My Toxic Relationship with Achievement (and Maybe Yours Too)

There is a feeling of emptiness I feel when I achieve a goal that was supposed to make me happy.

Could it be that I’m simply manifesting my insatiable nature as a human being?

It’s like edging yourself for an orgasm, and when it’s supposed to finally hit, nothing happens… and you just have to continue with your life.

It often makes me wonder how I will feel when I achieve some of my biggest dreams of success.

Will I get to the peak of it all and feel indifferent?

Of course, this doesn’t stop me from wanting all the good things in life. In fact, I have a crippling fear of living a mediocre life. I just don’t know how to get the dopamine hit I often expect from achievement.

The first time I noticed the pattern of my toxic relationship with achievement was when I went to the spa for the first time.

Minor as it might sound, it had been a goal of mine for a while, especially since I became a skin care addict. I was so excited when I could finally afford it. I was sure the spa treatment would make me feel ecstatic. But when I went, it all felt very mundane. And then I came back, money gone and unfulfilled.

The same thing happened when I got admission into uni, bought my first iPhone and all the phones after, bought my ‘dream’ laptop, rented my first apartment, got my first big girl alert, etc.

Each time. I felt the same. Underwhelmed. Unenthusiastic.

The milestones would arrive, and my mind would accept them as facts and move on within the blink of an eye.

I’ve recently discovered that this feeling I speak of is Achievement Dysmorphia (or productivity dysmorphia or post-achievement let down/depression).1

Post achievement depression is like the feeling you get when you finish your favourite series or you come down from a high. Now what?

It’s a phenomenon where people struggle to perceive, recognise, experience, or accept their achievements.

You reach a goal and feel nothing, or think back on your life and feel like you have no accomplishment worth celebrating, even though you have many goals you have met and surpassed.

It’s a complex phenomenon that can stem from so many things that I cannot comprehensively dissect in this one newsletter.

Sometimes, you put so much into pursuing a goal that your body releases a lot of dopamine and adrenaline during the process of working towards the goal.2

When you finally achieve it, the pressure comes down and the hormones dissipate rather than peak.

Your brain is like, “wait, what do we do now?”

There’s suddenly a void to fill, and you start chasing your next high — your next goal, without taking the time to appreciate and recognise the significance of the milestone you’ve hit.

Post achievement depression is like the feeling you get when you finish your favourite series or you come down from a high. Now what?

The problem with this is that when we don’t properly recognise our achievements for what they are, it limits our perceptions of who we are and what we’re able to achieve.

You look back at the past and you’re unable to identify any significant thing you’ve done because you didn’t recognise the moment as significant when it happened; so, you continue to have a false perception of yourself as someone who has done or who can achieve little.

Not everyone reacts this way to achievement, to be fair, and I found out that some of the ways in which we (I) fuel this are by:

Anyone who knows me knows this is my trademark.

‘I like your hair’ - meh, I don’t think it’s that great but thanks

‘Your gown is so pretty’ - thanks but, it’s actually a little tight and it has torn a bit here

‘Congrats on your graduation’ - well, thanks, I guess. Not the first person in the world to graduate though lol

I’m only now realising how frustrating it must be to compliment me. 😅

I remember one time my former roommate told me, ‘just say thank youuuuuuu!!!’ at some point when I was fighting tooth and nail not to accept a compliment.

For me, it stems from a place of trying to keep my ego in check so that it doesn’t get over-inflated. But there’s nothing wrong with being proud of yourself and confident.

There is only a problem when you become condescending.

To be fair, one could be limited financially when it comes to this, but there are ways to celebrate your wins that are not financial.

Sometimes, all you need is to talk about it. Tell your friends “I did so and so and I’m so proud of myself” and accept the inevitable hype they will send your way.

At the peak of my post-achievement depression, I’d gotten two remote jobs in a year, gone from not having income to being able to afford my first iPhone and a brand new laptop, paying my school fees myself and stopping my parents from giving me an allowance, and some other things I can’t remember now.

But the only thing that stood out to me in December of that year was that my CGPA had dropped that session. And when other people were recounting their wins on LinkedIn, Instagram and WhatsApp, I felt like a failure.

But my mind knew there was something wrong with my assessment of myself and it craved validation for its wins.

So in an ‘end of the year’ email exchange I was having with a new friend, I asked her if I could tell her about my year and I did, and she said she was proud of me and I felt a little better that someone saw me.

There is nothing wrong with being vocal about your wins and I’m just learning this. I grew up thinking the appropriate thing was to let others ‘toot your horn.’

‘Don’t blow your own trumpet.’

You better blow it.

Having a very repressive attitude toward celebrating your wins will result in post-achievement depression.

Sometimes, you’re unexcited about achieving something because it was never truly your goal to begin with.

Take someone who studied Law because their parents forced them to. You wouldn’t expect them to feel elated upon completing their LLB compared to someone who genuinely wanted to become a lawyer since childhood. (Nobody forced me to study Law, I set myself up with my hands).

I remember experiencing this when I bought an iPhone 11. At the time, the 11 was a really big phone and being able to afford it was a sign of prestige. But the only reason I was buying the phone was so I could give my younger brother my iPhone XR. I couldn’t have cared less about the iPhone 11.

The day I bought it, the phone seller told me he had never had a more unexcited customer and he was had to beg me to crack a smile so he could take a picture to promote his brand.

It is important to know why you’re doing anything or pursuing a goal. Is it because you want to or because of someone else?

Is it because of societal validation that you are saving up money for that iPhone or that BBL?

If it’s not truly for yourself, you cannot expect to feel fulfilment after the fact. And even if you do feel it, it’ll likely be fleeting.

To recognise a problem is always the first step in solving it. Achievement dysmorphia affects you subconsciously, but you can fix it consciously. That’s what I plan to do, anyway.