A high achiever is somebody who performs beyond expectations, and who places tremendous value on achievements, for achievements sake.
As a high achiever myself, and having coached many high achievers, I am very familiar with some of the core patterns of high achievers.
On the surface, being a high achiever might look great - you achieve great things, you are proactive & driven, you take action… Yet, this high achieving mindset can take a toll on your mental health. Always chasing the next achievement, believing the arrival fallacy: that ‘one day you will get there’, can lead to discouragement and delusion.
Though overachieving can lead to success - it doesn’t always feel successful on the inside, you might struggle with impostor syndrome, or never feeling fulfilled.
In this article, I will break down the signs that you are a high achiever and the best strategies to deal with your inner high achiever.
High Achiever Signs
The success that you may experience hide the crippling anxiety and fear of failure you often feel. What are some of the signs that you are a high achiever?
Outcome > Journey: You value the goal, the outcome more than the process to get there. For you, the result is what you’re after. That’s why you’re willing to sacrifice ‘not enjoying the process’ to just get to that goal. This often leads to discontent, whether you achieve the goal or not.
Lack of life/work balance: You are willing to sacrifice your free time, wellbeing, and sometimes even health and relationships, in order to get to your goals. This can lead to poor life/ work balance.
All or nothing thinking: It’s either all or nothing. You struggle to see both the positive and the negative of each situation - but hone down on one specific failure, or one specific success - there is no place for subtleties.
Perfectionist mindset: You see not being perfect as a sign of failure. You strive to maintain an image of perfection and achievement.
Self-criticism: As a high achiever, you often have a harsh inner critic always pushing them to achieve more, to do better, to be better, and not to settle. There is a common false belief that if you are not hard on themselves, you won’t achieve as much. That belief makes you push and force.
Measure worth by achievements: You measure your self-worth by what you have achieved. In phases where you experience less success, you feel you are worth less. However, when you achieve more, you feel like you’re on top of the world. Your self-worth fluctuates with your achievements.
Future focused: You struggle to stay in the now, to appreciate each step of the journey and instead you focus on future goals and achievements.
Action driven: You are an action taker - that’s great most of the time but sometimes, you struggle to just be, to slow down & reflect more deeply.
Forget to rest: As a strong action taker, sometimes you just forget to rest until you fall sick, or something happens to remind you that maybe you need some rest.
Fantasizing/Catastrophising: The inner world of a high achiever is high both in strong fantasties of great success, and equally dramatising and catastrophising when things don’t work out.
Rumination: Given the obsession with goals, achievements, the inner chatter can quite loud, with a lot of worrying and rumination.
Strategies for High Achievers
Ideally, you want to be able to keep the advantages of being a high achiever, and get rid of the downsides.
So you still want that proactivity, grit, but not to measure your worth through your achievements.
How do you do that?
Identity: Build your identity around your perseverance and dedication, and not based on the outcomes & results - easier said than done, but it helps!
Outside of work: Create an identity outside of your work, so that you are not just your role, title and achievements - so much more than any of that. Explore hobbies and other interests to widen your horizons.
Develop self-compassion: Reframing your inner critic, and practising a self-compassionate tone towards yourself can help you to become your greatest cheerleader along the way.
Seek support: Let’s face it, the roller coaster of being a high achiever has its highs and lows - having support (psychologist, coach…) along the way can be a huge help!
Celebrate the wins: It’s a practise, a habit, and it makes a difference! Celebrate all the wins - internal and external wins.
Look deeper: Look deeper to understand your ‘needs’ to succeed, your relationship to success & failure, your own patterns of thinking & behaving.
Gratitude: Smell the roses along the way - notice the small things that add joy to add your day to day life.
Humour: Notice the humour in your mindset, thought patterns, ways of thinking and behaving. They are just patterns, it’s not you - humour can help you have greater mental distance from your thoughts.
Find lightness: There is a heaviness to that drive & compulsion to achieve - seek the lightness, the joy, the small things, the presence, the light in your life.
Next Steps
Being a high achiever has some great advantages (not that the high achiever ever appreciates it), but they are overshadowed by that fear of failure, impostor syndrome, self-doubt, constant rushing to the next achievement, the inner list of ‘shoulds’….
It’s a shame really. So many of the people who achieve the greatest results and impact, don’t pause to appreciate how far they’ve come, to enjoy the fruits of their labour, because they’re already onto the next goal.
How can you navigate being a high achiever?
Be aware that these are your patterns and ways of thinking. Take a moment to pause & to celebrate, before rushing to the next goal. Appreciate how far you’ve come, and don’t just take action for the sake of taking action - find that ‘being’ within the ‘doing’.
Thank you for reading,
Enjoy the journey,
Katie