If you’re on my page, you probably (a) identify as a high achiever, and (b) likely also struggle with either people pleasing and/or perfectionism. Being a person unique to the combination of (a) and (b), there are also unique challenges that you also will face in the pursuit of your own goals.
One of the uniqueness of high achieving people pleasers lies within the variables that stop them from doing the things that they want to do. These are somewhat different from other people, in that they are not present in all situations, but are present when a high achiever goes to pursue their own personal goals. These variables are ones that stop you from holding your goals and dreams to be sacred at all costs, they sow doubt, breed insecurity, and contribute to struggles with boundaries and burnout.
So what is this “number one challenge” to pursuing personal goals?
Let’s back up for a moment, otherwise “the big reveal” will fall quite a bit flat.
What Our Approach to Achievement Tells Us
What do high achievers do when they want to achieve something for purposes other than personal goals? In this instance, let’s think of achievement as a sort of accomplishment that others will be made aware of; this is something that will be viewed or evaluated by other people as part of the process of the achievement itself, and may or may not also be of interest to the person. Meaning, they probably otherwise wouldn’t do this “thing” unless it wasn’t part of something they are “supposed to do” (for whatever reason). For these external-facing achievement goals, my high achieving people pleasers will often get amped up for it (via excitement, frustration, annoyance, or perpetual anxiety; some underlying emotional motivation) and then hyper-focus on that task either in time spent or in mental energy spent (or both). They use much of their time, energy, and space to focus on this goal.
When these high achievers are also people pleasing, they add another layer of latent stress of how the end product of the goal will be perceived by others, with perpetual rumination on this aspect.
Sprinkle in some perfectionism? They then critique their goal – over and over again to the point of exhaustion – to ensure that both their progress and the end-result of their goal will be perceived as ‘good enough.’
These two extra layers of people pleasing x perfectionism therefore get use of whatever remaining time, energy, and space exists for these individuals at the end of each day.
At this point, the person is really using a huge percentage of their mental pie chart to focus on this external-facing goal. This can be extremely exhausting for the person; however, a lot of my clients report that this is how they “motivate” themselves to “get the job done” and that they will, in fact, typically complete the task when it is approached from this vantage point. This, in turn, makes it difficult to try different approaches and strategies that might be more beneficial to their physical and emotional wellbeing, because they believe that the stress and self-doubt they put themselves through is part of the “key” to their success.
BUT! There’s a Caveat Here…
The problem is, typically high achievers approach goal setting in this way when they are specifically considering it to be “achieving something” and where this said achievement will be presented to or evaluated by others. The evaluation process itself doesn’t necessarily demand one self-deprecate, undermine one’s own abilities, or doubt oneself tirelessly. However, the high achieving people pleaser will tend to do so anyway, because external-facing achievement means an opportunity for something they rarely give to themselves… validation.
Thus, they are often unknowingly seeking external validation in this process, in order to evaluate the worthiness of their achievement.
When external validation is unlikely, unavailable, or not even part of the process, this above-described approach for “achievement” of a goal isn’t as typically present. In this case, the high achiever may not even pursue the goal, may not consider it important, or may put it off incessantly in favor of other tasks that are deemed a higher priority (e.g., other goals where external evaluation are likely to be present).
So What About Personal Goals?
This is the most important question here. We know how high achieving people pleasers typically go about “achievement” goals that are external-facing, but what about personal goals?
This is where we get to our “#1 thing” that keeps them from pursuing their goals.
When my high achieving people pleasers typically try to apply the same achievement-logic to their personal goals, it sort of falls flat.
They don’t have the same sense of urgency toward fulfilling their personal goals.
This is because they don’t pair reinforcement to their goals, so they don’t feel as drawn toward making space for them. In the case of achievement, the reinforcement is often external validation (or, avoidance of negative feedback). In the case of personal goals, the reinforcement is…? The end goal itself? Self-validation? Fulfillment? But if we haven’t built a runway for these things to be meaningful to us, and if we haven’t allowed ourselves to be “good enough” or worthy enough to have them in the first place, then these goals certainly won’t be meaningful to us when it comes time to put our personal goals on the front burner. We won’t know what to do with them.
This means that, the #1 challenge (barrier) to staying focused on personal goals is giving them the same time, space, and energy we do our achievement goals. This is maintained by the root problem (a much deeper issue) of seeking external validation to establish our worth, and struggling with self-validation and worthiness.
How Do I Get Out of My Own Way?
The short answer is: DO IT ANYWAY.
No matter what you think about yourself, what you think about how you’ll be perceived, what you think about your own shortcomings, what’s available to you and what’s not, go after your goal anyway. Commit to figuring out how to have your goals and – despite whatever negative variables are present that feel like barriers – pursue and commit to your goal anyway.
The longer answer is: there is no one size fits all here, but this often involves a few things combined. All are worth more than a one-liner here, and some take some time to cultivate. However, there are several things you can “do in this very moment”:
- If you really, really want a specific personal goal, start by designing a plan for how this would ideally be implemented. Decide what you will do, how you will do it, and consider this to be “non-negotiable.” Then put one foot in front of the other each day to see how much you can do with this. (The mental game of this is MUCH more difficult and likely to need more airtime in the “do over time” section, but simply deciding on a plan can be done today, whether or not it’s implemented).
- Locate someone that can hold you accountable, provide support, or who specializes in your specific “thing” to give you advice. A simple Google search can be at your fingertips in seconds.
- Make a letter to yourself for six months from now. Write to yourself why this goal is so important and what changed so that you gave yourself the time, space, and energy to do this thing.
- Text a friend or trusted person and ask for advice.
- Take 10 minutes to meditate on “why” this goal would be so wonderful for you to have worked toward if you allowed yourself to commit to it.
- Make a list of 50 reasons why you deserve this goal and are worth making space for it.
- Make a plan for how to prepare for and tackle barriers to pursuing your goals – whether it be limiting thoughts, actual barriers, or other people’s expectations. Remember, this is just a plan (not a promise of implementation) – you can simply formulate the plan right here, right now!
There are also things that need to be done over time to really engrain the belief that you are freaking amazing today, just as you are, and just for being you, and because of this – you deserve and absolutely should make time and energy for your goals. These higher-order concepts involve things like: learning self-validation, learning self-regulation, creating and holding compassionate but firm boundaries, and so on. Another helpful tool for reaching really high levels of wellbeing is to spend time figuring out what your values are, and carefully taking steps to create a values-aligned lifestyle (and then from there, making goals aligned with your values, being flexible in figuring out which ones are a match, and practicing grace and courage when letting go of ones that are). These are things that are also available to you right now, but that people often find that it takes more time to really cultivate in practice.
As with most things, doing “the thing” is often much deeper than “doing the thing.” One foot in front of the other. Pick one simple thing. Put a timer on right now for five minutes. And do whatever you can to work toward your goal while you’re here.
Tomorrow, put another timer on for five minutes. Do what you can in that time. Stop at five minutes.
Rinse and repeat.
One small step can become a thousand before you know it.
Go dream big and live large… one step at a time.
With warmth,
-Dr. H.