Why Achievers Crash and Burn
5 Aug 2022 · 13 min
Brendon Burchard and Sam discuss why high achievers burn out. Overcommitment, loss of focus, and failure to emotionally integrate success are the culprits. The conversation covers skill acquisition and how to sustain high performance without crashing.
Hello, my friends. I'm Brendon Burchard, host of the Brendon show and founder of growthday.com and I'm honored to be your high performance coach today. I believe that every day we can be inspired. We can live with intention and purpose. We can bring the joy and honor the struggles of each day to push ourselves to grow, to serve, to be a role model, to lead extraordinary lives. I believe that every day is a great day to grow. That's why I started my company, growthday.com it's an online personal growth platform where you can get me and the world's best personal development teachers live coaching you every week, sharing our wisdom, keeping you motivated and accountable, encouraging you to find the aliveness and the connection and meaning of life that we're all after. If you're not a member yet, please go sign up@growthday.com and join our huge worldwide community of achievers. For less than a dollar a day, you get the world's best teachers live every week. And look, you've probably known for a long time that you needed some expert guidance, an inspired community and life changing tools. So please, your breakthrough awaits you@growthday.com now let's get to today's episode. My friends, please listen closely. Maybe you take some notes so you remember these insights of personal growth and share this episode with three of your friends because we all have to share more positive messages in the world today. So share this with three friends just like you who are committed to their personal growth. And also be sure to tag me or DM me on Instagram. Rendon Burchard, join our million plus community there on Instagram so I can say hi, thanks again for listening. Now let's begin.
Why do achievers crash and burn so often?
You know, they work so hard to get ahead and then when you get.
Ahead, everything kind of falls apart and you start failing. You're like, why am I sabotaging myself? Am I doing something wrong? Well, sometimes I've found over and over, working with high performers at the top level of Fortune 50 companies, Olympians, major celebrity sort of entrepreneurs, that these four horsemen come into the achiever's life and it just punches them out. And it's like if you understand these four and you watch out for them, then you can maintain your success longer. But if you get trapped into these.
Four things, you're in trouble. Here we go.
Number one reason achievers start to fail is they start to feel like they have to help everybody. You know, you got some success in your Life. And all of a sudden, you know.
Some family and friends come out of.
The woodwork and they need some help, assistance, money. They have new projects for you, new ideas for you. They want you to help their dreams come true.
And.
And all of a sudden, you start finding yourself spread too thin, helping everybody. The community comes up and they say, hey, could you give us some scholarships? Hey, could you fund this nonprofit opportunity? As you get more success, more people.
Want you to serve.
And while that's a good thing, it.
Also ends up diluting your focus.
And now you're trying to help everybody because you can. You know, one of the hard parts about being achiever is everyone looks to you for help.
And.
And because you succeeded. And the only reason you succeeded is because you had a big heart and you had compassion for other people. Now you feel like you have to help everybody, and you burn out. You get exhausted, and you think, gosh, you know, I used to be able to really focus. But you lose all that focus helping too many people, so watch out for that. Are you currently helping too many people? Because it's an issue. There's a balance. There's a fine line of serving others versus burning yourself out. And if you feel like on your.
Path to achievement, you were really focused.
And now you're too dissipated, beware. That's where you'll start to fail. Because that leads us to the number two reason people start to fail is they lose focus. Your projects and your mission was this. Now you've succeeded at it, and you have other people to manage it, or it just runs by itself.
And.
And now you can go focus on.
All your other projects of passion. And now you're like, oh, I'm interested in that. I'm interested in this. I'm interested in this and this. And you lose focus, not just helping other people, but in taking on too many projects of your own that you're excited about. Now you've got 50 hobbies. You didn't have all these hobbies before, so you achieved. Now you've lost your focus and you start to lose. So be very cautious of taking on too many passion projects in a row. Take on too many at the same time. Remember, if you take care of your health and God bless, you're going to live a long while. You know, life has a way of, like, giving yourself time to do things, I guess I should say, you know, don't try and smack it all in. Just because now you have success and money doesn't mean you have to do everything at once. Just because you have some taste of success. Doesn't mean now you have to, oh, now I have permission to do everything because I succeeded.
Actually, the reason you succeed is because.
You focus narrowly on one thing over.
A period of time.
So I'm not saying you can't do lots of other things now. I'm saying just do them slow. Like, pace them out. Take on a new project. Do well at it. New project. Do well at it. In my own life, in my own career, what I tended to do is I built one brand or one new product or service offering for my audience per year.
Just one.
Now, when you look at my arc.
Of my career, it looks like, well.
Brennan, he does all these things. He has all these books and all these courses, and he's everywhere.
Really.
I was just doing one new thing a year. That was it, you know, and sometimes, like right now, I'm doing things right now that I knew I was gonna do five years ago, but I didn't try to take it on five years ago because I knew that would lose focus from a project I was working on then. It's like right now, you know, I have this whole spreadsheet at home of all these books I want to write. If I started trying to write all of them right now, none of them would get written. One thing at a time, man.
That's what made you successful the first time.
That's what's going to keep you on.
The path to success. Hey, it's Brandon jumping back in here again. Are you looking to go to the next level in your life right now? The next level of joy, abundance, success?
Then you already know that you need.
To journal about your lessons learned in your life. You got to track your moods and your habits. You have to learn from the best personal development coaches and teachers in the world. And you got to stay inspired and accountable so that you can be more focused, disciplined, joyous, and keep growing. That's what the Growth Day app is going to help you to do, my friend. It's the world's first all in one personal development app. It has all of the tools you need, all the coaching and the community that you need to level up to progress every week, to track your breakthroughs, and to keep growing in every area of your life consistently over the long term. So go start your transformation right now@growthday.com or just download the Growth Day app on your phone right now. Every day. You can keep improving every day. We are here for you. And every day is truly a great day to grow together. So let's make self Improvement a way of life. Let's make that self improvement stick. Go to growthday.com right now.
Achievers tend to forget skill acquisition. They got the skill, they became successful, now they're successful, they're good at it. They just keep doing the same thing, run the same route. But they're not training anymore, they're not going to the conferences anymore. They're not exploring and innovating and trying and testing the boundaries. They're not trying to get better. They just settled at where they're at. And because they settled at that skill level, their achievement kind of hits a ceiling. And over a period of time, also because they settle that one skill level, they get restless and they get bored with what made them successful. So they try everything else to feel.
Filled up and happy.
So achievers keep learning, keep developing your skill at whatever that project was, keep pushing the boundaries at whatever it is. You don't need a new business or new career.
You need to reengage with what you're.
Doing and push yourself again. But that's what people do. They don't feel the push in this one thing. So they say, oh, I'm going with the push in all these other areas. Because these other areas bring novelty and growth. And that's what we want, right? We want novelty and growth. So we already succeeded at this. I'm bored with it.
I'll go get novelty and growth in.
All these other areas. And this thing that made us successful starts to fail. So beware of seeking too much novelty and growth in other areas. Get novelty and growth in what you're already succeeding at. If you still love that thing that you are succeeding at should make sense, right? And I would say the last part about is, the reason people fail is because as much as they've achieved success, they never allowed themselves to feel it. They never integrated the successes. So they're on this never ending treadmill that burns them out. And as they burn out, they succeed less. And that comes from a place where psychologically they never allowed themselves to feel joy, satisfaction or pride or even contribution from doing what they're doing. Everyone else identifies them as a success, but they haven't internalized it and said, you know what?
I am a success. I'm good here, I'm happy here, I'm.
Doing a good job, I'm still challenging myself, but you know what? I have a pride about what I'm doing. So I don't need to go chase 50 new things hoping to fill myself up and find some fulfillment. I'm able to feel fulfillment in the moment because I integrate it. I allow myself to feel the emotions that come from doing a good job. And if you never allow yourself to feel good about what you've achieved, then you'll always be on this never ending treadmill to find the next new thing. And so, achievers, give yourself some credit. Achievers, take a moment to pause at the end of the night and feel a sense of gratitude for what you did do today.
Achievers, have a practice where you reflect on what you've done with your family.
And your friends and your team to celebrate it and to feel it and.
To own it so that the achievement.
Journey itself feels worthwhile. Because if it feels worthwhile, you won't abandon it.
Okay, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brendon Show. Tell some people about this episode. It's on each of us to spread positivity and empowerment during these times of chaos and negativity.
Right?
So I'm asking you to be the dealer of hope and personal growth and education in your tribe. So take a screenshot right now and share the screenshot and this link to this episode with three of your friends today. Post it on social media. Use the hashtag growthday. That's growthday, because that's the name of my company and we're always giving away prizes to our community. If you'd like to help me personally, then please rate and review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. Give us some stars, cheer us on, leave a review. Because believe it or not, that stuff actually really does help. And I read all of them. So my last thought for today, please remember you are stronger than you think and the future holds good things for you. Tomorrow can be an inspired day. Every new morning is a second chance and every day is a great day to grow. We're thankful to have you here in the Growth Day community, so be sure to go deeper with us@growthday.com.
Sam.