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Camia (pronounced Jaw-my, meaning a blessed greeting with a handshake in Yupik) my friends. January has come to an end, and with it a wintry weather filled month for sure for me in Bethel, Alaska; wind, snow, ice, freezing rain. We get the full Monty up in the Great White North; while back home in Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri you've experienced some extremely polarized weather (and not totally in the "polar" sense of the word. Warm days in the 50s and 60s for several of you. The month held the gamut of expected seasonal weather to be sure, and there's still plenty of winter left. For me it's refreshing and invigorating, and certainly just an aspect of my new residence; Spring doesn't arrive here until well into May. However; I've been told June and July is as beautiful as winter here, but in a totally different way. June and July will bring 24 hours of daylight for 8 weeks and the winter wonderland of ice and snow turns into a lush green tundra dotted with small lakes and ponds, where berries abound just for the picking (berry picking is as much a past time in the summer months here as fishing and hunting are in the winter months). But I digress.... (blame on the excitement of my overwhelming positivity and personal success of my new surroundings).
Our reading for January 30th comes from The Journey: A Calendar Book,
"Care about your performance, but enjoy yourself" (James, 2012).
Throughout my years as a high school teacher, college instructor, and psychotherapist; I've seen plenty of individuals who create their own stress by being so obsessed by their performance they fail to enjoy their lives; overachievers many label these types of people. Being an overachiever is by no means a negative attribute to possess, unless one overachieves at overachieving; obsessing about succeeding, they many times are in danger of loosing the ability to "dance" throughout their lives.
Overachievers do it all; play multiple sports; belong to multiple clubs, and hold officer positions in all of them; volunteer at the area food bank, nursing home, and hospital; and manage to do each of these activities well. Perhaps this scenario is somewhat exaggerated, but the truth is more and more individuals today are becoming caught up in the trap of overachieving. Overachievers have plenty to put on a resume to be sure, but they pay a price. They lose a sense of balance, and the consequences can be severe.
Overachievers are often spread quite thin. With only so many hours in the day and so much energy and effort to give, we have to divide our attention among a number of endeavors if we over schedule our time. When feeling pressured to excel in every area, we may lose the chance to discover a genuine personal interest or talent as we attempt to master all our activities. Consequently, we are likely to lose sight of what we truly like and to get less enjoyment from the things we do. (Notice in this paragraph I've referenced the first person narrative. I was an overachiever up until I made this recent career move; I worked from 7:00am to 3:00pm as a school counselor; from 3:15 to 9:20 teaching college classes nightly; and then put on my psychotherapist hat Friday night and Saturday, seeing as many patients as possible. It was par for the course for this overachiever, however; I'm learning to make more time for this adventure called LIFE. Whether in Alaska or in Kentucky, or anywhere else on this globe, adventure awaits us on our journey for personal success. I now work 8:00 - 5:00 Monday through Friday and accrue 23 days a years paid time off. Although it's an adjustment to decide what to do with all my extra time, it feels liberating to have the chance to have the time to make new friends, explore new places, be open to the Spirit Within's leading in my life.
The workload and time constraints of the typical overachiever leave relatively little time for sleep. In fact, sleep deprivation is common among over scheduled individuals, with many of them sleeping less than six hours per night. Excessively busy people tend to suffer from poor eating habits, as well. If we don’t have the time to sit down to three solid meals per day, we may have to grab food on the go, and such diets are often full of fats and sugar. We all need sufficient sleep and nourishment to stay physically and mentally strong, so if we have too much to do, we may end up sacrificing our health (I've been off ALL previous medications for the past three weeks, and haven't needed them). There's much to be said about a slow pace of live and a life of compassion and consideration of others. Overachievers often base feelings of self-worth on accomplishments; I certainly used to. The more we do, and the more we do well, the better we feel about ourselves. Reliance on external validation,though, can be extremely harmful. If we focus on the trappings of success, we can lose sight of our inner identity. Over-achieving frequently causes overachievers to forget self-worth is measured from within rather than by what others think or say.
If an overachiever, beware; more is not necessarily better.
We surely should care about our performance, but enjoy ourselves as well, and always, always, keep looking up. Quyana (pronounced Ku-yah-nah, meaning Thank You in Yupik) :) AJ
