Your worth does not hinge on your achievement.
You could have hit me with this many times like a fish across the face and I still would not have gotten it.
(I imagine someone probably did, in the philosophical sense)
I realize that I have stumbled gleefully into the “post-achievement” season of my life (thanks to Michael Port, hat tip for sparking a version of the term).
As a retrospective, I see now that there are three categories for achievers, or, how I’ve lived my life.
Striving: Most of my existence has been this, perhaps ages 0-30+. It’s grinding in the work, climbing a ladder someone left for you, or basically trying desperately to meet and exceed the parameters set out in front of you.
Surviving: Those seasons of life that feel impossible but you do them anyways because you find the need to attempt all of your usual striver responsibilities while adding trauma or struggle to the mix. It’s as if you are spinning 10 plates over your head but now it feels much harder with that 25 MPH breeze. My first year of work following becoming a parent was surviving. I hardly remember any of it other than being certain I was going to get fired for another daycare-born virus, and eating Nilla wafers every day while pumping milk. I pretended it was my “spa time,” because it was the only way to get some GD peace and quiet. If pumping with some cheap carbs is spa time, you may be “surviving.”
Thriving: An era post-striving or -surviving where you are deeply knowing and content with who you are and how you live. You are fresh out of concern for goals, requirements or boxes people try and give you. Not lazy, simply unbothered. Prioritized with precision. Willing to know when something is not for you.
It feels terrifying as a reformed post-achiever to let go of achieving. To stop placing value on productivity. When you have been successful your entire life muscling your way through with achievement, it is easy to assume that you can’t be successful without it. Ahhh, but there’s that word. Success. It only matters when that is your definition of success. And I know for sure that productivity or misguided achievements aren’t mine any more.
And so, alas, we must go and “murder our darlings” as we say in the writing world. Release that which doesn’t work for us anymore even though we desperately want to keep it for ourselves. I know I must release the achievement struggle to be the person I want to be now in this season of my life.
I am attempting to remove, with surgical precision, any thoughts, ideas, workload, tasks, and “to-dos” that require me to be someone else, act like something I am not, or edit my existence and content to “fit in.” (Within reason; I’m not an asshole. I still care that I affect those around me positively.)
When I need to remove the judgement from things, I use the comparison of apples and oranges. Both are great. And sometimes an apple is needed here, and I am an orange. “That’s great that you love apples here. I love that for you. I am an orange.” Neither is better or worse, just different.
I hope all my current-achiever and post-achiever friends here can relate. Let’s all meet at thriving. We ride at dawn. Bring Nilla wafers.
Your worth does not hinge on your achievement.
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