The Hyper-Achiever in Us
Is it working for or against us?
Jane, is a Senior Vice-President for a widely successful design agency. At 35, she's the youngest to achieve this position in her company. It took her a solid ten years of learning the business, building a solid roster of clients and nurturing a rock star team to help deliver on her commitments. At the top of her game, she can't say that she's fulfilled in her life. Her success in her career has come at a cost.
Committed to the 70 hour work week, she's found herself with few very close friends, a troubled intimate relationship and no hobbies or interests outside of her work. She has a fitness routine she abides by religiously but by time the weekend comes she's completely spent and still consumed about work. She's never too far from her laptop or phone. And she's at a point in her life asking, "is this it?"
If you're like me, brought up in a culture that prides itself on achievements, you may relate to this kind of work-life experience. This was engrained in us from very early on. Take a look back into your childhood. What was it like with your parents, teachers, guardians, friends and families? How much weight did they put on your success at school, in your hobbies or your jobs? How easy was it to get their attention or approval? How was their attention dependent on or related to your success or achievements?
The Hyper-Achiever in Us
The hyper-achiever or otherwise called the overachiever, is intensely focused on performance and obtaining results as a means of gaining respect, validation and even love usually from colleagues at work, family and friends.
Feeling accomplished in life is personally rewarding and desirable. It can give us a sense of fulfillment, meaning and purpose. There are many intrinsic rewards when we complete something we've invested our creative resources and time into. However, the hyper-achiever is never satisfied, often feeling void of fulfillment. It doesn't spend anytime acknowledging or reflecting on success or achievements. It's consumed with tasks, endless to-do lists, and future work goals.
There's very little research around the root cause of the hyper-achiever, but Shirzad Chamine the founder of Positive Intelligence, suggests the hyper-achiever is in a constant search for validation, acceptance and love, which it sees as conditional on continual performance. We may have experienced a childhood whereby approval, love or acceptance was very hard to come by or it was closely related to achieving. It may also be possible that our achievements were a cover up for internalized limitations, be it race, affluence, gender, age, physical or cognitive ability. Striving to achieve was a means to disprove our limits.
The Heart and Head Centre
There's a strength that naturally occurs from the hyper-achiever. I would refer to this as its heart centre. It is driven, pragmatic, and self-led. It's up to the challenge to explore our limits and inspires us to grow past them. It can help us to establish direction and set clear goals so we can make the best use of our creative resources. And it's inspired and can quickly inspire others to create meaning and fulfillment from their work.
The head centre however, is busy telling us stories about why we must persistently strive to achieve more.
I must always be the very best at what I do or why bother.
Emotions, especially when I'm feeling empty, depressed, anxious, or overwhelmed are distractions that are not particularly useful.
It's in my work I feel valued and on purpose.
I am worthy as long as I am successful or seen being great at what I do.
I should because I can. And no is not an option.
The stories of the head centre can cloud over the innate qualities of the heart. And there comes a time when we need to reconcile which story is serving us.
The Trap - Workaholism
The hyper-achiever can be so consumed by work it can lead us into workaholic tendencies. Psychologist Wayne Oates, who coined the term "workaholic" in 1971, described workaholism as "the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly". It can include a compulsion to work from internal pressures such as anxiety or the fear of failure, being seen as unworthy, or disappointing others. They experience persistent thoughts about work, and working beyond what many may see as reasonable.
This comes at a cost. The hyper-achiever may trade away other aspects of daily life such as family and personal relationships, physical, spiritual and mental wellbeing, so they can prioritize time for more work. In full hyper-achiever mode we many experience episodes of depression, shame and guilt. Anxiety is very common especially when we are not working and don't want to be seen as unproductive. Dysfunctional relationships, unhealthy coping strategies, and burnout are also common.
The justification or the lie it tells us is that these trade-offs is out of love for the work. "I love what I do, it gives me purpose. So doing more of it must be good for me".
I was taught early in life that being a son of an immigrant West Indian family was a disadvantage in a white-dominant culture like Toronto, Canada. It was engrained in me by my parents and teachers that I had to work much harder than most of my friends or I'll have a very hard time getting on in life. The hyper-achiever mindset followed me into my career. It was common for me to work extremely long hours, almost seven days a week, in a very competitive industry. I rarely took vacations. Though I worked out often and ate fairly well, I developed a dependence on caffeine and alcohol. It created a great deal of anxiety within me, which became the root cause of my Crohn's disease at 30 years old and in retrospect interfered with my first marriage.
Workaholism vs Work Engagement
I've learned that hard work is not inherently bad. Again, feeling the reward of a hard days work can create meaning and fulfillment in one's life. It can also build one's confidence which can flow into other domains of life. It's when the attention to work goes to extremes and is a cover up of a deeper need.
I have another client, who I'll call Matthew. Matthew is a founder of two companies and sits on the board of numerous organizations. Matthew is full of creative energy and can work tirelessly from Monday to Friday. On the weekends, Matthew shuts off completely, often leaving his laptop in his office. He loves to discover new restaurants, makes time with his friends and family, and exercises. At least once a year, he goes on sabbatical to recharge and find new inspirations. Though Matthew works hard, he's found ways to balance his professional and personal life - building a natural resilience to life's challenges.
According to Wilmar Schaufeli, a professor of work and organizational psychology, work engagement is defined as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption”. He's also observed that the level of engagement naturally fluctuates between people, time and situations. It's not constant, but rather optimized in bursts or episodes with periods of recovery. Being absorbed in your work and paying attention to other domains of your life leverages the heart of the achiever without going to unsustainable extremes. I'll unpack this in another post.
If you’re feeling a lack of balance and fulfillment between your professional and personal life it may worthwhile to look at your relationship with your work. The hyper-achiever may be sabotaging a possibility for deep fulfillment.
Your Inquiry
In the meantime, it's not enough just to read this. Take it in and ask yourself the following:
After reading this article, what resonates for me is…
When it comes to my achievements, the story I tell myself is…
The old belief that I have about work is… and the new belief that I would like to live by is...
What I'm becoming aware of is...