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Do You Really Want to Be a High Achiever?
Well, I guess the answer to that question depends on what you think a high achiever is. And, whether or not you believe that you have to be a high achiever in order to be successful in life.
Which begs the questions — do you want to be successful? And, what does being successful mean to you?
And those questions lead to two more questions — would being a successful high achiever give you validation? And, if so, would that validation come from yourself or from your external world?
Holy crap! These are some heavy questions, but what else would you expect from the leader of a community of Deliberate Thinkers ?? And, of course, I’m not going to leave you alone with these thoughts roaming around in your head.
Let’s continue our discussion and see if we can find some answers (or at least plant some seeds of thought so we can discover the answers later).
Why Would I Even Ask This Question to Begin With?
Geez — I’m just full of questions today, aren’t I ??
The question came to me after watching an Evan Carmichael video one morning. Evan profiles various thought leaders, business leaders, motivational speakers, etc., and, quite often, he’ll introduce the profilee as: someone “who was raised by his abusive father,” or someone “who was born into poverty,” or someone who “grew up in an abusive household,” or “insert traumatic experience here.” **
Then, naturally, he goes on to detail the achievements, successes, and validations the profilee has realized in his/her life. And I started to notice that a lot of these high achievers were either abused as children or were exposed to traumatic environmental factors during their childhoods. So I started to wonder, “Did these people go on to become high achievers because they were trying to prove themselves to someone? Had their childhoods led them to seek validation? And did they find it?”
** These profilees are Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, and David Goggins, respectively.
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Before We Get Too Far Ahead of Ourselves
What do you think a high achiever is? Take a minute to answer this question before I influence your answer.
When I hear the phrase high achiever, I think of people like the ones that I mentioned in the prior paragraph — Musk, Oprah, and Goggins — but I also think of myself. I think of how stressful it can be to be a high achiever; how many expectations we place on ourselves; and how we seek validation without even being conscious of it.
I’m by no means on par with Oprah, but I’ve been a high achiever most of (all of) my life. I was the kid who finished my 2nd grade math book first because along with that achievement came lunch with my teacher. I was the dork who buckled down and put serious effort into a business program I took in high school, earning me the title of “Student of the Year” two years in a row. And, I went on to become the go-to person at every accounting firm I’ve worked at because I have a reputation for being a quick study who produced high quality work.
I’m not offering this examples to brag about myself. I’m offering them as examples of what everyday high achieving can look like. You don’t have to change the world, be named one of Forbes’ richest people, or compete in 100-mile endurance runs to be a high achiever.
I like this definition from Carl Beuke, Ph.D., as posted by Psychology Today:
High achievers are often marked, unsurprisingly, by a strong motive to achieve. Less accomplished individuals are often more motivated to avoid failure.
Achievement motivated individuals have a strong desire to accomplish something important, and gain gratification from success in demanding tasks. Consequently they are willing to expend intense effort over long timespans in the pursuit of their goals.
Let’s pause here a minute to think about how you define “high achiever” one more time, and then we’ll take a look at the dark side of being a high achiever.
To Seek or Not to Seek
High achievers, myself included, often seek validation from the external world. We want our achievements to be recognized, and we want to know that someone values us. While these wants are not unique to high achievers, because we high achievers have a strong desire to accomplish something important, external validation can carry more weight for us than for others.
Seeking validation from the outside world can be as innocuous as displaying every professional certificate you’ve ever received on your office wall – or – it can be as glaringly obvious as pulling up to your high school reunion in your brand new Bugatti. Regardless of how you seek validation, the validation, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.
Validation becomes a bad thing when your external validations are out of balance with your internal validations. In other words, when you place a higher value on other people’s opinions than on your own. When you don’t know your own worth unless it is being shown to you. And, when you have to receive instant recognition to know that what you have to offer the world is valuable.
This imbalance will manifest itself as overachieving, controlling, and perfectionist behaviors. Left unchecked, these behaviors can lead to overcommitment, stress, and burn out. Hence, the dark side of being a high achiever.
Surely this imbalance can be avoided, and we’ll discuss that in a bit. But first, in case you’re unsure whether you suffer from this imbalance or not, let’s quickly talk about . . .
5 Problems High Achievers Face
This list was compiled by Amy Morin, a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist, in Psychology Today. Morin has found that there are five common reasons highly successful people seek therapy:
- They suffer from imposter syndrome – “. . . the persistent feeling of not being good enough . . . Despite proven competence and expertise, imposter syndrome causes people to feel like a complete fraud.”
- There’s a hidden pain behind their drive – “. . . drive sometimes stems from hurt and pain.”
- They fear losing everything – This fear can become so overpowering that they “. . . often struggle to allow themselves to take a break.”
- They are lonely – “High achievement may ostracize successful people from family members and friends.” This can happen either because they’re too busy, because they have to relocate for their jobs, or because they have a hard time relating to people who don’t have the same drive to achieve as they do.
- They feel guilty – They may not feel like they deserve the success they have realized.
Can you relate to any of these “problems”? If so, could it be because you are a high achiever? Or, if not, can you imagine why a high achiever would have these feelings?
Do you want your success to come with these costs? No . . . then let’s keep going.
It’s Time to Redefine Success
How do you define success? This may not be something you’ve given much deliberate thought to. So, your first thought might be one of the definitions we’ve been conditioned to believe — success = money, a corner office, a prestigious title, etc. But does it really?
Only you can answer that question for yourself, but let’s see if we can start piecing together your own definition by discussing three things success is not.
- Success is not universal. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we’ll find that we all have our own definition of success. Which is why it’s so important to stop comparing your successes, or lack thereof, to other people’s. (Yes, I know this is almost impossible to do, but it’s worth practicing.) And it’s equally important to stop basing your definition of success on other people’s expectations of you.
- Success is not pretty. When you admire a “successful” person, you’re only seeing the end result. Actually, you’re not even seeing that; you’re seeing a snapshot in time. What you’re not seeing are all the struggles, the one step forwards and two steps backs, the doubts/fears, and the unrelenting work it took to make that snapshot a reality. No matter how you define success, that’s what it takes — the ability to persevere in the face of all the setbacks, doubts, and fears — and it’s not pretty!
- Success is not an event. You’re not going to wake up one day and discover that you’ve made it! You’re done! You can kick back and enjoy the fruits of your labors! It just doesn’t work that way. No matter how you define success, you need to accept the fact that it’s a lifelong pursuit.
Okay, now that you have your own makeshift definitions of “high achiever” and “success”, I’ll go back to the thought I raised at the beginning of the post: Do you have to be a high achiever in order to be successful in life? I’ll offer my thoughts on that question, but we have one last thing to discuss first.
Where Does Your Validation Come From?
We’re conditioned to seek external validation from a very young age. When we’re babies, we receive validation for eating and sleeping. Later, we receive validation for walking and talking. Then, validation starts to come in the form of report cards and participation certificates. And as adults, it comes in the form of titles, offices, and parking spots.
It’s no wonder that it’s so difficult for us to find validation within ourselves. But that’s exactly what we need to do if we want to live by our own definitions of success and high achievement.
Beyond that, there are two other important reasons you need to seek internal, rather than external, validation:
- You don’t want your self-worth to be under someone else’s control. You want to be able to create your own feelings of worthiness. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck in a cycle of constantly seeking your next fix and your next dealer, so to speak. And, you’ll be focused on achieving the successes you receive validation for rather than the successes that have meaning to you.
- There are a lot of insecure people out there who will make you feel less than. You have to be confident enough in your self-worth to turn your cheek when these people strike so that you can show and use the talents that will lead to your success. As Ethel Cofie, founder of Women in Tech Africa, said:
Invariably, when you stand to show your gifts and your talents to the world, you will naturally stir up some insecurities in others. It is not your job to soothe those insecurities.
With these thoughts in mind, let’s quickly turn back to the questions I asked earlier, in reference to some well-known high achievers: Did these people become high achievers because they were trying to prove themselves to someone? Were they seeking validation? And did they find it?
I imagine that their journeys to success did start out that way; they probably were seeking external validation. But the reason these people became great, the reason they were profiled on a YouTube channel, is because they learned to find internal validation. They learned to create their own definitions of success and achievement. That’s what sets them apart, and that’s what sustains their successes.
I’ll Ask Again -- Do You Really Want to Be a High Achiever?
That’s the question we’re here to answer, right? Hopefully, you’ve come to a preliminary answer for yourself. And if you want to take it a step further, and really cement your answer, take advantage of the worksheet that accompanies this post.
My answer? Yes, I do want to be a high achiever, as long as:
- I set clear boundaries for myself so that I don’t burn myself out, and
- I can look inside myself for validation.
I also asked the question, do you have to be a high achiever in order to be successful in life? Yes, I think you do. But when I say this, I’m not using the contemporary definition of high achiever. I’m using the definition put forth by Carl Beuke: “Achievement motivated individuals have a strong desire to accomplish something important, and gain gratification from success in demanding tasks.”
To feel successful and self-validated, I think you have to accomplish something important, but it has to be important to you, not to anyone else. And, yes, you have to gain gratification from whatever tasks you deem to be demanding.
The key is to intentionally decide what being a high achiever means to you.
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Links
Tired of Feeling Not Enough & Trying to Prove Yourself?, posted to YouTube by The Daily Positive on 6.22.14
Does it Matter? The role of validation in success | Ethel Cofie | TEDxAccraWomen, posted to YouTube by TEDx Talks on 1.05.17
You Don’t Have to Defend Yourself | How Not To Be Defensive, posted to YouTube by Julia Kristina Counselling on 1.30.19
Do Traumatic Childhoods Create High-Achieving Adults?, Amanda Kippert, posted to domesticshelters.org on 10.29.18
5 Problems that Are Unique to High Achievers, Amy Morin, Psychology Today, 6.02.15
How Do High Achievers Really Think?, Carl Beuke Ph.D., Psychology Today, 10.19.11
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