The Psychology of Overachievement

March 2023

Hi there, and welcome back to another month of LWC Therapies - the newsletter diving into my most recent interests related to the field of mental health counseling. If you’re new here, my name is Reese Wells and I am a licensed mental health counselor based in Asheville, NC. You can learn more about me and my practice at reesewells.com.

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Defining Overachievement

In a society that uplifts hyper-productivity, competition, and resource control as indicators of ‘winning,’ the line between experiencing success and feeling safe blurs quickly. It will be helpful, therefore, to first create an operational definition of overachievement. Let’s look no further than our friendly online dictionary.

Overachiever: ‘one who achieves success over and above the standard or expected level especially at an early age.’ - Merriam Webster

Some concerns emerge here for me in the form of questions:

1. Who sets the standard?

2. What is the standard?

3. What happens when I feel as though I do not meet that standard?

Let’s first zoom in and see what’s going on in our brain when it comes to overachievement, then hit the ‘big picture button’ and see if we can make sense of this topic in the context of our society.

Overachievement Through the Lens of Evolutionary Psychology

Consider your brain. Your prefrontal cortex is the home of rational thought - it’s the last bit of our brain to have evolved and is how we are able to manage our emotions and communicate effectively. Generally my clients and I spend a lot of time working on emotional management, as it is the foundation for creating change in stressful situations.

So, what’s happening in your brain when you feel threatened? When you find yourself in a state of acute stress, your prefrontal cortex goes offline and you drop into your amygdala, also known as your ‘survival brain,’ also known as ‘fight-flight-freeze.’ When you are operating from your amygdala you are trying to get control of your environment so that you can survive. In fight-flight-freeze, your brain and nervous system are collaborating to keep you alive. They want you to feel safe.

(For a really in-depth look at the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, check out this awesome article by Amy Arnsten: Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Additionally, you can learn more about emotional management in my classroom.)

I like to think of my nervous system as an ever-vigilant protector, there to keep me alive in times of crisis. However, an overactive protector can have a tweaky definition of ‘crisis’, which can lead to a chronically escalated nervous system. This can carry a whole whole host of potential negative consequences - look at Bruce McEwen’s Neurobiological and Systemic Effects of Chronic Stress article for more information on this. 

Let’s come back to the experience of overachievement - consider achievement as not only a social marker of success, but also a biological marker of security and safety. Here’s what I mean - my belief is that if we come to associate achievement with feelings of safety we are more likely to pursue it. Feeling accomplished and recognized for those succeses temporarily relaxes your activated nervous system. With a feeling of safety comes a temporary relief - a reward of physical, mental, and emotional release. Then the cycle begins again, creating a predictable loop where our bodies and brains seek this relief through engaging in activities that have worked in the past - i.e. seeking feelings of safety through accomplishment.

If this pattern persists it can lead to an entrenched dynamic (a ‘way of being’ or a 'lifestyle’) where overachievement feels like one of the few ways to experience a sense of safety. One of the consequences, however, is the persistent feeling of inadequacy, anxiety, shame, or even fear as you strive for that feeling of accomplishment.

This addictive pattern is reinforced by a society that celebrates overachievement and uplifts those hyper-performers on various public platforms.

Overachievement as a Symptom of Larger Systemic Issues

Like most topics we discuss here, I approach the issue of over-achievement not as an isolated experience, but rather as a symptom of scalable systemic issues. From the family system all the way up to globalism, we exist within structures that promote comparison, competition, and ‘winning.’

Consider a few questions:

1. What was the message you received from your family growing up about achievement? How did your family respond when you performed well in school or sports? What about when you performed poorly?

2. What have been your experiences in social circles with friends? What happens in your body when someone shares a success story?

3. What are your dominant emotions when on social media?

4. How has our capitalistic society shaped your definition of success?

In Dr. Gabor Maté’s The Myth of Normal (which I will feature in another newsletter), he eloquently addresses how systemic issues affect our mental, emotional, and physical health. Our society’s obsession with overachievement is one of these maladaptive symptoms.

A major driver in society’s focus on success is the social media industry. Life today has unparalleled access to witnessing other’s successes through all the platforms that you’ve come to know: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. We all know the experience of doom-scrolling while in full-on goblin mode (a wonderfully apt term & Oxford’s 2022 word of the year). When posting online is combined with your preprogrammed neurobiological survival responses, it can reinforce these internal systems designed to keep us safe, while simultaneously making us feel inadequate and unsafe. Sadagheyani & Tatari’s 2021 article, Investigating the role of social media on mental health, sums up the double-edged sword effect of social media in their ‘Findings’ section of their article summary:

The findings showed that social media has negative and positive effects on mental health. Negative effects included anxiety, depression, loneliness, poor sleep quality, poor mental health indicators, thoughts of self-harm and suicide, increased levels of psychological distress, cyber bullying, body image dissatisfaction, fear of missing out and decreased life satisfaction. Positive effects included accessing other people’s health experiences and expert health information, managing depression, emotional support and community building, expanding and strengthening offline networks and interactions, self-expression and self-identity, establish and maintain relationships. - Sadagheyani & Tatari, 2021

I have a lot of empathy for this plight, as I have struggled with my relationship to social media in the past and it is still something I must monitor today. I find it easier for me to be compassionate with myself when I recognize that much of my behaviors were tied to a survival response reinforced by societal systems.

Fortunately, there are some tools for shifting one’s relationship with achievement. I find, as always, that starting with a good book can help me orient to a new way of approaching a persistent issue.

Book Review: 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Oliver Burkeman’s 4000 Weeks is one of the most important books I’ve read in the past year. Since finishing it I’ve recommended it to most of my clients, all for different reasons.

I believe this book’s title could have easily been ‘The Psychology of Time Management,’ because Burkeman quickly tears down the assumption that his book will offer new ways of doing time; rather he focuses on the experience of time. The general takeaways that I harvested are, in no particular order:

• The average human lifespan is 4000 weeks. Put into this context, life is dizzyingly short. Every week is an opportunity to evaluate how I am spending my time and why I am spending it that way.

• Trying to control time is like trying to hold sand. The tighter I grip the quicker it slips through my fingers.

• Need versus want. What do I need to get done, and what do I want to get done? How can I learn to accept that there are always things that will not get done, and make sure that I am focusing on what needs to be done?

Monthly Mindfulness: Unlearning

Books like 4000 Weeks helps me remind myself that some things just aren’t  that important. The challenge now is unlearning the patterns that have helped me create that false sense of safety through overachievement.  So now I must ask myself, “How do I begin ‘unlearning’ a way of being that has worked for me most of my life?”.

What has helped me so far, and may be helpful for you, is this series of questions I ask myself if I’m unsure why I’m about to embark on a particular task:

1. What is happening in my body right now?

2. What emotions am I feeling?

3. What is my intention for doing this task?

4. How might it help me feel better?

5. Is this in the pursuit of pleasure, or an achievement response?

6. If it’s for pleasure: Can I monitor the discomfort of doing something without a particular goal in mind?

7. If it’s an achievement response: What need am I trying to meet right now? Who am I doing this for? Is this what I want to be doing right now? If not, what would I rather be doing, and what is keeping me from that activity?

Connecting your thoughts and emotions to your actions is a way to experience clarity around the decisions you make. It is a way to generate increased awareness. As my clients hear me say (all the time), ‘With awareness comes the ability to change.’

These questions are one of the reasons I didn’t do a February newsletter article. These questions are one of the reasons why I am doing a March article. These questions help me evaluate how and why I am making the decisions I am making in a gentle and compassionate way. This month I am happy to be writing this newsletter.

Today it truly feels as simple as that.

Joe’s Corner

When it comes to overachieving, Joe doesn’t know what I’m talking about. He just does what feels best in the moment. Often this means taking toys of out his crate and spreading them across the living room. It cracks me up when he decides that he wants the toy at the bottom of the crate. This is a short video of him working hard for what he wants. Always a good reminder that the best things in life take effort (so long as we are doing it for healthy reasons).

What Next?

That’s a wrap on this month! Next month’s topic is probably going to be focused on existential issues and the effect it has on our mental health. If you have any other topic suggestions or would like to connect, please send me an email at reese@livewildcollective.com or visit reesewells.com.

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“Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster. Nobody in the history of humanity has ever achieved “work-life balance,” whatever that might be, and you certainly won’t get there by copying the “six things successful people do before 7:00 a.m.” The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen. But you know what? That’s excellent news.” - Oliver Burkeman, 4000 Weeks