Basing Your Self-Worth On Achievement Is Dangerous And Harmful

We live in a society that is obsessed with achievement.

Parents are told to embed self-confidence and esteem in their children at a young age, though they often instill these qualities through rewarding their children based on external achievements — like getting an A on a test. And so children begin to think that when they perform well, people are happy with them. Red flag.

The problem with training self-worth to be a reflection of personal achievement is that it leaves that very individual feeling perpetually incomplete and constantly searching for wholeness.

What this means is that we’ve accidentally bred a culture where daily grinding is supposed to fuel self-worth — unfortunately it does not. This is one reason why some of the most successful humans on the planet still feel like they haven’t done enough. The truth is, with this mentality, they never will.

In his book, A Fearless Heart, Thupten Jinpa writes a chapter on The High Cost of Low Self-Compassion, where he discusses this dangerous cycle and why it is so challenging to remove ourselves from it, “We’re afraid that if we were to be gentle and kind with ourselves, to relax our grip, we might not accomplish anything at all. So we keep cracking our internal whip. It’s exhausting, struggling against the voice of our judgmental selves all the time just to carry on.”

When I read this I sat up straight in my chair.

For the last fours years I’ve made aggressive three-month, six-month, and one-year goals each year and revised them throughout. And for the last three years, this has been an empowering method for reaching life milestones and for building a more purpose-driven career.

But this week I opened my list of goals, and for the first time, instead of feeling empowered, I felt oppressed by my own internal whip. I felt like burning my journal.

And though I will not be burning my journal (because to burn a moleskine is to commit a federal offense) I will be negating that list — possibly even burning it. I am also most certainly not making New Years goals.

Let’s be done with New Years resolutions.

We cannot keep feeding the connection of self-worth to personal achievement, or the idea that we are not already whole exactly as we are. We cannot keep congratulating people who hustle 24/7, no matter how honorable their pursuits are.

We cannot keep reinforcing the go-go-go, do-do-do mentality — whether you are a social entrepreneur, a capitalist, a humanitarian, or a parent.

We need to support each other in slowing down. So to start, I’m supporting myself to do this very thing.