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For all my ambitious people

Ever feel like everything you’ve worked for will crumble if you stop for a second?

Scared you’re always one step from the finish line and can’t slow down because the snapping, growling hoards next to you will win?

Crushed by guilt when you don’t push yourself day and night?

If this sounds familiar, you may be an Enneagram 3, the Achiever.

Unstoppable powerhouses, type 3s don’t make life happen. They are the life that happens.

Achievers love success, respect, accomplishments, pleasing others, productivity, admiration, validation, and dominating their goals.

Failure isn’t an option.

They’re inspirational, strategic, hardworking, status-conscious, and awesome, but they’ve got flaws and wounds like all of us.

And so, the Enneagram is here to help.

The Enneagram dives into your core fears, desires, and motivations and uncovers your poorly mended parts — so you can break them again to set them correctly.

I don’t type as a 3, so I’m not familiar with this need for a trophy, but one line I read made me sad and pissed off, and I wanted to talk about it.

This explains so much about the Achievers and helps me understand them better.

Let’s talk about worthlessness, trophies, and ways to love who you are without needing a symbol to back it up.

1. Tame this craving

There’s a need most Achievers have, and it takes up a bunch of their headspace. They twist themselves to feed this craving and bet their existence on it.

What is it? Recognition.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting recognition. Most of us like some praise for our hard work, skills, accomplishments, and other good qualities. I know I do.

But for an Achiever, recognition is directly tied to their worth, and when they don’t get it, they “become worthless.”

Since they haven’t taken control of their worth yet, they’re always asking someone else for it. Molding themselves to be like others. Questioning their value.

If I’m not the best, then who am I?

If no one knows what I’ve done, I’m nothing.

If I don’t have proof, I don’t exist.

If I don’t be like them, they won’t like me.

Being only worth something when someone says you are — can make for a miserable life.

Write into the Bermuda Triangle

Put an unpublished accomplishment in a journal, and don’t share either. Enjoy what you said or did for you. Focus on what you learned and how you grew from it.

Suggestions

• Write down all the joys you got during the process.
• Do nothing more.
• Keep all the brilliant sunshine of that accomplishment’s process for yourself. It’s not about the result but the joy and self-respect of creating it.

Hoard your candy

To help detach yourself from needing a trophy, add one hobby or routine that doesn’t need to be shared. Make this thing unrelated to money, business, anyone, or anything else. It’s only for you.

The goal is to not tell anyone. The goal is to bask in your abilities.

Suggestions

• Create a magnificent picture, and take no pictures of it. Put it in the closet. Don’t hang it up. Take it out when you want to remember the joy of creating it. No one else could’ve made this painting but you.
• Go to the gym and send no updates. Your growth is your own. You’re getting and staying healthy for you. For your quality of life. Your toned booty, six-pack abs, and stronger heart prove your discipline (and attractiveness), but they’re for you.
  No one else needs to know what’s under your clothes, how big your arms are, or whether it’s leg day. You’re doing this for you.
• Reach a milestone number (subscribers, money, stats, etc.) and let people discover it. Or not.

Choose one thing you won’t share.

Goal

Enjoy who you are without anyone else’s input. Only your voice matters.

2. Limit this common behavior

I cringe at this statement, and I always have. This is how marriages collapse; this is how people die of suicide; this is how Achievers’ self-worth gets lost.

“Fake it ’til you make it.”

I understand pushing through, getting it done, not letting every insecurity show, but faking it all the time can hide that you’re not making it.

You’re struggling, and no one knows.

You’re empty inside, and no one knows.

You don’t know who you are, and no one knows.

No one knows you at all, including you — and you deserve better.

For an Achiever, especially, faking it can get in the way of making real relationships, learning who they are, and dealing with deep-seated pain that needs to be faced.

And when your life is filled with shallow relationships, becoming whoever your group wants you to be, and always on the go to avoid the void and worry inside, you lose control of your worth.

Yes, you’ll make it. You’ll reach the success society says you should. Blow past any limits anyone dared to try and set on you, but you, that majestic you, gets lost in the process.

Suggestions

• Once a week, tell someone if you’re not doing well. If you’re stressed, tell someone. If you’re bored, tell someone. If you feel lost, own it.
• Admit when you’ve messed up, then laugh it off. Everybody gets embarrassed, but letting go of the need to look perfect, the best of the best, and like you never struggle, brings you closer to yourself and others. None of us are gods; we were all conceived in imperfection.
• Cry. You don’t gotta do this in front of other people. Maybe as you heal more, you could let a trusted someone see this, but at the beginning, let yourself be sad without shame.

Being authentic about yourself and your feelings doesn’t make you weak; it makes you real and shows your strength.

3. Focus on vague numbers

This habit rules out stats. Track those, if you want, but don’t live and die by ’em.

The number I’m talking about is immeasurable, and that’s the magnificence of it. It’s always vague.

Achievers, focus on your impact. Focus on the people you’ve helped.

Whatever that trophy says, whatever those stats say, however much money comes with it pales compared to your impact. Each person you touch can be helped in dozens of ways.

I know it feels like you failed when you didn’t get a trophy after all your hard work, sacrifice, and passion, but there’s something way more important left when you don’t get a trophy.

You.

And you may not seem like enough. Not impressive enough. Not valuable enough.

Except you are.

You aren’t the consolation prize after losing the race.

The trophy. The medal. The applause. The button. The stats.

They are.

Now, am I sayin’ sit around and do nothing? Repress your ambition? Lower your standards? Hate your achievements? Stop creating the life you want. Nope, not even a little bit. I’m saying this:

4. Learn one thing

Choose one thing to learn for the joy of investing in your curiosity.

This subject isn’t for money, business, or recognition. It doesn’t have a result, only a process.

And while you’re at it, don’t let anyone know you do it. It’s to quench your desire for knowledge and growth — without any outside expectations.

You’re not doing this to reach something else but to enjoy yourself.

Goal

Don’t try to be good at it. Don’t aim to be the best. Don’t get in a line of other people doing it.

Just have fun.

5. Slow down and do this crucial task

Now, we’re at the hardest part. Made even harder because Achievers aren’t fans of slowin’ down.

If the car’s not going 800 mph, it’s not even on, right?

Type 3s have charged ahead for years, creating, producing, and getting shit done while gushing blood down their clothes.

Charming and confident, only a few people see the Achiever’s bloody footprints trailing behind them.

The pressure that’s pushing them to keep sprinting. The emptiness, worry, and doubt they’re running from.

So, I’m asking you to slow down.

Reflect on why you don’t feel valuable just by being you.

This need for a trophy is coming from an unmended part of you.

Somewhere, at some time, you were told you weren’t good enough. You were a failure. You weren’t worthwhile. That you could only be good enough by achieving.

Not by being but by doing.

Winning.

Being the best.

Looking successful. Having the numbers. Possessing the money. Gathering the followers.

And yes, they’ll give you trophies through validation, praise, thanks, admiration, worship, agreement, etc.

But now it’s time to get rid of the need for a trophy.

So… slow down. Nothing will crumble if you pause. The world doesn’t stop spinning because you do.

The world doesn’t stop spinning for any of us.

One way to pause is to journal, and if you’re looking for one that’ll help you with type 3 specific questions, try a Midnight Journal.

This journal is about you. It’s not about the outcome; it’s about you.

But this is only the start. Let’s dive deeper…

6. Questions from your basement

That cluttered place filled with cobwebs and unopened boxes you’d forgotten about long ago. Let’s open a few.

Why do you feel like you need to prove yourself to others?

Write your answer and be real honest. This isn’t for anyone else’s eyes; it’s to get to your broken parts.

Who/what made you feel like you’re not good enough?

Write down what they said specifically, and tune into your reaction to these memories.

Somewhere in you, there’s a voice, a sneer, a disbelieving eyebrow, an event that’s pushing you to keep going, guilting you into earning rest, coercing you into feeling like you’re never good enough.

What does your inner voice sound like?

Stupid, lazy, weak, loser, failure.

Any of those sound familiar?

Write what your voice really sounds like.

And finally…

How does a trophy make you feel better?

Like a smoker after puffing a cigarette, there’s relief when you get that validation.

An exhale.

But how long does this better feeling last, and why doesn’t it stay?

How quickly do you need another trophy after the emptiness comes back?

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Right now, trophies, praise, and recognition are like $1,000,000 bills to you, but over time, with inner work, they’ll become like pennies.

Yeah, they’ll exist, matter a smidge, but they won’t put a dent in you either way.

A trophy is someone else’s value of you, and it can never match you, no matter how much it costs or weighs.

Praise, trophies, medals, and buttons are mass-manufactured, but you’re the only one of your kind.

You are the most precious trophy.

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The power is yours; it always has been.

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Thanks for reading Thriving Mindsets Thursday's weekly tips on mindset shifts.