You have high motivation to succeed. You will go the extra mile to accomplish your goals. You are ambitious, resilient. Perhaps you ask a lot of those around you because you expect a lot from yourself. What’s more, it’s not uncommon to hyper-focus on your career path. On the outside, it looks like you have it all...
On paper, you look so good. You have a great job and trying to fulfil all the areas of your life and making sure you are hitting the mark and beyond as a partner, parent, coworker, boss, etc. It’s a lot of pressure to perform at optimal levels. You aren’t sure why you feel this way, but something is blocking you from enjoying the success that you have worked so hard for. Despite aiming high and achieving your goals, you still feel unfulfilled and unhappy. You’re starting to realise you’ve lost sight of what is really important to you. Maybe you didn’t even know what was important to you from the start of it, but here you are. You have spent a lot of your life motivated and wanting to be successful.
With great success comes a high level of expectation and responsibility. Even for someone who has the drive and skillset to be highly successful in their field, these can be wearing on your mind. Whether it’s anxiety to continue to perform at a high level, frustrations with the people around you who don’t perform at a high level, or even depression as a result of feeling like you need to overwork yourself. What’s more, experiencing success doesn’t make you immune to depression, stress, relationship problems, emotional issues, anxiety, burnout.
You are realising your impossibly high standards may come at a cost. You are looking to expand your vision of a happy and fulfilling life. You are tired of the stress and pressure to keep up, but you are unsure where to start. You don't have to go through this alone.
Seeking therapy is a positive step toward change. Sometimes we reach a certain point in our life where we no longer feel the gratification that we once thought we would. We can feel lonely and we can lose the fulfilment we had as we progressed in our life. Additionally, it’s not unusual to feel like you don't know when to stop. High achievers are going to give everything they have to their goals at all times and this can be detrimental to their well being.