High achievers don't have to be more or have more. I’ll share about why we’re doing this, what causes us to do this, and share some examples. Hopefully, It’ll encourage you to drop this pressured way of being—and learn to just chill, relax, and have a more enjoyable life. You might be thinking, “But my life is great, and I don't feel this way!” As I go through this, reflect on whether it's really true for you. #1: Cultural Conditioning Society does this to us. It loves to hype up people who are always busy. “Oh my gosh, you're always busy! You're doing all these great things!” It becomes an Olympic sport, “Oh, amazing. You just performed really well”. I’ll admit it—guilty as charged. I’ve been there. A lot of my external validation used to boost my confidence: getting good grades and being praised for doing everything. Before, I was everywhere, doing all the things. Now, I’m doing a lot of specific, selective things and I have a team to put a lot of it together, which makes it a lot easier for me. It’s so easy to fall into because of cultural conditioning—or let’s call it Pinterest Perfection Pressure. Everything has to be perfect. Often I don’t take pictures of around my house, other than where I am right now at my desk, because my house is a mess. I don’t always have everything put together, but it always has to look perfect or be perfect. Let’s be honest, it’s not. But it’s so easy for us to think that our value comes from doing. For example, you feel like you have to turn your kid’s birthday party into a Pinterest masterpiece with a balloon arch, handmade snacks, bespoke takeaway bags or grab bags—and every other part of our life kind of seems the same way. We have to dress this way, and everything we do has to be at this high level. Cultural conditioning and society—it’s screwing us over because we don’t. How often have you wished you could invite a friend over for coffee, but didn’t because you didn’t have a Pinterest-perfect living room? Or how many times have you wanted to go somewhere or do something, but didn’t because you felt like you didn’t have the right outfit to wear? It doesn’t matter. What’s more important are the people we’re with and our experiences. #2: Perfectionism This is one of the biggest things that revs the high achiever. You’re setting these sky-high standards for yourself, and anything less than “I nailed it. 150% perfect” feels like a failure. You keep pushing harder and harder and harder. You may think, “I’m not a perfectionist; I just like high-quality work.” That’s one thing. But when you’re losing sleep, not having a balanced life, not spending time on hobbies or with people you love and care about, then your perfectionism—or your desire to nail everything—is taking you to an extreme that’s not good for you. This can also be called overachieving overload. You’re overloaded with this mindset that everything has to be done at a high level. I remember being coached once about my perfectionism—I said “once” because there were many, many times—but I remember this one time when I envisioned one massive pillar. Imagine this big, big pillar, and something was on top of it. I was trying to get my project, my goal, to be at that level. The problem was that because it took so much effort to get to perfection—let’s be honest, high achievers, your “really good” is probably someone else’s excellent. Your perfectionism is like 150%. No one’s going to notice anything above 80%. In this coaching session, there’s this one major pillar—it was so high in the clouds, and I couldn’t quite get there to put my project up. But then I noticed all these lower pillars of unfinished projects. All I needed to do was take them from a “7” to an “8” to finish them. Just a little bit of extra effort would complete them. When I saw this, I envisioned all these pillars of finished projects instead of that one impossible pedestal project. That just would be too much. Maybe this shows up for you when you spend hours tweaking a work email like it’s going into a museum or will be printed on your T-shirt—while you’re juggling ten other things and letting important stuff slip through your fingers. It doesn’t really matter that much, but you’re making it matter more. Perfectionism is one of the things that's pushing you to feel like you need to be more, have more. #3: Fear of Failure or Rejection You’re terrified that if you stop being the go-to person or stop crushing it all the time, people will think less of you—or worse, forget about you. You’ll be irrelevant. You won’t be special anymore. But special in whose eyes? These other people? I call this the AKA “What will they think?” spiral.
Who’s the “they”? Probably people you don’t even care about anyway. The people who you don't love. The people who you wouldn't want to hang out with. But that's really hard because once you get into that spiral of “What will they think?” it's really hard to get yourself out of it. For example, maybe you agree to run the PAC at the school or a charity, maybe you agree to run a fundraiser for them. Even though your calendar is super busy, it's like busting at the seams because “If I just show up on the day to help, or if I just donate money, that will seem like I'm a slacker, and what will they think? What will they think of me?” They won't reject you. There are other ways that you can be involved. Sometimes, a polite “No, but wish I could” is okay as well. We all have our own seasons. We're not meant to do everything every time for everyone. 4. Comparative Mindset You’re constantly sizing yourself up against others. This often happens on social media as you're scrolling, you're like:
Like on and on and on and on, whether it is your friend, your co-worker, your neighbors, other people who are in the same industry as you, or someone's perfect Instagram feed who are getting paid to curate it to be that way. There will always be someone doing more and being more than you, at least on the outside, but you're probably comparing one part of your life to someone who's perfect in that area, and another part of your life to someone else who's killing it in that area, and one part of your life to someone who's 10 years ahead of you in their experience and their success, and it's going to drive you nuts, and you're never going to win. We know the show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. We could be Keeping Up with the Jones. You've heard that expression, and that's what it is. We're looking at someone else's stuff, and we think I need to have that, be that too. Seeing that other person's marathon metal doesn't mean you need to go and run a marathon or start training for a triathlon. You see someone else's spotless house, but what is behind the camera and how torn and broken are their relationships if that's the only thing they’re focusing on? You see someone else's home-cooked dinner, but did they pick it up at the store and then put it on their own dishes? You can do that with lasagnas, right? Then you're wondering how you've already lost it in life today. I can remember when I was in the early years of running my business, I felt like, “Why am I not achieving more?” My business advisor said to me, “Diane, can you add up all the hours that you are working on your business?” It was just the times that my kids were at daycare, and so it ended up being about 25 hours max. She said, “How do you feel that you can build an empire on part-time hours?” True. If you say, “Diane, I'm working full-time hours, and it's not happening.” Well, what other pressures and responsibilities do you have? Do you have aging parents? Do you have young kids? Do you have pets? The list can go on and on. Do you have your own health struggles? You don't know that other people aren't dealing with or are choosing not to put their energy and time into, that really should be. I was comparing myself at the time to coaches who didn't have children, and it made me feel a little bit like I was a wild horse that was in a barn, and I was like, kicking at the gate to like, “Let me out. Let me out. Let me out.” But what I would never have given up was the ability for me to spend these days with my kids, and I'm not shaming anyone who didn't have the privilege of being able to do that, but stop comparing your today to someone else's years of getting into that place. Don't compare your today to someone else's supportive environment to have that. #5: Validation Seeking Oh, we're all about the gold stars. “I like me a gold star.” “I like me a checkbox.” But if no one notices how hard you're working and how much you're crushing it, it's like it doesn't even count. You're looking for others' approvals and others to validate you, where really you need to validate yourself. AKA, I call this the Gold Star Syndrome. We're always seeking that external approval, but what if we just got approval from ourselves instead? Maybe you organize your pantry by color or by size, and then you wait for your partner to notice, and all you get is, “Yeah, that's cool, but where are the chips?” They don't care, but you've put a lot of time and energy into this, switching that so it just can be for you, rather than that external validation will help you feel more valued. #6: Lack of Self-Acceptance This is really sad because while you may love yourself and be confident in yourself, because I know a lot of high achieving women are like that, deep down maybe you feel like you have to earn love, and you earn that love and that respect by doing more, being more, being better, achieving more, supporting others in a bigger way. While if you were to just sit still and just chill, that feels super weird. You're like, “No, I’ve got to be busy. I can't just watch a movie. I have to fold laundry at the same time” because I can’t just watch a movie and enjoy myself. This pushes you to always be multitasking. Let’s call this the “Mirror Meltdown” because you’re looking at yourself too hard. If we think of this definition as just the physical appearance, and not even everything else in your life. If you looked in the mirror and then you nitpicked every wrinkle, every flaw, every laugh line, and forgot that you're basically the superhero for everything that you have accomplished and in everyone else's lives, all the support and the amazingness that you are to them, you lose. You lose because you keep feeling like you have to do more and be more to be able to accept yourself. Wrapping Up I'm curious which of these six resonated with you the most. Which ones are you guilty of, or which ones are you like, “Next year, I am going to focus on this one.” I'll let you know that our “Take a Stand for the And” Strategy Sessions are extended right now until Friday Nov 29th at 11:59pm PST. I’m seeing the value it's giving people to have clarity on where these hidden cycles are stopping them, to be able to “Take a Stand for the And” and have a clear strategy that they can put into place moving forward. There are only a few left because the deadline is this Friday, so make sure that you don't miss out and get your session today. Read my other blogs:
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