The Underachiever
Thoughts on making peace with resting.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned over the past year is how to listen to my body more, accept rest, untangle my relationship with overcommitting my time, and how to underachieve.
Doing Less and Being Enough
I recently got coffee with a friend whom I met at the height of my corporate leadership career. I finished sharing my update, filling him in on the last year highlighting the ups and downs of life before, during, and post-aneurysm.
I told him I was resting. I told him I was reading. I told him I was leaving to-do lists unchecked. I told him I was napping. I told him I was opting out of stressful situations. I told him I was avoiding chaos and choosing calm. I told him I was retraining my brain every single day to live differently than I ever had before.
And he replied with this big question that honestly, stopped me in my tracks:
How is Rosie The Achiever handling this shift of pace?
I was tongue tied because I hadn’t thought about that phrase before.
Rosie The Achiever.
I think that’s how I’ve always viewed myself and a big part of my identity has been wrapped up in achievement.
How Full Can One Letterman’s Jacket Be?
My high school resume was the perfect depiction of this mindset, as I ran out of room on my letterman’s jacket for all of the activities I lettered in. I raised my hand for everything, I volunteered for every opportunity, I pushed myself to excel at a lot, and I’m a generally curious person that loves learning new things. I like walking into a new job and not knowing how to fully perfect it. I like the ambiguity of building something from scratch, going from 0 to 50%, and making a big indent. These truths have been true for my entire life, and so has achievement.
Until I started the deep work of untangling what was driving my need to achieve, I didn’t realize how embedded it had become in my everyday life.
Achievement to learn more or get better. Why be in a musical when you could write a musical. Why watch Miss America on TV when you could compete at Miss America. Why go for the promotion one level above where you’re at when you could switch companies and make a bigger jump.
I think I’ve always been an achiever through and through. But the truth is, I think being an achiever is exhausting. Part of me loves it and the other part of me hates it. I’ve had to face myself and this achiever gene a lot in the past two years.
1. First, getting laid off over my maternity leave. I did everything right heading into leave. I read so many ‘how-to’ guides and tried to avoid the pitfall of being forgotten while you’re spending sacred time with your newborn. I dedicated an hour each week from the time I found out I was expecting, to networking within the corporate enterprise I was working in, having sit down conversations with heads of, presidents of, and even the CEO of the organization to place myself at the top of their minds and assert my value. I thought I was setting myself up for success upon return and was ready to jump into the next exciting project that would move the important work forward.*
Instead, I was laid off when my daughter was 40 days old and my achiever mind had to reframe if the achievement of advancement within an organization that didn’t hold on to my talent was worth the energy of my achievement and my achievement for their company.
2. Next, it was the job hunt that followed. When I entered the market, I was interviewing for peer roles to the one I had left or even bigger roles with fancier titles, bigger teams, and more responsibilities. The truth is, at that time, those types of roles were disappearing left and right as employee experience and culture budgets were slashed, and suddenly workplace experience became lower on the list of priorities. Another hit to my achiever ego.
3. And most recently, brain surgery. I simply can’t achieve the way I used to. I can’t push myself, I can’t be in a constant state of stress, I’m very sensitive to rest, I’m very sensitive to protecting my own peace, and I’ve locked into the truth that my worth is not tied to my achievement.
My entire life has been driven by achievement. There are many layers to this drive and reasons for this ambition that I continue to work through and uncover in therapy/during coffee dates/through this writing, but at my core, I have always been an achiever.
Have You Tried Resting?
Pre-brain surgery, I was notorious for taking a walking 1:1 to try to get in some steps. When I was living a back-to-back meeting kind of corporate life, I would eat a power bar, skip lunch, and do my lake loop before jumping on another long afternoon of meetings to discuss powerpoint decks that would be shared with executives that would never even read them.**
Post-brain surgery, I still attempt the lake walk, but it includes multiple rests, snacks, and lots of water to make it around in triple the amount of time.
This sound so silly, but every time I go for a walk I have to pump myself up and almost cheer: A walk is still a walk, even if I don’t go around the full lake. A walk is a walk if I go around the block.
This entire, life altering, world changing experience no doubt has been one of the most transformative experiences of my entire life. And the number one lesson I’ll take from this time is that I learned/am on a journey to learn how to become an underachiever.
If you’re a recovering overachiever like me, I hope you don’t have to navigating brain surgery to come to the conclusion that rest is important, achievements don’t matter if you’re miserable when you’re working towards your achievement, and above all else, protect your own peace.
XO,
R
*This is a favorite corporate phrase for work that isn’t necessarily financially focused but is still essential to a functioning organization. If you’re a part of a role that focuses on this type of work, it feels less soul crushing, less capitalist, more empathetic, and probably more susceptible to a layoff.
**If you’ve never worked corporate, IMO, it can be summed up as PowerPoint Decks. That’s it. If you have a corporate job it means you design/edit/design/edit/design/edit again PowerPoint Decks.
Rosie, I love all your posts, but this is truly a treasure.