Why high achievers struggle to celebrate their biggest wins
Another client of mine just wrote a book. If you’ve done this before like I have you know it’s a big damn deal. Months of work. Research. Writing. Rewriting. Editing. More rewriting. All that expertise and experience finally put into something tangible that other people can learn from.
Huge accomplishment, right?
You would think. Let me tell you her story. We’ll call her K–Kathy. Since she reads my LinkedIn newsletter and likely reading this real time.
During our mastermind this week, we were celebrating Kathy’s accomplishment. She’s holding up the finished book, and I’m doing fist pumps in her honor.
She’s considerably less impressed.
First, she keeps calling it a workbook not a book book.
Okay, Kathy. Is it something you worked really hard on? Yes. Did you put your expertise, experience, and insight into it? Yes. Is it designed to help people? Yes. Do people open the cover, moving in a left to right motion and then absorb your thought process.
Cool, cool. You wrote a book.
And like virtually every first-time author I’ve ever met, she announced she’ll never do THAT again. Sure, Kathy. We’ll revisit that in a year.
But what caught my attention wasn’t her insistence on calling it a workbook.
It was her inability to feel successful about something she’d already accomplished.
So I asked her: “When are you going to let yourself FEEL successful?”
“When someone buys it.”
Okay. Fair enough.
“So if I buy a book today, then will you allow yourself to feel successful?”
“Well… no.”
Gotcha. So now we’ve moved from qualitative to quanitative. We are getting somewhere.
How many will it take to FEEL successful? The event manager said she should expect to sell 25 these week when she speaks… but then she said- actually 100 copies.
Ahhhh. There it is.
The Finish Line Moved
Kathy had accomplished something extraordinary.
But instead of allowing herself to experience that success, she’d placed a new condition on it.
Someone else needed to buy her book.
Actually, not just someone.
ONE HUNDRED someones.
And I suspect that when those first 100 copies sell, there will be another finish line waiting.
Maybe it’ll be 1,000 books. Or a speaking engagement, not the ones she’s already book- oh no- ones that she’s yet to book. Or a bestseller list.
Or whatever success is supposed to look like by then.
Sound familiar?
I’ve been coaching high achievers for years, and I see this ALL THE TIME.
They hit a revenue goal. But they can’t celebrate because expenses were higher than expected.
They launch the business. But they won’t feel successful until they’re profitable.
They get the promotion. But now they’re already thinking about the next position.
They run their first marathon. But immediately start talking about how much faster they should have been. (we all suck the first time Sarah!)
The goal that once seemed so meaningful becomes strangely unimpressive the moment they achieve it. And then they wonder why success never seems to feel as good as they imagined.
You’ve Outsourced Your Sense of Success.
Here’s what I challenged Kathy to consider.
When you make your sense of accomplishment dependent on someone else’s actions, you’ve handed them the keys to your confidence.
Someone needs to buy the book.
A client needs to sign the contract.
Your partner needs to acknowledge your contribution.
The audience needs to applaud.
And until they do?
Apparently, you haven’t succeeded.
What a hell of a way to live.
Now, before you think I’m suggesting we abandon results, let me be clear.
Of course book sales matter. Kathy didn’t write that book just to admire it on her shelf. She wants it to reach people and make an impact.
And as her business advisor, you better believe we’re going to talk about pricing, distribution, marketing, and how the book supports her larger business goals.
But those are the NEXT goals.
Selling the book is a different accomplishment from WRITING the book.
Both deserve to be measured. Both deserve to be celebrated.
And one shouldn’t erase the other.
High Standards Are Great. Moving Finish Lines Are Exhausting.
I love ambitious people. They’re my people.
I love the ones who are already thinking about what’s next. The ones who see opportunities other people overlook. The ones who refuse to settle.
But there’s a difference between having high standards and making yourself impossible to impress.
One drives you forward.
The other convinces you that nothing you do will ever be enough.
And here’s the irony: We’re often quick to celebrate achievements in other people that we dismiss in ourselves.
If your friend wrote a book, you’d be thrilled.
If your colleague landed their dream client, you’d congratulate them.
But when YOU accomplish something extraordinary?
“Yeah, but…”
Oh, we’re going to have to work on that.
So Here’s My Challenge to You.
Think of something you’ve accomplished in the past year.
Something that required courage (at this level that often looks like embarrassment you had to face), effort, discipline, or a willingness to do something you’d never done before.
Now ask yourself:
Have I actually celebrated that accomplishment? Or did I immediately attach another condition to feeling successful?
You can be proud of what you’ve accomplished AND hungry for what’s next.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, learning to recognize your own progress is part of what allows you to keep growing. It fuels you up for the next summit.
Kathy wrote a book.
That’s a win.
Now let’s go sell the hell out of it.
But first, Kathy, take the damn win.
— April Garcia | PivotMe
Helping high achievers challenge the thinking and behaviors that got them here, so they can reach what’s next.
#Leadership #EntrepreneurMindset #PersonalGrowth #BusinessCoaching #HighAchievers
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