When High Achieving Becomes Low Believing - And What To Do About It
I notice themes when working together with clients...and in myself. This week is no exception.
Many of my clients are high achievers. They are “Type A” personalities - in control, setting goals and meeting them. They drive themselves to reach their own high expectations and what they think are expectations of others.
With this, they also notice aspects that aren’t serving them well.
These are things like:
Perfectionism
Getting stuck in overthinking or feel as if they get in their own way
Having trouble starting things for fear of failure and have defeating thoughts
Inconsistencies in output - a high-level for a while, then low, which causes frustration
Low self confidence
Emotional tiredness
An acronym for the word shame is -
Should Have Already Mastered Everything.
High achievers can feel the need to do everything quickly, better than everyone else, and with little error. When this doesn’t occur, self-defeating thoughts happen which perpetuates the undesired behavior.
If this sounds like you, here are some things you can ask yourself:
Who am I trying to prove myself to? Why?
What is the backstory to this, or where does this come from?
What would be some benefits of accepting mediocrity in myself?
Record each negative thought for a day. What do you notice?
If you were to create a peaceful, loving and forgiving image to picture in your mind to combat each self-defeating thought, what would it be?
What loving mantra can you create to employ when you notice a reoccurring self-defeating thought happening? For instance, for perfectionism, “Done is better than perfect.” or, for any thought, “I love myself as I am.”
Use this image and mantra for a day after each defeating thought. What do you notice?
If you and I are sitting here a year from now and your self-defeating thoughts are completely gone, what did you do to make it so?
We all have gifts we were given when we were born. It is like a code that is just for us. This code is what we are to bring to the world. If only we had a manual! The journey of our life is discovering what this is and writing our own manual.
Then, overtime, what I call "clutter" gets in the way - how we perceive and interpret experiences that may not serve us. Rediscovering these gifts and clearing the clutter brings more happiness, more fulfillment, and helps you to cultivate what counts.