Suffering From Achievement Addiction? How To Recognize And Address It
Gambling, smoking, drinking, drugs, binge eating, spending: These are all common addictions we’re familiar with and hear a lot about. We know to avoid them or do them in moderation. We hear the stats, see the PSAs and watch the stories about their harmful effects in the news media.
But what we don’t hear much about is achievement addiction—that sneaky thing that plagues the world’s brightest executives, hyper-growth business leaders and ambitious, driven people.
We don’t hear much about achievement addiction because it often comes disguised as success. We applaud those working around the clock, who have three side hustles, make the 30 under 30 lists and seem to do it all with ease. But for high achievers, the price of that success often means exhaustion, failed relationships, poor health and burnout. It’s the dark underbelly of hyper-achievement that isn’t spoken about much.
What does achievement addiction look like?
Achievement addiction comes in many forms. It usually affects type A high achievers and may look like:
• Perfectionism and feeling like nothing is ever enough. This can manifest as never celebrating your wins.
• Constantly moving the goalpost. You are future-focused and always working toward some idealized vision of your life that you can never reach.
• Struggling to slow down and rest and needing to feel productive at all times, even during attempted downtime.
• Obsessing over external accolades or that next dopamine hit. Always looking for that next achievement, promotion or goal to tick off your list.
• Loss of boundaries, even at the expense of your physical and mental health or your relationships.
• Everything revolves around bettering yourself: You go all in on wellness and bio hacks. You may devour personal development books.
How do you overcome achievement addiction?
The answer to that question is simple but not easy. Just like diet and exercise that require you to make good choices every day about what you eat and how you move your body, overcoming achievement addiction requires constant attention and adjustments. It isn’t a one-and-done thing. It’s ongoing, especially for those of us who have been addicted to achievement since birth.
Start by asking yourself a few questions: What does success look like for you right now? Is it time to redefine your idea of success? What is enough in each area of your life? When are you happiest?
If we don’t know what enough is in all the various parts of our lives, we’ll never know when we get there and society will just keep telling us that we don’t have enough. We’ll keep pushing and stay in the achievement addiction loop of desiring something, pursuing it with vigor, achieving it and then desiring the next thing.
It’s an exhausting cycle that never ends until we get our definitions of success and enough solidified. Keep in mind that your definitions will change in different phases of your life.
Another important question to ask yourself is: When are you happiest? A powerful way to reflect on this is to think of yourself on your deathbed. Are you going to reminisce about getting a promotion, or will it be the joy you had watching your daughter ride a bike for the first time?
Will it be hitting your sales goal for the year or the time you took your partner on a sunset sail and you knew in your heart they were the one? Will it be buying that new car or all the times you got to snuggle your favorite dog on the couch?
For most of us, our happiest life moments in the long run tend to be the small, simple, heartfelt times with our loved ones, not the short-term, ego-boosting accolades we receive and are addicted to.
So the next time you feel the urge to chase achievement yet again, reflect on whether it’s for a short-term fix or if it will matter fifty years from now and whether you’re sacrificing your health and relationships to pursue it. Because ultimately, your future self will regret it.