Are You An Achievement Junkie? Here's How To Enjoy The Process

For as long as I can remember, I have set a high goal, taken the necessary steps to achieve said goal, and reveled in my success and feelings of self-mastery. Unfortunately, my tunnel vision set on victory has never allowed me to relax into and enjoy the process, missing the sacred moments in between the achievements. 

Does this sound familiar? Are you a self-proclaimed achievement junkie in need of a lengthy rehabilitation, preferably in a beach side facility stocked with mental health professionals?

When I was an angsty teenager in high school, I couldn’t wait to move on to college, a place where I thought my introverted, over-intellectualized self would thrive. When I was working toward my undergraduate degree, I couldn’t wait to move on to graduate school, a much more specialized, serious, interesting and noble program, I thought. The day after I graduated from my Master’s program (yes, that program that I absolutely could not wait to be done with because I was so painfully sick of school), I declared, “I think I want to get my Ph.D. now.”

That was a almost two years ago, and in that time, I allowed myself to slow down and step back from over-achievement and goal orientation while I nurtured myself and explored my passions.

My point is that while obsessing over finish lines, I forgot to enjoy the races, races that looked much more like marathons than the sprints I made them out to be. (And I was a distance runner, so I should know better.)

Looking back, I often wish I could hop into a time machine and go back to my undergraduate days as the me I am today, someone who constantly strives to appreciate the moments of her life, settling into even the most unsettling of times.

Somehow, my goals, despite their respectability, became a way to avoid the moment while receiving fleeting love nuggets in the form of accolades from others (so that I could love myself). And ultimately, my athletic endeavors became a way for me to figuratively and quite literally run away from what I did not like about myself.

This over-achieving character flaw (at times, because goal orientation can be quite positive when used and not abused) even carried over to my experiences with this neurological disease. My focus was on that miracle cure, that spontaneous remission that would occur in an instant if I only did everything I was “supposed to do” to heal.

Healing was the end goal that my sights were stubbornly set on and not once did I realize that the process was what really mattered, not the desperate goal of healing.

How can you enjoy the process if you are in constant pain, be it physical or emotional? You just must. You have to gather the strength, the patience and the curiosity to live in the moment, even if the moment is awful.

Cry, kick and scream. Experience that awfulness, but don’t turn away from it, or ignore it, or stuff it down to fester within your soul as more dis-ease. It is that simple in theory, yet so difficult in practice.

There are days when I still struggle, typically when daily responsibilities feel overwhelming and time feels sparse, but my symptoms never lie, and when they worsen, I know I am off track.