Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Dr. David Tzall
As a psychologist who has spent years in the trenches working with high-achieving individuals, I’ve noticed a glaring blind spot in the pursuit of peak performance: unprocessed emotional baggage.
We like to think we leave our personal lives at the door when we start our workday. But the brain doesn’t work that way. The neural pathways that fire when we deal with a difficult client are the same ones that fired when we dealt with a difficult parent, a bullying classmate, or a past professional failure.
Unresolved trauma and deep-seated anxiety don’t just make us unhappy; they make us inefficient.
The Cost of “Keeping It Together”
High achievers are often masters of compartmentalization. Compartmentalization means me keep our inner world hidden while we look good from the outside. No one would ever know what is swirling inside of us. This is simply a facade that eats away at us. We lose out on achieving peak performance. We make decisions out of emotional reaction and not out of ones that are in our best interest. The brain and body go into survival mode. In survival mode, the brain prioritizes safety over innovation. You become reactive rather than responsive.
We make fear-based decisions and these types of decisions are limiting as they have a cap. These decisions do not move us forward, and they hold us back, if anything. We take fewer risks, too. We are so afraid of losing something rather than what we could gain, that we almost become paralyzed into doing anything new and significant. Growth comes from conflict, and we start to avoid any level of conflict.
Redefining Resilience
There is a common misconception that resilience is about “toughing it out” or “grinding through the pain.” That isn’t resilience; that is endurance. The problem with endurance is it has a limit. If not careful, it will burn us out as we cannot keep going at the same pace over and over again. True resilience is the ability to process. It is the capacity to sit with discomfort, understand where it comes from, and move through it without letting it control your narrative.
A Challenge to the High Performer
If you are feeling stuck, exhausted, or like you are working harder for less return, I challenge you to stop looking at your spreadsheet and start looking inward.
Consider these questions:
- What is the narrative you tell yourself about your capabilities?
- What is your relationship with failure and what makes you label it as failure?
- Have I really opened up to people when they ask how I am doing and check-in on me?
Therapy is not just for “fixing” what is broken. For the high achiever, therapy is an optimization tool. It is the most significant investment you can make in your ability to lead, inspire, and create.