Surely, you could have done a much better job if it had been you doing the work. You may have a hard time accepting that sometimes things just don’t go as planned. 5. You are less focused on success and more focused on avoiding bad outcomes. You may not mean to do it, but you may find yourself looking at other people through the lens of their successes and failures. The need to overachieve is often rooted in anxiety and the need to maintain control over everything within reach. You may work hard, long hours at work to provide for your children, not because you want them to be happy, but because you are afraid of being a bad parent. They may look for ways to avoid responsibility for failure, refuse to accept blame for their responsibilities, or have a list of excuses for why they failed.

Success is exciting. It’s fun, and it feels good. But the overachiever does not necessarily view success as something to celebrate. You can be someone that gets things done, a lot of things done, without undermining your relationships or ruining your health. You’ve already taken the first step just by searching for and reading this article. The worst thing you can do right now is nothing. The best thing is to speak to a therapist. The next best thing is to implement everything you’ve learned in this article by yourself. The choice is yours. The key to making the change is to understand why you feel that you need to overachieve in the first place. That might be working themselves to the bone at work. It might be overcompensating in relationships because they feel they do not deserve the love they are receiving unless they can somehow ‘repay’ their partner. 3. You have a difficult time accepting failure.The authentic you is not perfect and will not always achieve. The authentic you will get things wrong from time to time and may be a little bit weird. The more control the overachiever can exert over those things, the less their anxiety troubles them. 2. You have low self-esteem and tie your worth to your achievements. The boss knows they can always call on you to do the unpleasant tasks at work, and you’ll agree because you’re afraid of being a lousy employee.

Success doesn’t offer much happiness but instead provides relief that things didn’t go badly. And now, it’s time to start planning for the next project or promotion. The need for perfection often comes from dark, painful places. But you’re not perfect. No one is. It’s impossible to be. That may be tied to something like a previous abusive relationship, an abusive upbringing, or other unresolved issues related to your sense of self-worth and well-being. You may very well need to explore that angle with a certified mental health therapist to better unravel your story.You’ll never do all of your work, art, or love perfectly. You’ll never perfectly accomplish everything that you want to accomplish. It’s a lie that keeps you from meaningfully achieving. Here’s that link again if you’d like to learn more about the service BetterHelp.com provide and the process of getting started. The overachiever may find themselves regularly keeping score with their partner about who does what.

But by being authentic and honest about your struggles instead of covering them up or avoiding failure, you create a rich opportunity to meaningfully connect with other people.The overachiever is continually looking for opportunities to move forward, even at the cost of other aspects of their life or health. 8. Your actions and choices are based on a fear of being inadequate or not good enough. They may also feel like they are in direct competition with their partner to ensure they are a “good” partner. An overachiever may associate their achievements with their sense of self-worth. They may feel like they aren’t good enough if they aren’t earning whatever they’re receiving, even if it’s not relevant. This list is not exhaustive and does not affect your statutory rights. Faulty or incorrectly delivered goods If they failed, then maybe they didn’t try hard enough, work hard enough, do everything that was within their power to succeed. Maybe they were lazy!