Over Achieving, Stress and Exhaustion
Jun 14th, 2008 by zania
One of the things which leads to stress, in my case, is my tendency to try to over achieve in everything I do. One psychiatrist I spoke to about this immediately suggested medicine for Bipolar Disorder. I didn’t take it however, as I am in no way convinced I am Bipolar.
Yes, I have ‘highs’ and ‘lows’, but so does everyone else. And yes, when I am on a ‘high’ I do find new projects to do and I find this exciting and stimulating. But doesn’t everyone feel this way when they begin a new project that they think will do well?
We need to be stimulated about new projects or we would never achieve our goals. How many entrepreneurs would have achieved all they have if they had not been excited about beginning their work? It’s that stimulus which keeps us going in the face of setbacks and it’s that stimulus, plus a high belief in oneself, which defines those who ‘make it’ and those who do not.
Does that make all high achievers Bipolar? Does it hell!
I am one of those people who have a host of new ideas arriving in my head all at the same time (and this occurs even when I am depressed). When I feel good, I can be excited about all of them and work on them all at the same time. I’ll admit, this can get mightily confusing as I am not the most organised person, but it still works.
Again, that doesn’t make me Bipolar, I just have an enquiring mind 
No, what the ‘condition of my mind’ makes me is an innovator; someone with new ideas. It makes me damn good at setting things up to achieve the end goals as well. It also makes me good at ‘ducking and diving’; finding different ways to achieve things where others have failed. In fact, in the face of adversity on a new project I will often excell. Because I have to be the best…
And that is my ‘problem’. Having to do my very best at every project I undertake is the only option I allow myself and that is what drags me down.
Because ‘trying to be the best’ is exhausting.
The way around this would be to take a more measured approach; to hold back a little from putting my all into everything I do.
But that would be self-defeating, because my achievements are based upon ‘being the best’…
It is nothing to do with a mental illness. It probably has a lot to do with the way my parents brought me up. They gave me masses of encouragement and support in everything I did, but because of this I put myself under pressure not to let them down. That inheritance is what motivates me still today. It is not their fault, just the way I reacted to their help.
But it has nothing to do with a mental illness (my depression is caused by things other than this). It is more a ’social conditioning’ factor, if you want to give it a label.
Of course coping with this constant ‘need to achieve’ and the exhaustion it brings is something I need to deal with. But in this case, pills for depression or bipolar disorder would not help. In fact, anything which slowed me down would distress me more because it would prevent me from achieving and non achievement is not an option.
This is something which I have to deal with myself, by finding ways to ‘chill out’.
And you can tell me until you are blue in the face that “you can be accepted for who you are, not for what you achieve”.
My answer to that would be, “try living in the real world”.
Doesn’t help though, does it?
[...] was talking yesterday about how being an over achiever can lead to stress and exhaustion, but there is something else which is making me hover on the verge of exhaustion at the moment, and [...]