The Anxious Achiever

I requested a book from my local library recently: The Anxious Achiever.

My BFF told me about this book. She knew I needed it—achieving is one of my top strengths.

But in my small, rural town of 2,500 people, the library did not have this book. Nor did any other library in the state of New Hampshire. 

So, the librarian said she would buy it for me. For the library.

I thought that was so sweet! And I hope there is at least one more anxious achiever in my town who will appreciate this.

That said, I haven’t been able to get to the library yet to pick it up, because I have been too busy with meetings. The irony of this does not escape me.

But the book is sitting there, quietly breathing on some side shelf near the librarian’s desk. My name is probably written on a piece of paper inside it, just waiting for me to come pick it up.

It’s patiently waiting for me to think about my life differently.

I always thought achievement was about going up and up and up and up. About taking on challenge after challenge. About continually being more productive and getting sharper. The word does mean “to get or attain by effort, or to bring about an intended result.”

But recently, I was in a conversation with one of my coaching clients, who had thought that too. And halfway through our work together, she suddenly became clear that she needed to make a change in her life. Her kids were getting older, and she was spending too much time at work or thinking about work, and not enough time at home.

She was tired of the rat race. 

(That’s such a funny expression, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a bunch of rats run a race. But if they did, I can imagine they would be scrambling frantically, running over each other, knocking each other out of the way. Panicking.) 

In the conversation with my client, she said she always thought achievement was a vertical climb. But what if it’s a horizontal one? What would that look like? What if achievement is about subtraction, not addition? What if achievement isn’t a rat race, but instead a slow turtle crawl? 

I would love to live close to the earth like a turtle, feeling the ground underneath my toes, moving at a pace that does not make practical sense. A pace that others might even admire. I would have a shell to protect me—I could curl up inside whenever I needed to. And if I end up in the middle of the road and someone picks me up and moves me to the side opposite where I want to go, I would turn around and go back the other way. I would stay focused on the direction I was going, still slowly, but oh-so-intentionally.

(They say in the spring when the young turtles are out, make sure if you move one out of the road that you put them on the side where they were going. Turtles know achievement is a horizontal move.) 

Several months later, this client made some radical changes and is now loving her new life. She’s in a different role and enjoying newfound time and space for her family. She got clear, and she made a choice. And she’s finding more joy on the other side.

I’m learning from her, too.

Slowing down some. 

Turtles don’t work on the weekends, right?

And perhaps it’s okay that I am taking a few weeks to get to the library to pick up that book. In reality, I know I’m a wee little rabbit inside. And I’m a bit afraid of what I might learn when I read it. But I put it in my Outlook calendar anyway to go there on Tuesday evening. 

Dear librarian, thanks for watching out for me. I’m on my way.

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