Why success is making you miserable

Jan 16

[If you’re super successful and wake up feeling like you hit the life jackpot everyday, then hellllllz yeah. You rule. Keep going. Also, this post is not for you.

This one goes out to all y’all high-achievers that people look at and are all, “They’ve got it made!” but you feel relatively unimpressed and “meh” about all you’ve accomplished]

At the beginning of 2021, I decided to make a stupid, impossible goal. I’d ALMOST hit 100k in 2020 even though I was the entrepreneurial equivalent of a baby deer trying to walk - super awk but still getting er done.

So looking at 2022, I was like, “Why not make my goal $250k this year?” Soooo impossible. Soooo dumb. Soooo middle-finger-in-the-face of the “Achievable” part of SMART Goals.

And then I FREAKING DID IT - A MONTH EARLY. Go me, right?

Except that I felt completely…underwhelmed, a whole lotta tired, and I proceeded to totally crash-and-burn in December.

Why achieving success sometimes blows

You work hard! You hustle! You cross the finish line! You score the promotion! You said you were going to do the damn thing and then you DO IT!

And you feel…meh. Dude, wtf.

You did everything you were supposed to so what’s even happening here?

Let’s break down why achievement can feel like going to a New Years Eve party - lots of hype and sequins but mostly you wish you’d stayed home in your pajamas and gone to bed at 10pm.

Your reason for setting the goal kinda sucks

Do you think hitting your goal will make you better somehow?

Listen, Friend. You are not a problem that needs to be fixed. You are wonderfully made. You are worthy and whole, just as you are.

And hitting your goals won’t make you finally feel good enough because you always were.

Achieving things won’t repair you because you were never broken.

Achieving goals reveals what you’re capable of. It brings up all the BS lying lies you’ve told yourself about your limits and then invites you to break through them.

Because you are capable of so much.

THAT is why we set goals.

What do you want to discover about yourself?

What possibilities are hiding inside of you?

Make a goal that will help you find out.

You put too much emphasis on the finish line

I’m a big fan of setting goals. They give you direction. They’re like a friend waving “HEY! OVER HERE!” when you walk into the lunch room and have no idea where to sit down with your tray of rubbery cafeteria pizza.

But sometimes we get SO FOCUSED on the goal that we make the process of hitting it a sufferfest.

We withhold feeling good until we do the thing.

“When I lose 10 pounds, I’ll finally love my body.”

“When I get the promotion, I’ll finally feel successful.”

“When I make big money, I’ll finally know I can do it.”

I’m not a big fan of the language around “journeys” because it’s overused and corny as hell, but it applies.

If you’re on a hike, thinking, “This sucks! I suck!” and hating life every step of the way - I don’t care how amazing the view at the top is. You’re not going to enjoy it that much. You’ll be all, “Sure. This is fine. But my feet hurt, I have to walk all the way to the car, and I sure hope that wasn’t poison ivy I used for toilet paper earlier..”

It’s neuroscience, Baby. You train your brain what to think through practice. And if you’ve trained it to think like a butthole, you’re going to keep thinking butthole thoughts, even after you hit your goal. So you never actually get to feel good.

When you’re only focused on hitting that “success” metric, you miss out on the fun of becoming the person who is successful.

You move the finish line

When I more than doubled my revenue in less than a year and hit my impossibly stupid goal of $250k, guess what I did.

a) Popped champagne

b) Did a jiggity jig of happiness

c) Shrugged my shoulders and decided to go for $300k instead

If you picked option C, you’d be absolutely right and you should do a jiggity jig to celebrate because you’re obviously very brilliant.

Listen - You’re not wired to celebrate yourself. You’re taught it’s braggy and tacky. You worry that if you enjoy your accomplishments too much you’ll get complacent and lazy and turn into a slacking pile of mediocrity.

So, instead of giving yourself a high-five, you think:

I should’ve done more
I should’ve done it faster
I should’ve done it with more dignity, instead of ugly crying while pounding reese’s peanut butter cups

You take your bright, shiny, glorious success and dump all over it.

And then you wonder why no matter how hard you hustle and grind, it never feels like enough.

Um…THIS IS WHY.

If you want to feel successful, you have to stop minimizing your success.

You have to celebrate yourself.

You have to take a second to appreciate how amazing you are and how far you’ve come.

It might feel weird and unnatural.

But if you skip this step, you could get stuck in an endless loop of “not enoughness.”

You’re addicted to success

Forget meth, success and achievement are your drugs of choice.

You do the thing. You get a nice little dopamine hit of happiness. But then…

POOF! It’s over. And if you’re not truly celebrating and integrating your success and seeing what a freaking rockstar you are (ahem, please see section above), then you’re back to feeling all “meh,” needing to chase your next hit.

So you strive and strive and strive…You can’t turn your brain “off,” you constantly think about work, and somewhere, along the way, you lose yourself.

You forget why you’re striving in the first place.

Success is amazing and fun when you go after it with intention and purpose. It’s something you “get” to do because you WANT to, not because you NEED to.

Stress goes down, fulfillment goes up - And pretty soon you’re actually enjoying everything you’ve accomplished. So you have plenty of fuel to accomplish the next thing (just for funsies, of course).

You work too damn hard

Sigh.

I was at dinner with a close friend and fellow therapist a few weeks ago. She turned to me and said, “I’m competent. But you’re HYPER-COMPETENT.” She paused, “And I don’t think it always serves you.”

It’s funny how the things that help you succeed can bite you in the ass.

If you’re smart, hard-working, nice, and good at lots of things - you may be at risk of saying “yes” to too many things. People will likely ask you to do things because they trust you to crush it. Or you just do it cause you know it’ll get done the right way.

So this is where we gots to talk about capability vs capacity.

Can you do a thing? Hell yeah.

Can you do that other thing over there? Naturally.

And how about these other 20 things? Ugh, Yes. But please God, no.

Because you’re hella capable.

But you also only have so much time and energy (aka- capacity).

So you can’t just make decisions about your time and to-do list based on whether or not you’re capable of doing it on its own. You HAVE to take your capacity and the million other things on your to-do list into account.

If you don’t, success will almost always come with a side of burnout and resentment. Which is kind of a downer.

Success can feel good

If you’ve accomplished a lot only to feel guilty that you’re not having more fun - it’s not really your fault.

The way we’ve been taught to set goals and succeed frankly blows.

But there’s a better way to succeed.

Get really clear on what lights you up with purpose and passion. Get after it. And celebrate yourself every step of the way because you aren’t just thinking about it - You. Are. Doing. It.

And that takes guts and grit.

Get after it because it’s what you’re called to do. Because you can. Because it’s fun to see what’s possible.

You already have the smarts and the work ethic.

It’s time to use them to create the life and career you’ve always wanted.

And if you’re not sure how, look into working with me. I’m here to help you tap into your gifts, break the habits that keep you stuck, and make a success plan that actually feels good.

You know you’re meant for more. It’s time to create it.

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Denver life and career coach Erica Hanlon

Hi! I’m Erica

Licensed psychotherapist. Corporate dropout. Wife to Brendan. Mom to twins + one. ADHDer. Slow runner. Coffee drinker. Swear words enthusiast.

I know exactly what it’s like to have a life that looks successful on the outside but feel chronically exhausted, frustrated, and completely lost on the inside.

I help underachieving high-achievers create lives and careers they love, without burning out.

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