EP 120 | OVERACHIEVING, WORKAHOLISM, AND PEFECTIONISM

Welcome to Overachiever’s Club…

 

The first rule of Overachiever’s Club is that you make sure to tell everyone about how hard it is to get into. The second rule is the hours are 24/7 and there are no breaks. The third rule is “that’s not good enough, I’ll just do it myself…”

It happens to doctors, lawyers, writers, and movie stars. Artists and entrepreneurs. Athletes and soccer moms. Influencers and small business owners. You know those fabulous people who seem to be able to do it all and have it all figured out? Like they just keep winning and have impossibly fancy jobs and nice cars and vacation homes and are amazing at everything?

Yeah, some of them are hiding beneath the mask of having it all together but inside are drowning in an eternally stagnant pool of not enoughness, burnout, and exhaustion.

Endless productivity and output is a recipe for anxiety, depression, chronic illness, and immune disorders just to name a few.

I went Googling for quotes from notable people about their overachieverism and workaholism, thinking I would find some vulnerable and well-loved writers or actresses or athletes who have overcome this behavior and shared about it.

Nope. What I mostly found instead was “inspiring workaholism quotes” like this one from Venus Williams: “I’m this overachiever type, I’ll just work and work and I’ll just do it over and over and over again.”

It would not behoove the system to get people to see perfectionism and workaholism in a negative light. Endless hard work = success and value. That is what we are told. And this is reinforced time and time again by the selling of the American Dream. That if you just kick ass all day every day, you too will get to rise out of the sad problems of the unwashed masses and live the good life. And if you don’t it’s because you just don’t have what it takes to make it.

Perfectionism has no bounds. No matter how successful, or beautiful, or rich or famous. No matter how many degrees and awards and accolades you get. No matter how “I AM WINNING LIFE” someone appears to be on the outside, that black void of crippling self-doubt and fear is the great equalizer.

As Alan Watts says, “The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

Instead, you build your identity around what you do to make money. You squeeze every last drop out of your capacity until you collapse into a heap so that you can maybe get a little adoration and a little love. So that you can feel seen and heard. But the you that receives that isn’t even the real, fully expressed you.

The thing about being a workaholic perfectionist is that it’s exhausting and impossible to maintain long term. There is no system that can support being over extended and beyond its load capacity indefinitely. It will fail. That’s true for human beings and it’s true for Nature.

We are living in an unprecedented time of extraction, production, and consumption. So much so that we begin the never ending marathon of achievement at a young age. Thinking that if you just DO enough, then you will receive the love and recognition you so desperately crave.

Maybe it’s ok go after want you want with everything you have. Or maybe this flawed, competitive, scarcity driven system isn’t the most solid foundation for measuring your worthiness?

It’s almost like confidence and self-worth are an inside job. That you have to decide you are lovable and worthy no matter what you do or how much you produce. That the only thing that can fill the gaping void inside is a relationship with Spirit and living fully authentically without apology.

Your value is intrinsic because you are a divine manifestation of creation. We’ve got it a bit backwards and it’s kind of killing us?

If you don’t believe in your inherent value and awesomeness… ​ If you can’t open your heart and truly feel the magic you are contributing to the world by just existing… ​ And you are struggling with workaholism, overachieving, or perfectionism…

That fear is standing in the way of everything beautiful that is trying to come through you in life.

So WTF is this compulsive drive to excel and win and achieve? Where does it come from? Why do so many smart, amazing people struggle with crippling self- doubt and believe they are fundamentally unlovable? How can plant medicine help you out of this thought pattern?

Overcoming this faulty belief system is part of the journey to greater evolution, especially for those of us on the spiritual path. This episode of ​The Psychedelic Integration Podcast​ is for anyone who has struggled with being “too busy” or feels like you are constantly striving to do more and it never feels like enough. Learn how workaholism and overachieving are deeply ingrained in our culture, and how psychedelics offer an opportunity to challenge these tendencies.

Love, ​
Sinclair