High achievement isn’t just about working hard; it’s about vision, leadership, and making a meaningful impact. But how do you balance that relentless drive with the need for a fuller, more rounded life? In this vlog, I dive into what it truly means to be a high achiever, the common pitfalls that come with it, and practical steps to ensure your success doesn’t come at the cost of your well-being. Let’s explore how to maintain your growth while keeping your life in balance.
Hello, hello. I am Carri Richard. I’m a mindset coach, and today we are talking all about what is a high achiever. Now, we’re not just going to define what a high achiever is, of course. We’re going to talk about what those traits are, what the best pieces of being a high achiever that drive, and most importantly, how to balance that for your ultimate growth and also a full round life.
So let’s get into this. What is a high achiever? Let’s define What high achievement is from the context of… This is from a lot of interviews with the people that I work with. They all seem to come from a similar place.
When people come to work with me, They are usually at the very top of their game, whether it’s in corporate, whether it’s in the business that they have, whether it’s in academia. It could be in all kinds of industries.
They are running at a very high level, and they are also questioning how to continue that growth in the 24 hours a day that they have, or how to maintain that growth or even maintain it and have more balance in their life.
So in speaking with many of these high achievers, they speak about it that we are not someone who’s just hard working. Often, they don’t associate with just a nine to five job, like They show up at 9:00, leave at 5:00. There’s way more to it.
They’re often very invested in what they’re doing. And often they’re rewriting the script, whether they’re in corporate or anything else. They are creating the job they’re in. They’re creating new business. They’re going above and beyond. They’re also unsatisfied with the status quo. So this goes It goes back to nine to five. It’s not clock in, clock out.
If you can relate to this, you are a high achiever. There’s also a concept of leadership. The picture is often a very broad picture. It’s not just what am I doing, but what is the community doing? What is the team doing? What is the business doing? And they’re always considering more than just their little hula hoop. You could call it visionary. You could call it, like I said, leader or servant leader. Always have a broad picture. And what this lends itself to is the ability to make major impact wherever they are, to bring people together, to really move the needle, whether it’s their business, someone else’s business, Business, education, whatever it may be.
And these are all amazing, amazing qualities. And in addition to all of this, when a high achiever is doing all these things, it’s easy to ask them to do more. They’re going to get it done. Let’s ask so and so because they’re going to get it done. And often what happens is that these women’s hearts, they just want to do the best for the largest group.
And often they will come in, they will be burnt out or discontent or because some area of their life is being sacrificed to do these achievements. And some of the ways that they describe that is it’s too much. I’m burnt out, unbalanced. Sometimes this hyper focus can really wreak havoc in relationships. I’m Always fighting with time. There are too many offers of things to do. Not having discernment about saying yes and saying no. And often they say yes a lot or just getting lost in the needs. Sometimes high achievement also, especially if you’re trying to do it all by yourself, is very lonely. And this is where The answer, the thought, the thinking of I have to do more to continue to grow or work harder, it no longer works.
And this is a good place to be because you can do it differently. Actually, in doing it differently, it can change everything. So I want to talk about some of the things that can be done when you’re at that tipping point, or even better before you get to that tipping point.
I work with a lot of clients, and the first thing we do I have seven steps to sustain success, which allows you to have balance in your life and really actually make a bigger impact where you’re focused than you could if you’re just doing it by running faster, working harder, working more, because we humans are not that just meant we’re not part of a factory.
We’re not just a mechanism to get work done. When we are balanced, then our ability to produce, to contribute, to be part of our creativity, all of these things are heightened. So the first step is to get back to some balance. I have one client who came from academia and one of her statements, she was definitely at the top of her field. And one of her statements as she moved into this new position, this new place was, well, everybody works seven days a week in academia.
And it’s like, well, everybody may work seven days a week, but that does not mean that you have to join that context. And so over time, she was able to let go of that story to actually bring it back to five days a week and to have time off and to do other things. And that has allowed her career to skyrocket, in addition to being able to do things outside of it without being burnt out. So the first step is stop. Before you can make thoughtful, conscientious, intentional changes, stop. And that doesn’t mean you just let everything go and kick everything to the curve.
That’s not it at all. But it’s to build in some time in your day. My suggestion is the very first thing in your day and stop this pattern. It’s to give yourself. My encouragement is always the first 60 minutes of your day is for you, for your agenda. It’s not waking up and getting on your phone and finding out what’s going on, whether it’s in the news, whether it’s in your business, whether anything. It’s just for you. Every day is new. You’re new in it. Begin with yourself.
The next one that What we go through is look. So it’s taking an inventory of, I utilize six different areas of your life. We have relationships, finance, fun, career, vocation, passion, health and well-being, personal development. So we look at all of these areas and look at… Sometimes, some of those areas are nonexistent. And look at these six areas and what’s most important.
You can’t be a 10 out of 10 in all six areas. That’s not the point. This isn’t about doing everything 100 % all the time. This is about which is most important Where is there a real deficit? And do you want to take some of your time that you spend here and really start to balance the scales? And it’s different for everybody, and it’s also different every year. So we look at that and look at where you are and where you want to move towards.
When you can take the time, step back, and have a focus on what’s most important to you, this is where you can really start to move the needle in your life, in your whole life. Often, when these high achievers come, I don’t have time for that.
And my Encouragement is take the time and you will find that you actually create more time in doing so. The next one is listen. And this isn’t listening to everything that’s coming in. This is actually listening to your heart, giving yourself space to really look at what your dreams are, what’s most important, what you like about what you’re doing, what’s going well, but also what’s not going well, and having this non-judgmental observation of everything that’s going on so that you can take a real look instead of running and hoping It’s going to change.
Then we go into dreams. Often, I hear, Well, I’ll do that someday, or after this next phase or something like that. My encouragement, the dreams are sown in your heart. You’ve had them for a long time. And when we ignore them, this is also an area of imbalance.
Again, this doesn’t mean you have to quit your job or stop what you’re doing or let everything go. However, it’s also getting in touch with what’s most important to you. You get to do that. The next one, we look at goals. So we have slowed down, taken a look, listened to what’s important, looked at what our dreams are.
And then we develop goals based on that, a balanced look, not just what I need to do by the fourth quarter. These are also… They are We’re driven by habit, by small incremental shift. The goal itself may be really big, but we really look at, okay, what are the next steps to work towards that goal? So we break it down. We have a whole system around this. Then you got to take action, right?
Now you have these goals that are balanced across all six areas, and this is taking action. And often when we’re doing something new, this is where community is so important. This is where it’s so important to have somebody to say, Hey, look, to be held accountable, to be encouraged, to say, You know what? This is hard for me, too. This is all new territory, and we’re going to do it together. And then the last one is stay the course.
When we’re taking small incremental shift, often we don’t see the results right away. And this is, again, where it’s so important to have community, to have people who are walking this path with you, to have that accountability, that at a girl, that just the encouragement of staying with it, being consistent, because life still gets lifey, especially for high achievers.
Again, they’re at the top of their game. They usually there’s a lot going on. They have very full lives already. So the ability to not get distracted from all of this work is where we do a lot of encouragement. We also do a lot of celebration along the way because when you’re trying to go from A to B, It may be 15 steps in between. And if we don’t celebrate these 15 steps in between, it’s hard to stay the course. It’s more difficult. So we’re always looking way out here instead of, look, this is another step I’ve done. And often for high achievers, we don’t take a lot of time to celebrate.
So that’s it for today. I would love to hear Are you a high achiever? Can you relate to this? If you want to know more, please get in touch with me. I do have a jumpstart call that you can find on my website. I’d be happy to talk to you. It’s a free call. And let’s talk about how you can slow down and balance. And when that happens, this is where you can really make the impact. This is another thing about high achievers.
They’re always looking at the bigger picture. They want to go above and beyond, and the impact that they want to make is huge. So I would love to help you do that. All right. Until next time. That’s it.
