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What if the problem isn’t your job, but the version of yourself you had to become to succeed in it? Corporate jobs don’t trap us because they’re evil. They trap us because they slowly teach us to disconnect from ourselves. If you're in corporate America and your life looks successful on paper but feels empty in practice, you’re not alone.
This podcast is a space for the quiet questions you don’t say out loud at work. We explore the inner side of change: the fear of starting over, self-sabotage, the trap of external expectations, imposter syndrome, and the unsettling moment when you realize someone else’s definition of success isn't enough for you.
This isn’t about quitting your job overnight or chasing money, but asking what feels right for you and finding clarity before making your next move. We deliver actionable strategies for complex career transitions. From managing ADHD-related overwhelm at work to overcoming the disconnect of the corporate grind.
You’re not broken. You’ve just outgrown the life you built.
New episodes weekly.
Hello and welcome to episode 98 of Working
towards our purpose. In today's episode, we're going to talk about
not wanting to be a high achiever anymore. But before we get into
that, we're going to take a moment, like we always do, to slow down
and just check in with ourselves, see where we're at today.
Alrighty. Hopefully you got a second to
get calm and see how you're feeling today.
For me, I was feeling pretty, pretty not
good this morning, pretty bad.
And I was able to pick my guitar up for a little bit of
time and that really made me feel better.
It always, always seems to. Yeah,
just not feeling good last night and today. Not even really sure
why. But yeah, just, just playing some
music really helped change my
mindset, get myself out of a negative loop.
So, yeah, reminder to do the things that you, that you love.
But yeah, so getting into today's episode.
Yeah, the term high achiever,
it's such an interesting term. Like, I don't, I guess I've always kind of
identified with it but I never really thought like, why.
And I've been doing that. I've been thinking about it a lot recently for some
reason. It came up in therapy the other day
and I was like, sort of frustrated at the
term, like high achiever. And I was like, I don't want to be that anymore.
So. Yeah. So what is a high achiever? What does it mean to you? To
me, I guess it always meant like you were trying hard and like you
were trying to do your best all the time and
yeah, you know, you cared about what you did and you wanted to be
the best that you could. But I think oftentimes it's,
it's like a comparison thing where you're comparing yourself to the people around you. And
I was never like, I guess a high achiever in school because
I was never like that great in school. But
yeah, I don't even really know where the term, where I first
identified with the term. But I
guess certainly since starting side
businesses and thinking about how to be successful
outside of corporate America, I've definitely always
been like, oh yeah, working a lot is a good
thing and being a high achiever is a good thing. And
yeah, I'm just, I guess I'm starting to see the negative sides of that
term high achiever. And well, first off, it just, you're comparing
yourself to others and that's never helpful for
your mental health. For my mental health. So
I think that's one thing. But like, what I, I guess what really started all
this was like, I'm noticing. I'm noticing a pattern in myself that I
don't want to adhere to anymore. And it's the pattern
of always keeping myself busy and
always making myself do things. And
because, like, you know, when you're doing like your. Your own thing, side business, a
podcast like this music, like you're always setting your own standards
of doing things. I. I told myself that I need to put out an episode
a week. Like nobody's. Nobody's telling me to do that, but. But for me it
feels like it has to be done. And
again, I set that standard. But I get to this point where I kind
of burn myself out and I'm not sure why I do
that. And yeah, I've just been sort
of burnt out and
sick and tired of always forcing myself to do something.
I'd like to rest. I'm finding that my
body wants to rest or like my mind wants to rest,
to let go and to be able to find the next thing. I feel very
much like sort of in a transition phase, maybe just
letting go of old ideas of myself, which is
not new. I've been doing that for a while. It
kind of comes and goes. And I think when you're
finding who you are, which I think I still am,
which is okay because there's no time limit on it, that
you're always kind of adjusting and. Yeah, I'm just noticing that I
don't like this high achiever idea that I have of myself.
And it's not like I called myself this and it was an
outwardly thing, but it was more so an inwardly feeling that I felt like I
had to go and do these things because I'm
somebody who gets things done and who,
yeah, I don't know, just does too many things.
And one indication was like the other
day I was doing some music
work with my friend and at the end of it, we kind of just talked
and checked in and I realized how frustrated I was and
my patience had been short. And we got to talking
and. And we slowed down and we had a nice
conversation and I was able to express how I've
been feeling. And I didn't even realize it.
That's crazy. I didn't even realize I've been. I
don't know. That's so weird to me. I need to be. No,
I'm not gonna say that. I would like to be a little bit more in
tune, I guess, with that. But anyways,
I was grateful for the moment because it showed me
how much I force myself to do things like how I
never have a quiet moment. I'm always doing something. I'm
always thinking about the thing that I need to be doing. Especially with this podcast
with all the stuff that I like, the reels and the YouTube shorts
and stuff like that. I don't enjoy any of that, but I think that
I have to do it. So
I think I've said before, I'm going to get to episode 100 of this podcast
and then I'm going to take take a bit of a hiatus and just think
about what's not working for me and not the things that you have to do
or that I make myself do, because I think I have to, but thinking about
what gives back to me and how can I do it in a way that's,
again, sustainable. I always talk about how you can do things
sustainably. But yeah, anyways, I just realized in this
conversation with my friend that I'm like, I can't
relax. And I almost, like, said that pridefully, like,
oh, I can never relax. I need to do things. But,
like, I'm deciding that, like, I don't want that anymore. Like, I don't
want to not be able to relax. Like, that's terrible.
Your body needs to relax. You need sleep. You need a
relax from work. Like, even if it's not paid work, it's like, it's still
work. And because sometimes I don't get paid for the work that I do,
for most of the work that I do, I see
it as not being good enough yet I need to keep
doing it in order to make it successful.
And I know these things in theory don't make sense, but it's still
just old patterns that I fall into.
And, yeah, I don't know, I
want something different. And I think, I
think that it's hard. It's hard to
change old patterns that you've kept your whole life or
that you've fallen into your whole life or that you've felt were your
identity your whole life. And
it takes effort to make that change.
And it takes a lot of mental energy, a lot of push and pull
of, yes, I want this change. And then the next five minutes
you're like, well, that means you're lazy and you should be doing more work.
It's because you haven't the back
and forth. I don't know if you've ever felt that. The familiarness
of your old self versus your new self or the person
that you'd like to be.
So, yeah, change is hard. And I feel like this is part of a transition
of not taking this identity of high achiever
anymore and much more just trying to
exist more calmly and more peacefully. And
I heard this thing recently. There's this guy on
Instagram that plays guitar that I like and he writes these little sort
of, I don't know, motivational or just thoughts that
are kind of in line with this podcast. And he said something about
the most meaningful changes can sometimes happen when you
choose calm versus chaos. And I'm
shortening that. It wasn't exactly written like that, but that really kind of spoke to
me and I was like, yeah, wow, that's such a good reminder for
me because I often choose
chaos or choose to do more
because I think it'll make me successful. But sometimes
the rest is what brings you the idea of where you need to
go and brings you the clarity of who you want to be.
So yeah, I think that's kind of like. It reminded me
of like high achiever because like, I guess the high achiever in me would be
like, oh, we got to do more. We have to wake up early. We have
to go do all these other things. We have to do seven different things. So
it gives you, you know, more chances of success or whatever.
And yeah, I just, I want to choose more calm
versus chaos. And you know, there's obviously a time to work hard and all that.
But yeah, like, rest is so
important. And another thing that happened
recently that I think that this is. That goes in line with this episode is
like yesterday I was doing some work,
I was at my job and we were in a park and
this is random, but I'm not going to give all the details. It. Anyways,
I was waiting for my coworker to go to the bathroom at this public
bathroom in this park. And I just sat by a tree. It was a really
cool old looking tree. And I was like, whoa, this is a cool tree.
And I just leaned on it and looked up through the branches and
it was super pretty. And for a moment I heard this,
I guess, voice or thought,
and it was like, wow, it feels good to
rest or to do nothing. It
feels good to do that. And
I think I was probably only able to do that because I was on the
clock still getting paid, so it wasn't totally doing
nothing. But yeah,
that was an interesting thought to me. That was a shocking thought. I was like,
yeah, wow, dang. I really need to find out how I can find
more rest and just exist because that feels good.
And a lot of times I don't give myself that Opportunity to
go and rest or to go do nothing in a park. I got to read
a book or I got to do something productive and
I always just have to be doing something. And I don't know if you can
relate with that, but that's kind of what I mean with high achievers. I always
feel like I have to be doing something that's productive or
learning or helpful. And it's really hard for me to
just do nothing and relax and without
numbing because it's different than just
binge watching TV or YouTube or whatever. To me that
feels different. That's not rest, that's agitating
my nervous system, but just going outside, it
reminded me how important it is for me to be outside and. And
maybe that's a good place to start is going outside and trying to rest and
not bringing a book. Just like looking at the trees or the birds or something.
So yeah, hopefully this made sense. I feel like
there wasn't a super straight strategic strategy to this episode,
but it's part of, I think where I'm going of
just letting go a bit. Trying to lose some of the control
of things and
yeah, trying to not always be
doing something and.
Trying to rewrite the story that I have for myself of
being a high achiever and being like, you know what, I don't want that anymore.
I would rather have calm and
peace and
yeah, see where that goes. You know, it starts with
identifying it and knowing and seeing that it's something
that I don't want. So yeah, maybe more to
come on this. I'm not sure those are my thoughts for today.
Hopefully it's helpful if
you're interested in being more kind to yourself. I have a free seven
day guide of softening your inner critic.
It's in the download. You can find the link anywhere in the show notes
description. But yeah,
that's all I got for you today. I'll see you
on another episode real soon. Thank you for listening and have a great
day.