Powerhouse, high-achieving women are remarkable, largely due to their ability to dig deep when things get tough, overcome obstacles, and excel where others quit. Sarah Mobley, a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who specializes in women’s mental health in Littleton, Colorado states, “High-achieving women are, to a fault, amazing at compensation. So a lot of that compensation is coupled with a determined striving personality. I mean, that’s what makes them high-achieving.” As a trauma therapist and intensive specialist for high-achieving women, I daily see how these traits of determination and compensation are the reason amazing women have not only survived, but thrived through tough places. No matter the roots – high achievers are good at blasting aside any internal or external message of limitation and excelling where others quit or fail.
High-achievers are good at blasting aside any internal or external message of limitation and excelling where others quit or fail.
It can be nice to be so capable. It feels good to have made impressive moves, be highly competent, and have your life together. But what about when you find yourself up against an impossible situation? One where ‘digging deeper’ and ‘giving more’ no longer work?
High Expectation, Zero Empowerment, Toxic Work Culture, and Doing it all Yourself
For Sam, a Program Manager at a fintech startup in her late 20s, finding herself in a work situation where she was given an immense amount of responsibility without the necessary power to meet her assigned benchmarks for success proved impossible. She states, “A lot of my experiences at work result in me feeling like I am simultaneously powerful and powerless. I am responsible for the lack of success or failure of our company, but I’m powerless to change it or do anything different. This makes no sense. I am responsible and accountable, but I’m not actually empowered to affect change the way that I need to be.”
“I am simultaneously powerful and powerless.”
And for Sam, this expectation of success without empowerment increased the higher she went in the company. “The other element is feeling very vulnerable in the sense that, there’s very high visibility. Everybody’s looking at me and they’re expecting results from me. But the results are coming in a world where I am responsible, but also powerless.”
For Michelle, a Program Manager at Lockheed Martin Aerospace Company, her impossible situation came when the personalities and culture of her new workplace turned out to be highly critical, reactive, and at times explosive. She states, ‘After 15 years, I took this job where I was working with this level of personalities and people who… I just couldn’t do enough for them.”
And for Jill, a millennial Director of Operations for a feed company in Iowa, the impossible situation was the amount of work to be done plus a boss with few boundaries. She found herself managing care for aging family members, taking on increasing responsibility at work, and the cherry on top was a boss who would monopolize Jill’s time with endless non-work-related conversation. Jill states, “I was trying to do it all. I had no boundaries and wanted to help. But ultimately doing all of that was asking too much. I threw myself into my job and got to a point where I knew if anyone asked me to do one more thing I don’t know what I would do!!” And that is where the panic attacks came in – the pressure got so high it started impacting her health.
So these women called out the problem, set boundaries, and said “Sayonara!” to the jerks who were gaslighting them. Right? Well…not exactly.
High Achieving Women Default to “I must try harder.” “It must be my fault.”
For Sam, her default response was to try harder, “I’m in the midst of this mess. I feel all this pressure. And my response was like, well, I just need to work harder. I just need to put in more time. I just need to think more. I just need to get more results. I need to change my tact with people. And more and more, more and more… the only resource I have is to reach deeper inside and pull more out.”
For Michelle, the impossible situation resulted in her doubting herself. The anxiety of wondering what more she could do or should have done built up and kept her from being present in the moment. “I’m constantly having these conversations in my head. It’s hard for me to live in the present because I’m either trying to strategize the future or that perfectionist part is beating myself up about the past. The back of my brain is always going thinking, ‘Well, I should be doing this, or I should be doing that and I should have done this, and I should have done that.’”
But Why?
At some point, every high-achiever comes face-to-face with a situation that is actually impossible for one person to handle. Everyone, no matter how high powered, has limits. So why, with all their super-skills, do high-achievers especially struggle to make the moves and accept the help they need when they meet impossible circumstances?
You have learned to minimize your own needs and feelings in order to survive
Sarah Mobley PMHNP puts it this way, “Part of that process of compensation in some women is to minimize the trials, the traumas that they’ve been through, because it slows them down… They think, ‘My emotions are not valid. I’m being dramatic.’ And that really, really allows trauma and psychiatric symptoms to fester just because they’re in that survival mode … nothing’s gonna get in their way until life knocks ’em down.” As Sarah points out, high achievers are used to taking care of everything themselves, so they wait until there is no other option before getting help.
Your Identity as ‘Achiever’ is Threatened if You Admit Limits
When someone’s identity is closely tied to being successful, in control, and being the best, it can feel like there is a higher risk associated with failing. The question is, ‘What does it mean about me if I fail? If I accept help does that mean I am weak, a failure, or a bad person?’ Jennifer Livingstone a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner in Littleton, CO puts it in her own words, “One of the first things that I notice in people is there is vulnerability that they present with. Like, ‘I’m not used to this. I’m not used to asking for help. I am a high achiever and this doesn’t normally happen to me.’” Sarah Mobley describes her high-power clients like this, “They see (needing help) as a character flaw. And so it’s something that they have to stuff down in order to fulfill the person that they see themselves being, or the person that they want to be. And so that kind of creates that chronic tendency to minimize what (they are) feeling, because it’s not helping towards being the person they strive to be. And often that is associated with what others think of me. I’m not weak.”
‘I’m not used to this. I’m not used to asking for help. I am a high achiever and this doesn’t normally happen to me.’
Much like the high-achieving women Sarah and Jennifer see in their practice, Michelle states, “It really comes from this level of my perfectionist tendencies, feeling like I’m not enough and trying to prove that I’m enough. And those are all happening in my subconscious. My conscious can say, ‘I don’t really care what these people think about me. This isn’t my identity and this isn’t my life’s worth.’ But there is also a part of me that’s like, ‘Well, if I just try hard enough… then I will be enough.’” For Sam, behind that drive to do more and give more was the pressure and belief that she was the problem, “I am supposed to be able to do this by myself. And so the fact that I can’t, or that I’m struggling is not okay. And there’s a little bit of shame or embarrassment wrapped up in that. Why am I struggling so much? It must be me. That’s the problem. So I need to fix myself.” For high-achieving professional women, it can feel like needing help means that they are no longer capable, strong, and worthy.
For high-achieving professional women, it can feel like needing help means that they are no longer capable, strong, and worthy.
So what can You do about it?
Prioritize Your Own Needs
What helped Sam was realizing the importance of prioritizing her own needs first. “I ended up understanding that I’m the one responsible for my life and therefore it actually matters the most what I think, feel, and experience about my own life more than anybody else.” This change and the healing she has done has enabled her to both be more herself, and accept support from others. This change “ultimately has allowed me to become a more playful, integrated person that can handle the tension between type A and chill much easier…I’m getting more comfortable with (acknowledging) I have limits as a human.”
“I’m the one responsible for my life and therefore it actually matters the most what I think, feel, and experience about my own life more than anybody else.”
Learn to Set Boundaries and Rest
What helped Jill was learning to set boundaries and take a break. In our conversation, Jill told me about the time when, after seeking medical assistance due to the struggles she was facing, her provider told her, “With the way that you are, you need to learn how to rest. Like, that’s the first thing you need to do.” Jill’s response, like many high-achieving women was at first surprise and confusion. She told me, “I don’t know how, like, I don’t know how to say no and I don’t know how to rest.” But since that initial discussion with her doctor, Jill has seen the helpful impact of learning to set limits and resting.
Do the Deep Work
As a high achieving woman, giving yourself the chance to process the trauma that taught you that controlled, Do-It-Yourself independence is the only way to remain safe is the key to powerful healing and growth. It’s easy to say ‘just don’t think that way’ but a whole other ball game to internalize that truth enough to overcome your default protective mechanisms. Often we are not able to shift such long-standing beliefs without healing the source that drove them home in the first place. In the end, it’s not just a matter of cognitive belief – it’s a matter of unhealed pain.
In the end, it’s not just a matter of cognitive belief – it’s a matter of unhealed pain.
Ultimately, You are Still in the Driver’s Seat
Fortunately, these solutions don’t have to mean you lose all control. Jennifer Livingstone, PMHNP tells her clients, “You know what? I’m here to support you and walk beside you. I’m not gonna tell you how you have to do it. I’ll give you guidance. But at the end of the day, this is about a collaborative approach. You are the patient, you know the most about your body and your situation and what your mental health goals are.” The good news is you DO have power – It may not be over everything, and may not be over every scenario. But you have choices when it comes to yourself, your actions, and your resources.
“At the end of the day, you know the most about your body and your situation… you have choices when it comes to yourself, your actions, and your resources.”
You have choices. If you are interested in doing the deep work to heal the beliefs that tell you that you need to handle everything, and you won’t be safe if you say no, accept help or prioritize your needs, click HERE to schedule a free consultation with me to talk further about if a Trauma Clearing Intensive might be a good fit for you.
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