Do you often think or feel that you are an Underachiever?
Think again, you are probably being selective and hard on yourself
You are not alone if you shudder at the thought of attending a school reunion function or meeting your large family at a holiday get-together. I know, right? Even catching up with friends outside of work can be sometimes stressful as we enter the middle ages. Social media does not make it easy either.
When we see those glitzy pictures of an exotic vacation, newly acquired houses, and cars of our friends and peers splashed on the FB wall or on Instagram, many of us inadvertently pause and reflect. Our thoughts carry us back to our school or college days when the future was wide open and the possibilities immense.
Somehow here we are; often way off what we had set out to achieve. We might end up mired in the emotional or psychological turmoil of being an underachiever. But are we thinking and analyzing our achievements adequately? Probably not.
There are two kinds of personalities when it comes to talent, skills, and achievement. One who does the minimum, characteristically uncharismatic, all icing no cake but believe they are superstars. Thus, these people live a life where they blame the external environment for all that they have not achieved.
On the other end of the spectrum are those who are able, skilled, and put in a lot of hard work but end up with the feeling of being an underachiever. The truth is yes, sometimes you might be truly an underachiever but often there is a flaw in the way you look at achievement and fulfillment in life.
This post is for those of you who belong to the latter category.
What evokes the unpleasant feeling of Underachievement?
Selective Comparison
If our peers, friends, or relatives share any achievement, we quickly tend to take stock. Sometimes we are better off but mostly we are not. Here’s the thing. We pick up only those achievements and conversations where we are lagging and then feel sad or depressed at our inadequacy.
How often have you been introspective about your achievements and growth and felt happy and content? Rarely.
People around us tend to be equally biased in their comparison. I suspect that sometimes they do this intentionally and quite gleefully. They will specifically point out your underachievement carefully sidestepping all that is glorious and magnificent about you.
The Bane of Social Media
Sometimes I feel the world before social media was kinder. Life was simpler. Now everything is plastered onto social media begging for validation. And if we do not get enough likes and shares then “Hello, Welcome anxiety”.
Naturally, people tend to only post selective good things.
The loud hustle culture publicized on these sites can make the strongest hearts agitate with myocardial infarction. Don’t reach for the dictionary. It means a heart attack!
One common sample of a post would be:
A picture of a perfect specimen of God’s gift to mankind with the caption “earning six figures working from a beach in the Bahamas by the age of 25!”
My snarky self has two thoughts:
- Six figures as in $100,000 or $999,999? I mean both are six figures, just the difference is a bit pronounced.
- How many such people are there within a population of seven billion and counting?
If you are not like this person and consider yourself an underachiever then maybe you are being harsh on yourself and biased. You don’t know about the other aspects of this person’s life.
Dreams vs. Reality
When I was in school, I always dreamed of being an engineer and hoped to work in a company and build stuff. It was all very romantic. I didn’t even study engineering and went into business administration. It is not better or worse than engineering. It is different.
We dream of a lot of things as we grow up. Not everything comes to fruition. But things do not always become bad or unpleasant. Often the way our lives manifest is wonderful and beyond our imagination or hopes.
Differences between expected achievement on the basis of your academic performance, skills, and abilities to the actual outcome usually by the 30s and 40s could be vastly disparate.
Having deviated from our childhood dreams or the potential that we displayed in high school or college does not make us an underachiever.
We often have an excellent life in terms of relationships, friends, community, peace of mind, good health — all things that cannot be quantified like an expensive car, house, or earnings.
We would be better off if we embrace the transience of life. Accept the fact that everything changes and believe in God’s plan.
If you are an atheist or agnostic, go with the fact that one change can lead to a series of changes in a lot of different variables many of which cannot be controlled.
What can you do about this mindset?
Where you are today in life is not pre-planned but the outcome of a series of conscious choices made along the way depending on circumstances, constraints, environment, on the probable guesstimate of what the future might be.
Maybe you are an underachiever, own it to fix it
If you show flashes of talent followed by prolonged phases of mediocrity then there is scope for you to improve your achievements. Be honest with yourself. Maybe you need to develop better habits or work on your perseverance. Getting the help of a life coach would prove valuable if you are at crossroads. Get the help and fix it.
Play to your strengths
Whenever I hit such patches of self-doubt, I try to analyze using pen and paper. Trying to process everything in your mind can be stressful. It is one of the reasons why journaling helps work through our thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
I make two columns — things I am grateful for and the things that make me feel like an underachiever. At the end of the exercise, I manage to put self-doubt to rest.
It might sound clinical but I believe in cost-benefit analysis. If I went after A, what would I have to give up? We cannot have a blinkered view. A holistic approach is a must when we analyze our achievements.
A friend who has an envious professional standing and acclaim is divorced. Her child is growing up in a boarding school. Both parents share custody. She sees him once in a while. My kid has already distracted me five times with some random science facts while I was writing this.
As Oprah says, “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at one time.”
Play to your strengths
It is one thing to dream but reality may be different. I can dream of becoming a doctor to serve mankind. The idea seems appealing. But what if I am not good at biology?
Or I might be a promising student in school, excelling at academics but become a well-known podcaster. Did I actually waste my talent?
When you see your peers doing better than you — professionally or personally it could be because they played to their strengths or took risks which you did not. Steffi Graf was known for her strong forehand. She would often move a few extra paces to hit the ball using her forehand instead of backhand. You know what she went on to achieve.
Maybe you are not good at leading projects but excel at managing operations efficiently. A surgeon will be good at cutting but may not excel at differential diagnosis. What you might need is a mentor or a friend to work through things and figure out your strong points.
On the whole
It is fine to listen to people assess your life and achievements. It is also necessary to introspect your direction in life, your priorities, and the choices available to you at different junctures.
What is holding you back could be external elements like temporary circumstances in life, your family environment, or internal factors like health, inability to form strong habits to persevere through many ups and downs. Times change and so do the circumstances.
What is not ok is to label yourself as an underachiever by being selective.
An average life span is about 75 years which is long. If you compare yourself to someone at 30 or 35 and judge yourself as an underachiever then you are being harsh. Compare again at 60 and see how you stack up.
Be kind to yourself. Think again, think deeper and clearer. Everything cannot go as per plan. What you plan may not be the best too. Let the universe unfold.
Believe in the fact that no one has it all at the same time. Ever!
I write about small businesses, health, and life as I see it on Medium, LinkedIn, and my website.
