The Achievement Trap
The addictive trappings of growth.
Thanks for reading Full Circles: Meditations on the Inner and Outer Life. If you are new here, learn about me, and the About Page.
These posts are meant to be what Lewis Hyde describes as a “Gift.” What this “Gift” concept means for me is that
Nothing is expected out of you.
I hope you receive it.
I hope this animates and transforms you.
I hope you spread the love to others.
The Achievement Trap
Not everything needs to be a self-improvement project.
Not everything is about development, improvement, or growth. It's also no coincidence that when we say someone has a tumour, we call that a "growth."
When we overemphasise on the insatiable need to keep getting better, to improve, or to grow, we fall prey into the achievement trap. The achievement trap is a trap because it indicates that something is lacking. This trap makes us think we're not good enough as we are now. We feel like we always need to do more and *be* more. As if we are not enough, in deficit, or worse, that there's something wrong about us.
This achievement trap has its roots like an addiction. This "growth"1 for it's own sake, or as Stephen Jenkinson puts it, "…untethered to the consequences of growth … grows itself to death (like a cancer)."
There's nothing wrong with trying to improve—some might even suggest that if people take on a self-improvement project, our lives might be a better place. Often times, the person that they are referring to is not themselves, but others.
The bigger project of our lives is not one about self-improvement. Rather, it is more about going back to our original self, figuring out our gifts, what's natural to each of us, and to allow that to come forth more fully so that you are more fully alive.
Come Alive
Fred Rogers, the beloved host/author/producer of American kids TV series, Mr Roger’s Neighborhood told a story about a sculptor in a nursery school he was working in when he was getting his master’s degree in child development:
"There was a man who would come every week to sculpt in front of the kids. The director said, “I don’t want you to teach sculpting, I want you to do what you do and love it in front of the children.”
During that year, clay was never used more imaginatively, before or after…. A great gift of any adult to a child, it seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child. I mean, if you love to bicycle, if you love to repair things, do that in front of the children. Let them catch the attitude that that’s fun. Because you know, attitudes are caught, not taught.”
Nurture Your Nature
Our Nature is designed to be nurtured, informed by our needs.
Our task is to mother our nature. Without this nurturance, motivated individuals end up on the hamster-wheel of constant addictive self-improvement.
Even if our nature is our most annoying trait, we can cultivate something out of it. (See Josh Shipp’s video below).
Sr Joan Chittister points out,
Life is not meant to be a burden. Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a blessing to be celebrated.
Discover and celebrate your gifts. It’s contagious.
Related Posts From the Archive:
Thanks for reading Full Circles: Meditations on the Inner and Outer Life. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Daryl Chow Ph.D. is the author of The First Kiss, co-author of Better Results, and The Write to Recovery, Creating Impact, and the new book The Field Guide to Better Results .
If you are a helping professional, you might like my other Substack, Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD).
Some economists advocate less on growth and more on "de-growth," which is specifically about actively scaling down resource and energy use, and not sucking the life out of our planetary gifts.
"Mothering our nature" is such an important way to re-frame "self-improvement". It implies a nourishing and self-compassionate path.
An interesting tension here with Deliberate Practice :)