When will you feel like you've done enough?
There will always be more to achieve - when will what's already been done feel good enough?
I just don’t feel like I’ve achieved enough.
This is a common theme that I keep returning to, and when my overwhelm and anxiety and impending sense of burn-out is approaching a crescendo, I can normally be found in the foetal position on my sofa wailing to my husband that I just haven’t done enough. The last time I did this, which I think was about two months ago, he sat calmly next to me and said something that stopped my panic train in its tracks:
“When will you feel like you’ve achieved enough?”
He listed all my achievements to date: bought a home, had two children, traveled, relocated (twice), built a successful business, had articles published in national publications, won awards with the business, won awards for myself, got a book deal… and as he listed them all off, I was actually shocked at how many of the big dreams I’d had just a few years ago had been realised. I thought, f*ck, I actually have achieved quite a bit.
What would it take for me to feel like I was doing enough?
I thought that I just needed to be successful in my own business. Then I thought I just needed to be being paid for my writing. Then I thought if I could have opinion pieces in national papers, that would be when I’d really feel like I’d made it. But after all that, I reasoned, the only thing I’d ever truly wanted to achieve was to be a published author. Once I achieved that, then I’d be happy. Oh, wait, I’ve done that too. Am I feeling on top of the world and super proud of myself? No. I’m already thinking about the next big life goal and how behind I already am on that. (Compared to who? I have no idea. People who’ve already achieved those goals, maybe? People who haven’t been working on the rest of that big list, people who had different lists, people who have different lives and circumstances? Or maybe just the fictional version of me that I assume I could be if I only got my sh*t together. The “perfect” version of me who has it all. That bitch. I’m behind compared to her.)
The achievement trick
I worked in marketing for years, which means I know all the dirty tricks marketers employ to get you hooked on their products. One tactic that is particularly popular is gamification. Basically, if you give people badges or some kind of sense of passing through different levels, they get a little hit of dopamine for doing things with your product or platform, and so they keep going because our brains are junkies for dopamine. And now, I realise, the capitalist machine was way ahead of the marketing game - they’ve been using this trick on us for years.
Hi, sorry, can I just butt in for one second? This post is for paid subscribers and, if you’re one of them, you’ll be able to just carry on reading. In the rest of this post we’re going to be looking at where this achievement addiction comes from, whether it’s serving us, and what we can do about it. I’m also going to give you a heads up about a New Year’s Eve ritual I plan to share with you, and a creative retreat I’ll be hosting soon. If you’re not a paid subscriber, you could always use the seven-day free trial to finish this one off, then nosey around at some of the other paid posts to see if you fancy an upgrade. It’ll get you weekly posts like this, weekly creative prompts, creative wellbeing tools, and a monthly seasonal calendar. It will also mean the world to me and help me build my creative wellbeing practice. Ok, I’m quiet now, back to the post.
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