The Top 2 Challenges Facing high Achievers

As a coach who works with high achievers, there are certain challenges I see time and time again. The pressure to perform, the people pleasing, the external career focus… Overall, though, there are 2 main problems I see high achievers face:

1. A lack of clarity about what they want in their career (AKA: the professional existential crisis)

2. Burnout due to boundaries issues

Lack of clarity

One thing I’ve learned in my last 5.5 years of business is that the “quarter life crisis” is extremely common. Especially for high achievers.

The “what would even make me happier?!” panic often sets in because these high achievers have built a career that’s out of alignment with their needs. They’ve taken step after step on the “approved” path, designing a career that looks great on paper (but is deeply unfulfilling). Essentially, they’ve climbed the ladder of success, gotten high up, and only then realized that they’ve been climbing the wrong ladder. It’s a pretty terrifying and overwhelming realization.

Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, I’ve been through this before (which is how I can explain the feeling so well, if you’re wondering). When I had my quarter life crisis, I was a few years out of college, having landed my “dream job” in advertising. I was working at an ad agency in San Francisco as a media buyer on the Google account. It was the kind of job that most agency folks would LOVE.

Unfortunately, one day everything changed. The weird part is, it didn’t even feel like one specific thing happened. Instead, it was like suddenly my eyes opened. I looked around and started to think to myself, “weird… I know this is my dream job, but I thought it would feel dreamier than this?”

It was bizarre. But of course, it was also terrifying (because what on earth did I mean that something felt wrong?! This job was the DREAM!) So I did as most people do in that situation: I ignored it.

I shoved my doubts about my career down, trying my best to put them out of my head. Of course, the doubts never really went away, though. Instead they stayed there, bubbling below the surface, getting stronger and stronger, waiting for me to deal with them.

Eventually, I could no longer convince myself that everything was fine. I realized that I had “fallen into” my role, basing my career choices off of making the obvious decisions. The “responsible” decisions. The decisions that looked good externally to everyone else. And what I ended up with was a career that looked perfect from the outside, but didn’t feel perfect to me.

What came next was a pretty messy process, where I had to un-learn my people pleasing tendencies and my externally-focused motivation so that I could finally find happiness. I had to silence the pressure of what I “should” be doing so that I could figure out what I actually wanted to do. And eventually, I’m happy to say, I made it out the other side and transitioned roles within my ad agency to do work that was more aligned and fulfilling to me.  

Years later, I started Empowered Achievers to support folks going through the same kind of career crisis. When I went through it, I felt so alone and scared, and I never wanted anyone else to feel that way ever again. And you know what I learned over the last 5.5 years? That this type of career quarter life crisis is incredibly common.

Lack of fulfillment due to the high achiever pressure to have a “perfect career” (at least in the eyes of others), is so common. So if you’re feeling this way, you’re in good company. It’s the #1 issue I’ve supported clients with these last 5+ years. 

Boundaries

The second most common issue I see with high achievers is burnout due to boundary issues. For a lot of my clients, they’re used to being the “responsible one”. The person who gets things done. And as a result, they often start to connect their personal identity to being “that person”. They love being the go-to, and it feels really good.

The problem here comes into play when these clients become so hyper-fixated on their responsibility that they can’t see beyond it. They begin to feel like they can’t say no to things (because otherwise that will sacrifice their title of “the responsible one”). See how that works?

As a result, they begrudgingly take on more and more, burning themselves out until they feel like they’re at their wit’s end.

Sound familiar, anyone?!

I hate to say it, but I’ve done this before too. Plus, I’ve seen it with countless clients. Like Emily*, who comes from an immigrant family and struggled with feeling like anything short of 150% every day was “letting them down”. Or Parker* who countered her imposter syndrome by working 10x harder than the rest of her peers (“because nobody can question my ability that way!”). Or Alexis*, who was worried about judgment from her manager so she overextended herself to the point of exhaustion.

For what it’s worth, if you’re struggling with this challenge, you’re definitely in good company.

So you might be thinking to yourself: “Ok, yeah, these sound familiar! Now, what do I do about these problems?!”

Don’t worry, friend, I’ve got you covered.

These 2 challenges are the top things I focus on supporting clients with here at Empowered Achievers, so I’m super familiar with the fix.

If you’re struggling with lack of clarity (and a quarter life crisis): I have a 3 step process I take every single one of my clients through, which entails releasing the pressure of what you should be doing, clarifying what you actually want, and identifying where to go from here. I outline the entire 3 steps in my free workshop. This process helps you to reframe your career from an externally-motivated one to an internally-motivated one, which is crucial if you’ve built the “perfect on paper” role.

If you’re struggling with boundaries and burnout: You need to take the time to uncover the head-trash that’s behind your boundaries challenge. Is it that you’ve latched onto your identity as the “responsible” one? Is it a need to prove that your parents’ effort to land you in the US was worth it? Is it a way to prove your worth at work? Either way, it’s crucial here to identify what reasons you might personally have for this behavior, because otherwise it’s impossible to move past it.

In good news, if these steps feel a bit daunting, I’m here to help. I’ve built my entire business on helping clients through these 2 challenges, and I’m ready to help you too.

If you’re curious about working together on either of these challenges, you can click here to apply for a free call to explore working together.

And in the meantime, let me know below in the comments which of these 2 challenges resonates the most. Is it the lack of clarity, or the boundary issues? Or both?

*names have been changed