The Problem With Over-achievement

it’s often hard not to feel envious of
them as they ascend the stage to collect
another prize float their startup
company have promoted a decade ahead of
their peers or dominate the music charts
or bestseller lists overachievers
torment us rather a lot but we should
more rightly combine our envy with a
little compassion it’s likely that these
gifted souls are paying an oddly
elevated price for their extraordinary
successes so much so that once their
full psychological profiles are in view
we should start to feel a bit sorry for
the trajectory of their lives what
distinguishes overachievers from the
simply highly talented or driven is what
powers them in their work they labor
principally or primarily not because
they uniquely enjoy what they do or have
more urgent material demands than the
rest of us but because they are subject
to unusually intense internal
psychological pressures behind their
relentless activity lies an emotional
rather than professional burden it may
look as if they simply want to sell more
books accumulate more shares or have
their name in lights
but these overachievers are all the
while trying to secure something far
more tricky unusual and unmentioned they
are trying through their work to correct
an aspect of a troubled emotional past
they are trying to impress a father who
felt withholding and severe around them
three decades before they’re hoping
their triumphs will compensate a parent
they loved for the loss of a sibling in
childhood they’re hoping to us wage a
feeling of catastrophe they experienced
in the deprived chaotic home of their
birth in other words overachievers are
trying to solve a range of psychological
problems through material or worldly
means and this is why their efforts must
in a deep sense always be doomed to
failure even when it appears to most of
the world as if these overachievers are
succeeding beyond measure
because
this is the moment when overachievers
are likely to notice that doomed nature
of their ambitions it’s a particularly
troubling and dangerous eventualities
depression may set in just after the
company is sold the star will fall into
a crisis just after they finally gained
worldwide recognition at exactly the
point when their work is acclaimed or
finds its audience overachievers are at
risk of severe breakdown so long as they
are merely running they can forget to
notice that their goal is misaligned
with their true inner ambition they must
wait for success to reveal the fateful
nature of their life’s quest the cure
for overachievement
involves pausing to address the
psychological wounds that made hard work
feel like the only defense against
intolerable trauma it means returning to
the situations that made achievement
feel life-sustaining it means a
confrontation with moments of loss
disconnection lack of love sadness and
humiliation the recovering overachiever
should allow themselves to feel
compassion for their earlier self
acknowledging how much they wish could
have gone differently and grasping how
their so-called
successful personality has been shaped
as a response to grave wounds
the cure for overachievement lies in
morning and analysis in an atmosphere of
love the overachiever may eventually
come to believe that they deserve a
place on the earth whether they work or
not they aren’t there just to perform
the greater need is to connect and to
understand we live in a world very
interested in huge achievements and very
unand
to notice the trauma behind them we are
equally not encouraged to note the way
in which contentment with modest
achievement can be a sign that things
have gone very well for someone
emotionally it’s evidence of health to
have no particular wish to be famous and
not to mind too much if one doesn’t have
a fortune we should on occasion dare to
feel rather sorry
for overachievers even if that can mean
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