Hyper Achiever Impact on Stress

Stress impacts your mind’s ability to be creative and resourceful in dealing with problems. 

Nothing new in that observation.

But what makes some of us so attached to our performance that every time something goes wrong, we stress out way too much. 

Sometimes stress builds up even when things actually are going well.

For many, it comes down to attaching achievements as the key to their identity and self-worth. 

It is a typical Hyper Achiever character trait.

The Hyper Achievers are commonly driven to achieve their highest possible achievement… so they can feel happy and worthy. 

In reality, the opposite happens. 

By defining yourself based on your achievements, you’ll never have peace in your heart or mind. 

This is because the Hyper Achiever constantly demands more and more as a condition for you to be happy and satisfied with yourself. 

It’s like a monster that is always hungry… 

The Hyper Achiever in you never let’s you feel happy for long.

It makes you constantly push yourself harder because you are not achieving “enough”. 

It makes you feel frustrated with others who aren’t as useful as they should be to reach your goals. 

It exposes you to self-doubt or a sense of unworthiness because your achievements are never enough. 

When you are experiencing any of the above negative emotions, it’s a sign that you are in a Hyper Achiever mode. 

You want to be a High Performer, not a Hyper Achiever. 

Because, at the end, Hyper Achievers achieve less, not more.  

The way to weaken the Hyper Achiever trait is not by getting upset at it or arguing with it. That will just feed the negative energies.

The way to weaken the Hyper Achiever is by activating the brain areas responsible for peak performance and feeling “in the flow.”

Functional MRI shows that it can be done in as little as 10 seconds of heightened attention to one physical sensation. 

You can do it, for example, by focusing on feeling the weight of your body on your seat for 10 seconds, or feel the weight of your feet on the floor, or feel your breath, or focus on hearing one ambient sound in the room. 

The 10 seconds of hyper-awareness on any of the above or other physical sensation of your choice will begin to shift your brain activity to a region where you can tap into your creativity and fearless, clear-headed and laser-focused action.

Your body releases endorphins, and you’ll feel at peace and positive, and perform better. 

When the negative Hyper Achiever thoughts and feelings come back, you get to repeat the 10 second exercise.

The more you do them, the more it lays down new neural pathways in the brain area for High Performance.

Virpi