🃏 Decorating My House of Cards
Fifteen years ago this month, I published a blog post titled, “Motivated by Achievement: A Blessing and a Curse.”
I was twenty-five years old. It was two years before I left my full-time job . . . and four before I fell further apart. It would be eight years before I put myself back together again, spiritually stronger this time—if one can ever truly be “put together.”
I wrote this post early in my self-awareness journey after attending coach training at the Co-Active Institute in 2008, but before unplugging from the corporate matrix. I was still a good girl, following the well-trod path of career advancement.
Eventually, I would stop chasing the hungry ghost of achievement and move instead toward intuition, spirituality, The Work, Outrageous Openness, surrender, and serendipity.1 This post was an early start in that direction, and I just so happened to take my first steps “out loud.”
I wrote (original emphasis from 2009):
I have been motivated by achievement for 25 years. It is all I have ever known.
. . . Being motivated by achievement has been an incredible blessing — I’ve set big goals and reached them. And with each accomplishment I felt great…until I moved onto the next one, always wanting more. Which is why it has also been a curse. In many ways I feel defined by what I do, not who I am. I often feel defined by my job and the work that I do (either at Google or here on this blog).
. . . I am not sharing this with you to brag — I am sharing it because I am exhausted. I don’t know how I can maintain this pace for the rest of my life, or if I even want to. But when I think about stepping off the fast-track, I panic. It absolutely terrifies me because achievement is all I have ever known.
It was one of the most popular posts I had ever published in two years of blogging, striking a nerve with many in my audience who thanked me for sharing so honestly.