I learned a lot. Each book had something interesting and relevant to offer that I could work with. I kept reading. Over time, I had a hodge-podge of information and no clue how to begin making real changes. I did some experimenting and found that I would make some headway, then get stuck, unsure of how to keep going or how to take what I had done to the next level. I was just so steeped in the way I thought and operated that, even if the change I tried to make made sense logically, getting my brain to think in new ways was a lot harder than I had anticipated.
Eventually, I came to the realization that what I really wanted was barely considered from day to day. I did the things that I had been taught mattered, and that were reinforced daily through habit and routine. My survival was covered. I had a home, money, family, food, and health. I was grateful for all of it. But it was survival. Joy, excitement, and inspiration were rare. I wasn’t truly experiencing life through the lens of thriving. Neither were most of the people who surrounded me.
This is how high achievers come to a place of stagnation and lack of fulfillment. Your bar is too freaking low. You live in the place of low expectations, where survival is good enough. You rarely tip the balance into truly experiencing your life more often than not. You grind it out. You learned from those who came before you and those who surround you that you should be grateful for what you have and make the best of it. To want more is unrealistic and perhaps even silly. After all, this is what your parents did and what your friends do now. Suck it up, buttercup. Maybe buy an expensive toy or take an extravagant trip to fill the void. Deal with it and settle in. This is your life.
“I’ll be okay,” “It will be fine,” “I’m alright”—do you say things like this to yourself on a regular basis? Okay, fine, alright. These are words of resignation. If you reinforce through your words and thoughts that all you expect is to be okay, then okay is all you’ll be. We live in a world of imbalance, where we see those who have less than we do and feel guilty or shameful for wanting more than we already have. How does your shame or guilt help those who have less than you? Raise your bar, begin demanding more from life, get out of your own misery, and then you can actually dedicate time, energy, and/or money to helping those less fortunate than you.
As a high achiever, you are beautifully equipped to lead a fulfilled life. But first, you have to acknowledge that what drives you may be a bit dark. The need to be validated, acknowledged, accomplished, seen, recognized, to win, etc., are drivers that come from a place of limited self-worth. You may be thinking, “Wait a minute. I’m self-confident. I know what I’m worth.” But do you really? Your self-confidence is bolstered by the validation you receive for meeting the expectations of others. Would your confidence remain intact if you didn’t receive recognition? You don’t know your value internally, so you seek to have it defined externally. As you know, these drivers will work for a while. You’ll enter the achieve/receive validation cycle and it will feed itself, all while you remain void of the knowledge of your intrinsic worth. You will make money, achieve status, accumulate material possessions, and remain unfulfilled. The tangible cannot fill the intangible hole inside of you.
As successful as you are, you can’t take your life to the next level without doing the deep work to transform the way you see yourself and raise the bar for what you expect from life. The way you live has been dictated from the outside with little to no input from you. How can you possibly expect fulfillment if what you want isn’t at the heart of all you do? Yes, it will be scary. You must have the courage to walk out of step with those who surround you. You must have the conviction that it’s worth facing the fear to live a life in which you can thrive rather than survive. Neither the courage nor the conviction will show up to support you as long as your desires remain unconsidered. This is YOUR life. Not your mom’s, dad’s, kid’s, partner’s, or friend’s. Yours.
There is no right time to do this work. It will never be convenient. It will never be easy. You don’t know how much longer you’ll be here. Even if you live to be 102, don’t you want to live with high expectations and experiences to match for as many days as you possibly can? Don’t you want to role-model that way of living to those who surround you? Change is not made by those who fall in line. It’s made by those who go against the grain and challenge the status quo. The sooner you demand more and step up to make it happen, the faster you’ll reap the rewards and benefits of having done so.
I am you. I’ve been where you are. I made a commitment to myself to do it differently. I’ve done everything I lay out in this guide and am still doing it, because the work is never really done. You will never stop growing and expanding unless you make a conscious decision and fight tooth and nail to stay stagnant. Each new level you reach comes with its own devil, but that won’t even matter to you. You may even enjoy facing down the new devil because you know how to do it. This book is about how to get out of your own way. The process laid out will create a new way of operating that you can use for the rest of your life to continue expanding and finding a holistic, redefined kind of success that has eluded you thus far.
If you’re a high achiever who:
•“Has it all” but remains unfulfilled
•Feels there must be more to life
•Has success but struggles with overwhelm, stress, anxiety, etc.
•Is settling for okay when you really want more
•Wants to have a higher purpose
then it’s time to transform your success mindset and get on the path that will take you to where you really want to be. In The High Achiever’s Guide, you’ll learn how to do this by examining how you got here, what drives you, how you hold yourself back, and what it takes to define your new vision for life by facing fear, using your voice, trusting your instincts, and committing to a new way of being.
You are here for a reason. Your life is not about grinding it out to merely settle for less. You’re a high achiever. You’re built for this transformation. Are you ready?
Congratulations, You’re a Computer
How did I get here?
The question nagged at me. It would pop into my head in the chaos of trying to get out the door in the morning when I was going to be late again, dammit. It made another appearance when I pulled into the parking lot, anxious about what the day would bring. The question would pop up over and over again, while under the glare of the fluorescent lights, reading the emails that signaled the day’s fire drills, wanting to slide right out of my chair into a pile under my desk. I couldn’t follow through on answering this question. I would begin to ponder it, the depressing evidence of how I had created my reality would pile up, and I knew that I had somehow, unintentionally, been the architect of my own despair. I tried to move on from it, but then this question’s best friend asked:
What do you want?
This was it. The million-dollar question. The one I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t even know where to start and, up to that point, there had been precious few times in my life when I wasn’t sure how to start and couldn’t come up with something that would get me on the path. How was it possible to not know what I wanted? Was I the only one whose internal response was the equivalent of an exasperated shrug? It made me oddly uncomfortable, as if there must have been something missing from me to not have a response to such a fundamental question.
I became