[0:01] Welcome to Mental Performance Unleashed with Emily Heird.
[0:05] Welcome back to Mental Performance Unleashed with Emily Heird.
[0:10] Emily is a licensed psychotherapist and certified mental performance mastery coach who helps
[0:17] attorneys and legal leaders operate like intellectual athletes performing at a high level while
[0:23] protecting their mental energy.
[0:27] I'm LeAnn Lyon and in today's episode we are talking about achievement addiction.
[0:34] For some high performers reaching a goal brings satisfaction for only a moment before
[0:41] the focus shifts to what's next.
[0:44] Hello Emily.
[0:45] Hi LeAnn.
[0:46] Emily, when people use the term achievement addiction, what are they actually describing?
[0:54] So what this really is is using accomplishment to manage how you feel about yourself.
[1:02] Instead of pursuing that accomplishment because you want to build something or pursue excellence
[1:08] or achieve mastery in a certain area and it gets costly the moment the goal shifts from
[1:15] I want this for intrinsic reasons to I need this or I'm a failure.
[1:24] It's the same behavior on the outside but the engine and the fuel that's driving it underneath
[1:30] are completely different.
[1:33] Someone is looking constantly to external markers to validate their sense of self rather than
[1:39] having a solid sense of intrinsic self-worth.
[1:44] So what is happening when someone reaches a goal that they've maybe worked on for months
[1:48] or even years but the satisfaction disappears almost instantly?
[1:55] So there are a couple things at play here.
[1:57] The first one is what's called hedonic adaptation and this is where we get used to something new
[2:05] pretty quickly.
[2:07] Think about buying a brand new car for the first couple of weeks.
[2:11] It's amazing, it's shiny, kind of that shiny new object and then after a couple of weeks
[2:15] we really just get acclimated to it and it's like well this is a car that I drive.
[2:21] So that's part of it and dopamine also plays a role in this because the dopamine spike that
[2:28] is tied to pursuing the achievement and driving the motivation to achieve it is built to be
[2:35] there temporarily but dopamine rewards the chase not the arrival itself.
[2:41] So the baseline level of dopamine resets pretty quickly and the win kind of barely registers
[2:47] before attention has already moved on to the next target.
[2:52] The other thing that comes into play is if our sense of worth is tied to achieving goals
[2:59] and we're constantly needing to prove ourselves then by definition we kind of have to
[3:05] automatically set a new goal to pursue and the goal post just keeps moving and we're always
[3:13] chasing.
[3:14] So what I'm hearing is that somebody can become conditioned to need the pursuit of the next
[3:19] goal more than they actually enjoy reaching it?
[3:23] Absolutely, it kind of works like pulling a slot machine.
[3:29] You don't really know when the next win is coming so you just keep pulling the lever and
[3:34] that's the same mechanism behind a lot of addictive behavior.
[3:39] So we can't really get addicted to the chase itself and just like with anything addictive
[3:45] you build up a tolerance to it.
[3:47] So it takes something, takes a bigger win to give you that same hit that you used to get.
[3:54] And then because of the way that the dopamine works when we are addicted to the chase and
[4:03] conditioned to need that then rest itself doesn't feel like rest anymore.
[4:11] It actually starts to feel like withdrawal and so that produces restlessness and irritability
[4:17] and then they just get back to working more so that they can produce that dopamine to pursue
[4:23] the next goal.
[4:24] Is that more true of a pattern in high performers?
[4:28] I would say so.
[4:30] Most of the clients that I work with have operated that way because our society and culture
[4:37] teach us to pursue achievement and we're very much rewarded for it and these clients have
[4:45] high ambition and high drive and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
[4:50] But the way that their patterns have operated over the years for various factors they've kind
[4:55] of looked to the external for that sense of self-worth.
[5:01] Well, I think we can agree a lot of lawyers are used to being pretty exceptional all the
[5:06] way.
[5:07] They're all lives.
[5:08] So how does achievement become tied to identity or self-worth especially for someone whose
[5:13] career is constantly rewarded them for that?
[5:16] Yeah, so when your career keeps rewarding you for producing over and over and at some point
[5:24] these two things merge the achievement and the identity and we also just identify ourselves
[5:32] by what we do.
[5:33] So I am a lawyer, I am a doctor, I am this and that becomes our marker of identity.
[5:41] When it turns into I am my last win versus I did something effective.
[5:50] That's when these two things start to merge.
[5:53] Self-worth becomes like the stock market.
[5:56] You have a great day, you have a win on a case then you have a major boost to your self-esteem
[6:02] but if you have a loss or a tough week at work or you're going through a tough period then
[6:08] there's a big dip in self-esteem.
[6:12] So this really starts to feel like a threat to who you are as a person rather than kind
[6:17] of staying at baseline.
[6:19] I am okay, work went well or work is challenging but as a person I am okay.
[6:28] And lawyers especially in other clients that I work with tend to give the majority of their
[6:34] time and their energy to work and don't diversify other areas of their life and build out different
[6:41] parts of their identity.
[6:43] So then their whole identity is tied to their career and how their performance in their
[6:48] career is going.
[6:50] So can that pattern be especially difficult to recognize in someone who is successful and
[6:56] continuing to get results?
[6:58] Absolutely because the results keep validating the behavior and in the workplace positive
[7:04] results are rewarded and seen as a great thing and lots of times people aren't stopping
[7:11] to ask the person, hey, everything going okay behind the scenes, what matters most is
[7:18] the results.
[7:19] So on one hand, this works very well and it's very reinforcing but no, they're also really
[7:27] good at kind of hiding the anxiety that is driving it underneath.
[7:32] And it usually only surfaces when there is like a plateau or a setback, when strategies
[7:39] finally stop producing, when they hit a wall with burnout or if there's like a personal
[7:44] crisis like a divorce or something like that.
[7:47] That's usually when it comes to the surface.
[7:52] So what happens to somebody's internal definition of enough when every accomplishment quickly
[7:59] becomes the new baseline?
[8:01] Yeah, so that's actually part of the problem is that they don't, they've never set an internal
[8:07] definition of enough, they're chasing this imaginary, these imaginary standards out there
[8:13] that at some point they think if I've earned all these things, then it will feel like enough.
[8:20] But that relying on that is, it's a moving target by design, every accomplishment becomes
[8:27] the new floor instead of a marker of progress.
[8:32] So enough never actually shows up and that finish line just keeps relocating.
[8:38] I see this often times with my clients who, you know, they've completed the checklist of
[8:45] success and enoughness that society tells us.
[8:49] They have the title, the salary, the house, the spouse, the 2.5 kids and the dog and the
[8:57] defense in yard and yet they feel completely miserable or empty inside.
[9:03] And they haven't paused to ask what is my definition of success, what is my definition of enough?
[9:11] When somebody starts measuring progress only by what they accomplish and lose the ability
[9:17] to recognize growth, what starts to happen inside?
[9:22] This is what we call an ego orientation, where the only thing that counts is the scoreboard.
[9:32] And again, internally there is that void, that sense that I'm not enough, no matter what
[9:41] I do, I'm not enough, because they're looking to these external things to fill a void that
[9:48] cannot be filled by those things.
[9:51] They lose the ability to even notice growth that doesn't come along with visible results
[9:57] attached to it, things like getting better at your craft or sharpening your judgment or
[10:03] having great relationships in life.
[10:06] And the healthier version that we want to work towards is what's called mastery orientation
[10:12] where the process itself matters and it's not whether or not the scoreboard is moving
[10:19] that day.
[10:20] For attorneys and leaders who genuinely love ambitious goals, how do you distinguish healthy
[10:27] ambition from using achievement to regulate how you feel about yourself?
[10:32] Yeah, so I tell all my clients like, I'm not here to put a lid on your ambition.
[10:37] I want you to go after all those big goals and dreams that you have.
[10:42] Healthy ambition can tolerate and absorb a loss or mistakes or tough periods of time and
[10:52] work without it touching their sense of self-worth.
[10:57] Achievement addiction cannot handle that, you know, a setback doesn't just disappoint
[11:02] a person, it kind of destabilizes their sense of self.
[11:07] So reorienting the fuel behind the ambition and building a solid sense of self-worth that
[11:15] is not determined by wins or losses is really how we move towards healthy ambition.
[11:24] And there's a whole process that I want clients through to be able to achieve that.
[11:30] You know, like when it comes to a person who is addicted to the achievement and using
[11:36] external validation to regulate their sense of self, the real test isn't how hard they
[11:43] chase that goal or how hard they work for it.
[11:46] It's how they're doing the week after they don't get it or, you know, after they do get
[11:52] it, are they able to enjoy it and internalize it and feel satisfied by accomplishing that goal?
[12:02] So let's talk about when somebody with Achievement addiction doesn't hit their goal.
[12:07] What can happen to that high performer when that happens?
[12:12] Yeah, so this genuinely shows up like in identity crisis more than a dip in performance.
[12:20] We see this, you know, happen pretty frequently in elite athletes or, you know, even college
[12:26] athletes, high school athletes, anyone, you know, for example, who gets sideline by an
[12:31] injury and all of a sudden they're taken out of their sport, they're away from the team,
[12:37] their sense of the mechanism that they use to feel good about themselves is no longer available.
[12:44] So we tend to see them get restless, irritable, depressed, genuinely feel like they're losing
[12:51] themselves.
[12:52] Sometimes we can also see them turning to other coping mechanisms like drinking or other
[12:58] substances to regulate those difficult emotions that they are experiencing.
[13:04] So they're kind of forced to reckon with this question of who am I outside of this thing
[13:11] that I do for a living.
[13:13] Can somebody change their relationship with achievement without feeling like they're just
[13:17] giving up the drive that made them successful in the first place?
[13:21] Absolutely. And that is, you know, at the core of the work that I do.
[13:26] And they're kind of afraid that they're going to lose their edge. And I always tell them like,
[13:30] good news, you're not going to lose your edge. When kind of changing our relationship from that
[13:37] ego orientation to the mastery orientation looks like, anchoring our identity to core values,
[13:45] our own core values that we set, focusing on process instead of outcomes, working on mastery
[13:55] and excellence of craft, going after those goals, but enjoying the process of getting to
[14:03] the finish line, and building in recovery deliberately instead of waiting for burnout to force it on you.
[14:12] And the good news is like that drive does not disappear. You know, I'm thinking about some of the
[14:18] clients that I've worked with a couple years ago. And when I kind of check in on them or look at what
[14:24] they're doing, I mean, it just amazes me the how far they're soaring these days. So the drive
[14:32] doesn't disappear. It is fueled by something different and one thing and that different thing is
[14:38] much more sustainable. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that as we wrap up. So what does a
[14:45] healthier relationship with achievement look like when somebody still wants to perform at an elite
[14:52] level? Yeah. So it's the things that we've talked about. It is truly a core foundation of it is
[14:58] defining your definition of success, your definition of enough and your core values, and
[15:06] going after those goals, but every day the measurement is not what happened outside of me,
[15:15] or how did this? Did I meet the outcome or not? It's more of a mere reflection. Did I operate
[15:22] according to my core values? Did I put in as much energy and effort into this as possible? Was I
[15:28] prepared? Did I respect my mind and my body today? Did I build? Did I take care of rest and recovery?
[15:38] The goals are fantastic, achieving those things, having all the things, those ad richness and
[15:44] meaning to life, but they're also able to weather mistakes and setbacks, not as though I have failed
[15:55] and it's a personal crisis, but mistakes happen. Setbacks happen to everyone. This is part of being
[16:04] human, and so it is, and mistakes give you performance data to build on, so you know where you need to
[16:14] improve and sharpen for next time. So really, the big picture of it, and there's a lot of nuance
[16:20] to it, but it's building that intrinsic self-worth, something that is stable, regardless of what's going
[16:27] on at work, and expanding your identity beyond one role that you perform is also important as well.
[16:35] As always, so many great nuggets in today's episode, so if to our audience, if you want practical,
[16:42] science-backed strategies to strengthen your mental fitness and operate more, like an intellectual
[16:48] athlete, visit VantageViewCoaching.com and take the free mental performance assessment.
[16:57] It takes about 10 minutes and then you can book a call with Emily to walk through what it reveals
[17:03] about your performance and receive personalized protocols to start implementing immediately.
[17:10] Thanks for listening. Hit that like button and we would love to see a review if this episode
[17:16] has served you. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, William. Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like
[17:23] and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.
[0:05] Welcome back to Mental Performance Unleashed with Emily Heird.
[0:10] Emily is a licensed psychotherapist and certified mental performance mastery coach who helps
[0:17] attorneys and legal leaders operate like intellectual athletes performing at a high level while
[0:23] protecting their mental energy.
[0:27] I'm LeAnn Lyon and in today's episode we are talking about achievement addiction.
[0:34] For some high performers reaching a goal brings satisfaction for only a moment before
[0:41] the focus shifts to what's next.
[0:44] Hello Emily.
[0:45] Hi LeAnn.
[0:46] Emily, when people use the term achievement addiction, what are they actually describing?
[0:54] So what this really is is using accomplishment to manage how you feel about yourself.
[1:02] Instead of pursuing that accomplishment because you want to build something or pursue excellence
[1:08] or achieve mastery in a certain area and it gets costly the moment the goal shifts from
[1:15] I want this for intrinsic reasons to I need this or I'm a failure.
[1:24] It's the same behavior on the outside but the engine and the fuel that's driving it underneath
[1:30] are completely different.
[1:33] Someone is looking constantly to external markers to validate their sense of self rather than
[1:39] having a solid sense of intrinsic self-worth.
[1:44] So what is happening when someone reaches a goal that they've maybe worked on for months
[1:48] or even years but the satisfaction disappears almost instantly?
[1:55] So there are a couple things at play here.
[1:57] The first one is what's called hedonic adaptation and this is where we get used to something new
[2:05] pretty quickly.
[2:07] Think about buying a brand new car for the first couple of weeks.
[2:11] It's amazing, it's shiny, kind of that shiny new object and then after a couple of weeks
[2:15] we really just get acclimated to it and it's like well this is a car that I drive.
[2:21] So that's part of it and dopamine also plays a role in this because the dopamine spike that
[2:28] is tied to pursuing the achievement and driving the motivation to achieve it is built to be
[2:35] there temporarily but dopamine rewards the chase not the arrival itself.
[2:41] So the baseline level of dopamine resets pretty quickly and the win kind of barely registers
[2:47] before attention has already moved on to the next target.
[2:52] The other thing that comes into play is if our sense of worth is tied to achieving goals
[2:59] and we're constantly needing to prove ourselves then by definition we kind of have to
[3:05] automatically set a new goal to pursue and the goal post just keeps moving and we're always
[3:13] chasing.
[3:14] So what I'm hearing is that somebody can become conditioned to need the pursuit of the next
[3:19] goal more than they actually enjoy reaching it?
[3:23] Absolutely, it kind of works like pulling a slot machine.
[3:29] You don't really know when the next win is coming so you just keep pulling the lever and
[3:34] that's the same mechanism behind a lot of addictive behavior.
[3:39] So we can't really get addicted to the chase itself and just like with anything addictive
[3:45] you build up a tolerance to it.
[3:47] So it takes something, takes a bigger win to give you that same hit that you used to get.
[3:54] And then because of the way that the dopamine works when we are addicted to the chase and
[4:03] conditioned to need that then rest itself doesn't feel like rest anymore.
[4:11] It actually starts to feel like withdrawal and so that produces restlessness and irritability
[4:17] and then they just get back to working more so that they can produce that dopamine to pursue
[4:23] the next goal.
[4:24] Is that more true of a pattern in high performers?
[4:28] I would say so.
[4:30] Most of the clients that I work with have operated that way because our society and culture
[4:37] teach us to pursue achievement and we're very much rewarded for it and these clients have
[4:45] high ambition and high drive and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
[4:50] But the way that their patterns have operated over the years for various factors they've kind
[4:55] of looked to the external for that sense of self-worth.
[5:01] Well, I think we can agree a lot of lawyers are used to being pretty exceptional all the
[5:06] way.
[5:07] They're all lives.
[5:08] So how does achievement become tied to identity or self-worth especially for someone whose
[5:13] career is constantly rewarded them for that?
[5:16] Yeah, so when your career keeps rewarding you for producing over and over and at some point
[5:24] these two things merge the achievement and the identity and we also just identify ourselves
[5:32] by what we do.
[5:33] So I am a lawyer, I am a doctor, I am this and that becomes our marker of identity.
[5:41] When it turns into I am my last win versus I did something effective.
[5:50] That's when these two things start to merge.
[5:53] Self-worth becomes like the stock market.
[5:56] You have a great day, you have a win on a case then you have a major boost to your self-esteem
[6:02] but if you have a loss or a tough week at work or you're going through a tough period then
[6:08] there's a big dip in self-esteem.
[6:12] So this really starts to feel like a threat to who you are as a person rather than kind
[6:17] of staying at baseline.
[6:19] I am okay, work went well or work is challenging but as a person I am okay.
[6:28] And lawyers especially in other clients that I work with tend to give the majority of their
[6:34] time and their energy to work and don't diversify other areas of their life and build out different
[6:41] parts of their identity.
[6:43] So then their whole identity is tied to their career and how their performance in their
[6:48] career is going.
[6:50] So can that pattern be especially difficult to recognize in someone who is successful and
[6:56] continuing to get results?
[6:58] Absolutely because the results keep validating the behavior and in the workplace positive
[7:04] results are rewarded and seen as a great thing and lots of times people aren't stopping
[7:11] to ask the person, hey, everything going okay behind the scenes, what matters most is
[7:18] the results.
[7:19] So on one hand, this works very well and it's very reinforcing but no, they're also really
[7:27] good at kind of hiding the anxiety that is driving it underneath.
[7:32] And it usually only surfaces when there is like a plateau or a setback, when strategies
[7:39] finally stop producing, when they hit a wall with burnout or if there's like a personal
[7:44] crisis like a divorce or something like that.
[7:47] That's usually when it comes to the surface.
[7:52] So what happens to somebody's internal definition of enough when every accomplishment quickly
[7:59] becomes the new baseline?
[8:01] Yeah, so that's actually part of the problem is that they don't, they've never set an internal
[8:07] definition of enough, they're chasing this imaginary, these imaginary standards out there
[8:13] that at some point they think if I've earned all these things, then it will feel like enough.
[8:20] But that relying on that is, it's a moving target by design, every accomplishment becomes
[8:27] the new floor instead of a marker of progress.
[8:32] So enough never actually shows up and that finish line just keeps relocating.
[8:38] I see this often times with my clients who, you know, they've completed the checklist of
[8:45] success and enoughness that society tells us.
[8:49] They have the title, the salary, the house, the spouse, the 2.5 kids and the dog and the
[8:57] defense in yard and yet they feel completely miserable or empty inside.
[9:03] And they haven't paused to ask what is my definition of success, what is my definition of enough?
[9:11] When somebody starts measuring progress only by what they accomplish and lose the ability
[9:17] to recognize growth, what starts to happen inside?
[9:22] This is what we call an ego orientation, where the only thing that counts is the scoreboard.
[9:32] And again, internally there is that void, that sense that I'm not enough, no matter what
[9:41] I do, I'm not enough, because they're looking to these external things to fill a void that
[9:48] cannot be filled by those things.
[9:51] They lose the ability to even notice growth that doesn't come along with visible results
[9:57] attached to it, things like getting better at your craft or sharpening your judgment or
[10:03] having great relationships in life.
[10:06] And the healthier version that we want to work towards is what's called mastery orientation
[10:12] where the process itself matters and it's not whether or not the scoreboard is moving
[10:19] that day.
[10:20] For attorneys and leaders who genuinely love ambitious goals, how do you distinguish healthy
[10:27] ambition from using achievement to regulate how you feel about yourself?
[10:32] Yeah, so I tell all my clients like, I'm not here to put a lid on your ambition.
[10:37] I want you to go after all those big goals and dreams that you have.
[10:42] Healthy ambition can tolerate and absorb a loss or mistakes or tough periods of time and
[10:52] work without it touching their sense of self-worth.
[10:57] Achievement addiction cannot handle that, you know, a setback doesn't just disappoint
[11:02] a person, it kind of destabilizes their sense of self.
[11:07] So reorienting the fuel behind the ambition and building a solid sense of self-worth that
[11:15] is not determined by wins or losses is really how we move towards healthy ambition.
[11:24] And there's a whole process that I want clients through to be able to achieve that.
[11:30] You know, like when it comes to a person who is addicted to the achievement and using
[11:36] external validation to regulate their sense of self, the real test isn't how hard they
[11:43] chase that goal or how hard they work for it.
[11:46] It's how they're doing the week after they don't get it or, you know, after they do get
[11:52] it, are they able to enjoy it and internalize it and feel satisfied by accomplishing that goal?
[12:02] So let's talk about when somebody with Achievement addiction doesn't hit their goal.
[12:07] What can happen to that high performer when that happens?
[12:12] Yeah, so this genuinely shows up like in identity crisis more than a dip in performance.
[12:20] We see this, you know, happen pretty frequently in elite athletes or, you know, even college
[12:26] athletes, high school athletes, anyone, you know, for example, who gets sideline by an
[12:31] injury and all of a sudden they're taken out of their sport, they're away from the team,
[12:37] their sense of the mechanism that they use to feel good about themselves is no longer available.
[12:44] So we tend to see them get restless, irritable, depressed, genuinely feel like they're losing
[12:51] themselves.
[12:52] Sometimes we can also see them turning to other coping mechanisms like drinking or other
[12:58] substances to regulate those difficult emotions that they are experiencing.
[13:04] So they're kind of forced to reckon with this question of who am I outside of this thing
[13:11] that I do for a living.
[13:13] Can somebody change their relationship with achievement without feeling like they're just
[13:17] giving up the drive that made them successful in the first place?
[13:21] Absolutely. And that is, you know, at the core of the work that I do.
[13:26] And they're kind of afraid that they're going to lose their edge. And I always tell them like,
[13:30] good news, you're not going to lose your edge. When kind of changing our relationship from that
[13:37] ego orientation to the mastery orientation looks like, anchoring our identity to core values,
[13:45] our own core values that we set, focusing on process instead of outcomes, working on mastery
[13:55] and excellence of craft, going after those goals, but enjoying the process of getting to
[14:03] the finish line, and building in recovery deliberately instead of waiting for burnout to force it on you.
[14:12] And the good news is like that drive does not disappear. You know, I'm thinking about some of the
[14:18] clients that I've worked with a couple years ago. And when I kind of check in on them or look at what
[14:24] they're doing, I mean, it just amazes me the how far they're soaring these days. So the drive
[14:32] doesn't disappear. It is fueled by something different and one thing and that different thing is
[14:38] much more sustainable. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that as we wrap up. So what does a
[14:45] healthier relationship with achievement look like when somebody still wants to perform at an elite
[14:52] level? Yeah. So it's the things that we've talked about. It is truly a core foundation of it is
[14:58] defining your definition of success, your definition of enough and your core values, and
[15:06] going after those goals, but every day the measurement is not what happened outside of me,
[15:15] or how did this? Did I meet the outcome or not? It's more of a mere reflection. Did I operate
[15:22] according to my core values? Did I put in as much energy and effort into this as possible? Was I
[15:28] prepared? Did I respect my mind and my body today? Did I build? Did I take care of rest and recovery?
[15:38] The goals are fantastic, achieving those things, having all the things, those ad richness and
[15:44] meaning to life, but they're also able to weather mistakes and setbacks, not as though I have failed
[15:55] and it's a personal crisis, but mistakes happen. Setbacks happen to everyone. This is part of being
[16:04] human, and so it is, and mistakes give you performance data to build on, so you know where you need to
[16:14] improve and sharpen for next time. So really, the big picture of it, and there's a lot of nuance
[16:20] to it, but it's building that intrinsic self-worth, something that is stable, regardless of what's going
[16:27] on at work, and expanding your identity beyond one role that you perform is also important as well.
[16:35] As always, so many great nuggets in today's episode, so if to our audience, if you want practical,
[16:42] science-backed strategies to strengthen your mental fitness and operate more, like an intellectual
[16:48] athlete, visit VantageViewCoaching.com and take the free mental performance assessment.
[16:57] It takes about 10 minutes and then you can book a call with Emily to walk through what it reveals
[17:03] about your performance and receive personalized protocols to start implementing immediately.
[17:10] Thanks for listening. Hit that like button and we would love to see a review if this episode
[17:16] has served you. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, William. Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like
[17:23] and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.
