to happiness—as in, how to 10x your income, manifest a dream partner, or achieve the next big goal etc.

Yet, none of these external achievements will truly fulfill the inner longing that many of us feel. While reaching them can bring a temporary sense of accomplishment (i.e. the achievement “highs”), the satisfaction fades afterwards, only to be replaced by more things you’re still dissatisfied about. And so we find ourselves relying on external outcomes to create happiness, instead of pursuing happiness itself as an enduring, internal state.

If you’re feeling this, know that you’re not alone, my dear. This desire for true happiness and fulfillment is something I’ve felt deeply, and it’s shared by many of the sensitive, high-achieving women I work with.

The reality is that self-development hacks and even popular manifestation teachings often don’t fulfill this profound longing for happiness. Traditional advice on happiness falls short, too.

And this isn’t because you haven’t “done enough,” or “achieved enough” —rather, it’s because your soul has unique needs and desires. Here’s why some commonly suggested happiness advice may not work for you:

Problematic advice #1: Be grateful

On every article you google, this is probably the top advice you will see. Yet, the reason why simply trying to be grateful is hard as a sensitive, high achiever is because you are naturally wired to look for “more.” 

You’re the type of person who, even if you were to look at a piece of wood, will find details of what could be more polished, better, and improved. Let alone, your life! And this analytical way of thinking is not wrong, it has for sure served you. As in helping you be a go-getter, the one who goes the extra mile, and becomes exceptional at whatever you do. 

However, this analytical way of looking at life can often leave a sense of feeling like there’s always something that’s missing in your life. Like the type of rumination that makes you feel bad about why you are not where you want to be yet or haven’t still achieved that next big thing you desire yet. 

And so, the feeling of gratitude may only last while you journal or meditate… Soon to be replaced by thoughts of why your reality is not good enough–which seems to be the brain’s automatic outlook on life. 

Plus, the need to count the things you’re grateful for can become another chore that you feel like you “need” to do, therefore missing the whole point of lightness of it.

Problematic Advice #2: “Find a Work-Life Balance”

For “normal” people (and by normal, I mean those who are not sensitive, high-achievers), having a work life balance can come naturally and easily. But if you are a sensitive, high-achieving soul, not so. 

First off, it’s likely because you LOVE your work (or rather, your sense of accomplishment and fulfillment only comes from your work). So it will be hard for your brain to shut off about work, even after work. This is even more so if you’re an entrepreneur who feels like your whole business and life-line depends on you! 

Second, “balance” is such a subjective word. And to you, it is likely heavily skewed toward working due to what you saw was needed to create success in the past and how much you think you “should” work.  

So a one-size-fit-all advice to find a work life balance is likely ineffective for you. Because what you as a sensitive, high-achiever desires is your own way of inner harmony that is highly unique to you.  

Problematic Advice #3: “Take Care of Yourself”

Just like the previous advice, the recommendation to “take care of yourself” can fly above your head for most sensitive, high achieving angels. 

That is because the nature of this advice is antithesis to how you naturally treat yourself. To you, you may have lived your whole life being harsh, strict, and critical toward yourself. And that inner critic mind may have served you, as in forcing you to “improve” and be “better.”

So that means, taking care of yourself or being kind to yourself can often feel wrong or uncomfortable, with an underlying guilt and shame around it. You may even hear the voice in your mind that says “who are you to put yourself first” or “you don’t have time for that.” 

Plus, as a sensitive soul, you may be so used to putting other people’s needs before your own desires, that it feels selfish to take care of you. 

Problematic advice #4: “Just have fun”

Again, this is another happiness advice that doesn’t sink in for many sensitive, high achievers. 

When you’re feeling stressed out, overwhelmed, or exhausted, you may be told to “just have fun” and “don’t take things so seriously” but for you, it can almost seem impossible. 

It’s like giving advice to a bird that has never left a cage to “just fly.” To you, there are more steps to having fun than just having fun. As in how to let go of the need to be perfect, the fear of making mistakes, the tendency to overthink, just to name a few. 

Problematic advice #5: Imagine being happy

This advice goes along with many other spiritual “healing” techniques like repeating positive affirmations to yourself or visualizing yourself achieving your dream desires. 

And what you will find is that although such techniques make you feel “high” and “good” for a moment, this usually does not last. You may feel a temporary hope for the future, only to find it disappears the moment you face reality again. 

That is because these feel-good words, affirmations, and visuals are not true to you. 

Meaning, you are not actually feeling them but you are only saying them to bypass the emotions you’re currently feeling. It’s like painting a new color on a rusty metal or laying a beautiful carpet on a floor that hasn’t been cleaned. 

The truth is, unless you heal the emotions you haven’t faced inside, no amount of positivity can bring you to the fulfillment you are after. That includes not just the experience of lasting happiness but also the satisfaction of having arrived at your dream desires.  

Problematic advice #6: Surround yourself with like-minded people

This is the kind of happiness advice that will resonate at first, especially if you often face feelings of loneliness or lostness alongside un-happiness. And upon hearing that, you may implement that advice, such as through joining clubs, attending meetups, going on dates and such. 

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However, although this unhappiness from loneliness may disappear for a while when you’re with other people, it will come back only with even more emptiness and feelings of isolation when you’re by yourself. 

That’s because for one, surrounding yourself with people 24/7 is practically not possible (yes, even when you have a husband, you will still have moments of being by yourself). And two, other people cannot take away the heaviness of our emotions if we haven’t healed that within ourselves. 

On top of that, if you are letting other people be the source of your happiness, it will only increase the dependency that you have on people. This puts so much pressure on other people (to be there for you) while you feel like you need them more than they need you. 

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So now that you’ve read all the reasons why many sensitive high-achieving souls struggle being happy (in a long-lasting way), you may be wondering: then how do you actually find happiness? 

And from what I’ve discovered, the answer may actually shock you, my dear. Because the thing is, it’s actually not about adding more stuff, strategies, and things to do. But rather, it’s about going deep into what you’ve been avoiding your whole life– i.e. to look into your own Self. 

Yet, to a lot of people, the quest for happiness may end here because to look into your own self feels vague, unfamiliar, and even terrifying. As a consequence, many people end up living lives that feel shallow, unsatisfying, and unfulfilling. 

And there’s nothing that’s wrong with that. But if you’re a determined, sensitive, high-achieving angel, I’m sure you are willing to actually experience the sweetest, most delicious nectar of life by going into the depths– particularly your emotions. And you do this by inquiring about all the things you experience… 

• For example, when you are feeling lonely without friends or a partner, asking why.

• Or when you are feeling “behind” when looking at social media, asking why. 

• Or when you are feeling empty despite all the career achievements you’ve had, asking why. 

By getting closer to your emotions and assessing the root of all that you are feeling, you will see that the only reason why you feel “bad” is because we are acting out of alignment with Truth. 

For instance, if you feel lonely being on your own, you will see that it’s arising from a false belief you have about yourself. Like how you may be “worthless” or “unlovable” if you are on your own (without a partner/friends), a belief that may have been passed on from your parents and society. 

Similarly, if you feel “behind” in life, you will see that it’s because of a conditioned lie that you have to match up to and be like other people if you are to be worthy, loved and valued. 

And through going deeper and deeper into assessing why you feel all that you feel, you will see that to experience happiness is actually as simple as seeing Truth. That is, to see perfect love and wholeness in everything about you. Once you see that, the way you look at life will change– as you see the Divine’s perfection in everything around you. And the closer you live in alignment with Truth, the more lasting joy you will experience. 

And the only reason why we can feel “off” or unhappy or frustrated is because we become caught up in what's not true. A Course in Miracles calls that “being caught up in our own nightmares.” 

Then as you discover Truth, you will also start to move past the identity of the high-achiever that you think you are. This is important because when we are attached to the identity of being a high-achiever, a go-getter, a make-it-happen doer, it only causes a strain in our lives– for that identity is actually not the true you. 

As in, when you make a mistake or don’t get what you want, it is this identity that is freaking out, and so causing great unhappiness. And when life gives you what you don’t want (e.g. your manifestations not arriving yet), it is this identity that is falling apart (and so creating emotions that make you feel like you’re falling apart).  

But the good news is, you are beyond this identity of a high-achiever my dear one. Who you are is the ever-present luminescent light that doesn’t depend on an outcome or an achievement to exist as the Self. 

The identity of a high-achiever was only created out of a childhood belief that if you didn’t achieve what your parents wanted, you wouldn’t be loved. But there is a you who existed before this identity was created. And to truly find happiness, we have to access this core being of who you are past the limited achiever self. 

But that of course doesn’t mean you can’t achieve things anymore and instead you have to retreat into the woods. Rather, it means to access what you most desire deep down, beyond what the high-achiever in you would normally go after. 

Like for me when I assessed this truth of who I am, I began to assess creative abilities and artistic gifts– something that the high-achiever in me never “had time for.” It also looked like being lit up in my business everyday, because I now get to freely share my unpopular yet poignant truths– something that the high-achiever in me would be afraid of.

Just like that, you may discover innate gifts that you never got to explore in your childhood or find new truths that you want to express in your relationships/work. Or you may rekindle the sense of play you never got to experience– something that the high-achiever in your never could. Regardless, you will find yourself becoming free-er, lighter, and happier as you assess the Truth of you. 

And with this new awareness, you will find yourself naturally living from a place of love, tranquility, and incandescent joy of life. Happiness will organically flow through you, even from just your mere existence, without having to follow a checklist of things to do or to achieve to be happier. 

And when you DO achieve things and/or manifest miracles, it’s no longer from a place of “needing” that to be happier. Rather, it’s from a place of celebrating the truth of who you are.