How to Stop Living for Achievements?

Of course, you shouldn't give up all your endeavors or abandon important goals to cope with addiction to success.

After all, there is nothing wrong with having achievements. It’s wonderful to have money, a job, a car, an apartment, etc.

Problems begin when you consider yourself worthless, a failure, and an unworthy person without these indicators of success.

To free yourself from the trap of having to be outstanding and effective, we suggest you think about the following:

If you think rationally, by choosing to live by the concept of achievements, you are dooming yourself to endless emotional swings.

Today you have reached some heights and are happy, but tomorrow you fail, and life takes on completely different colors. There are achievements – you’re great, no achievements – you’re a failure.

Your mood will be easily controlled. If others understand that you are dependent on achievements, they can easily use this to their advantage.

For example, a boss can overload you, knowing that you will work yourself to death but do everything for the next praise.

Money, fame, and achievements have long been seen as a guarantee of happiness and well-being. But if happiness depended on a person's success, we would observe significant differences between people of different social statuses.

Most people cannot boast serious achievements, yet many of them are happy and satisfied with their lives.

But again, being content does not mean not striving or wanting more. There is a huge gap between a healthy desire to achieve set goals and dependency.

In reality, even those who earn a lot, hold prestigious positions, or own a successful business, can suffer from depression, have various problems, or simply become disillusioned with life.

For example, the well-known Lady Gaga, who seems successful, rich, and happy at first glance, founded the ‘Born This Way Foundation’ to help teenagers in difficult situations because the singer knows about difficulties firsthand.

Or Jim Carrey, who gave fans the opportunity to sincerely smile and receive positive emotions from his work, but even at the peak of his popularity, the actor did not feel like laughing.

Jim fought severe depression for many years.

This is not only about celebrities; businesspeople often complain about mental disorders and dependencies.

In fact, many successful people end their lives by suicide. There is even a special term – ‘CEO suicide.’

This phenomenon has affected: billionaire Adolf Merckle from the Forbes list, startup founders Ilya Zhitomirskiy and Austin Heinz, fashion house owner Kate Spade, and many others.

So, if you still think that success equals happiness, you are deeply mistaken.

Imagine you meet your friend, whom you value very much. But suddenly you find out that he is an ordinary shop assistant, while you own a business and are a rich and successful person.

Will you look down on him, placing him below yourself?

Maybe it is important to you that this friend acknowledges their insignificance compared to you? Is it pleasant for you to be such a person?

And what if you were in this friend's place?

Are all children failures?

If value is possessed only by those who have achieved something in their life, then children are the greatest nobodies on the planet.

Well, what? Infants can’t even hold their heads up. Or do they still have value?

If so, why does an infant have value?

After all, they haven't contributed anything to this world, they can’t even speak. Surely, both you and the infant are valued not for your achievements, but for who you are.

And the other way around. Should we now exterminate all the grandmothers and grandfathers?

Every person has value.

We think that value is a quantitative unit that can be measured and counted. But in fact, value is a qualitative unit.

Do not compare your achievements with those of others.

Comparing yourself with others brings nothing but discomfort and self-doubt.

It generates feelings of envy that fuel the dependence on success. You feel that you are not doing enough when you compare your achievements with those of others, which reinforces your desire to participate in the race with others.

People who are addicted to success often feel guilty for allowing themselves to rest, spend time with loved ones, or engage in activities that are not directly related to their goals.

Undoubtedly, achievements have some significance in life, but by far not the most important. You bet on success, but forget to live. Learn to balance work/study and other areas of life.

Listen to what you and your body want. Don’t brush off signals, take care of yourself with all your might.

To change the belief system, it is very important to keep responding to negative automatic thoughts that make you feel incomplete.

This will help you understand that the problem is not in your successes or failures, but in your critical attitude towards yourself and the habit of scolding yourself. When you learn to realistically evaluate your activities, satisfaction and self-acceptance will increase.

When talking about successful people, we, of course, immediately think of popular singers, famous actors, top businesspeople, and public politicians.

But what about teachers, doctors, builders, and people of other unpopular professions on whom our tomorrow depends? But if we speak objectively, all these people are often more useful to society than those who are usually envied.

In conclusion, we want to share a wonderful thought from a book by journalist David Orr.

He writes that the planet does not need a large number of successful people; it needs more peacemakers, healers, storytellers, and just loving people.

It needs people with morals, those who make the world kinder and more humane. The planet needs people with whom it is simply good to live.

No one is against ambitious goals and climbing career heights. But it is very important that all aspects of life are in harmony.

You don’t need to earn someone's love or respect through exhausting work, and it is not necessary to be the first to feel fulfilled and maintain a stable self-esteem.

Just remember that “the most important things in the world are not things at all!”