Therapy for High Achievers
When you have big ambitions and are driven to succeed in your career, it can be a struggle to put energy and time into your relationships with family and friends. You may feel torn between your passion for work and continuous improvement, and the need for pleasure and time for yourself.
Your loved ones may complain that they want more of your attention, or you may feel lonely but do not know how to reach out to others beyond work relationships. If you are a high achiever and a parent, there may be conflicts at home around sharing in domestic tasks and parenting. Or you may be someone who has the deep desire to start a family, but does not know how you can work at the pace you do and be a hands-on parent.
This tension between personal needs and dedication to work can sometimes lead to feelings of depression, anxiety, restlessness, and overwhelm.
With all that you are managing and feeling, you might:
Find yourself feeling like no one truly knows you or understands all of the responsibility and pressures you are juggling.
Feel like you can never be present in the moment because you have to always be on top of what is coming next on your calendar.
Present yourself as calm and in control on the outside, while internally you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, and struggling to make time for self-care.
Feel dedicated to your work and your team, but feel stymied by difficult interpersonal dynamics with colleagues that impede your ability to feel safe enough and trust enough in your professional relationships.
Feel proud of your accomplishments, but feel alone in celebrating them because it is hard to maintain intimate personal relationships.
Feel highly self-sufficient and not have many who you can turn to and share your vulnerabilities – like fear of failure - so you reach for unhealthy ways of managing your sense of aloneness by using substances or other compulsive behavior to calm yourself and manage your feelings.
Therapy helps high achievers cultivate self-awareness, resilient leadership, clear decision making, and deeper relationships.
Being goal oriented, motivated, and self-disciplined are all good traits to have. In therapy we look together at how these positive attributes can be used to help you balance your life so that you are achieving your career ambitions and feeling connected to loved ones and friends. We will look at the ways in which you can:
Turn your perfectionistic harsh inner critic into a thoughtful, discerning, and caring inner ally.
Shift from burnout and depletion towards self-awareness, mental clarity, and resilience so you can make better decisions and bounce back from adversity.
Balance self-reliance with asking for support from trusted others to improve interpersonal dynamics and communication.
Let go of the fear of failure and cultivate the ability to hold emotional complexity along with realistic expectation of yourself and others.
If you are interested in learning more about my approach to working with high achievers, I can be reached at 415-721-3355 or by email. To learn more about my approach to psychotherapy, you can also read the articles on my psychotherapy blog.