Driven, ambitious, passionate, and goal-oriented – do these traits describe you accurately? If yes, you are a high achiever, and you love success, growth, flexibility, freedom, and accomplishment. You are very good at your studies and work and typically learn with ease.  High achievers can propel themselves to the future while having clarity on what their future should look like. They are also competent in defining their career and life pathway and translating their vision into reality.

Challenges of high achievers

However, high achievers also face multiple pressures. Surveys reveal evidence of mental health issues where high-performing students are vulnerable to anxiety and depression.  The brightest of minds also suffer from stress and experience self-doubt as the pressure of expectations from the school, colleagues, bosses, and parents can be overwhelming.

Some high achievers are obsessed with success and may succumb to fear that impacts their performance. This can make it difficult for them to go out of their comfort zones, receive critical feedback, or realise their full potential.  While achievers are used to succeeding, the possibilities of failure at something new can be paralysing, which can lead to them limiting their career options to the tried and tested.

The other challenges that are unique to high achievers are:

• They typically care excessively about pleasing everybody.
• They seek to be multi-talented – while they learn with ease and ascend the career ladder quickly, they strive to excel at multiple things, which can raise the risk of their under-utilising their skills and capabilities.
• Workaholism is another destructive habit that can influence mental and physical health.
• While they have the ability to stay focused, high achievers typically channel their energy into achieving their career goals. A single-minded pursuit of career ambitions can overshadow other areas of life, leading to them putting their creative pursuits on hold. Without exploring their creative side, these achievers may fail to identify nontraditional career options that enable them to realise their true potential.

The benefits of career clarity coaching

Ambitious high achievers seek to live, work, and perform optimally in their careers, businesses, and in all aspects of life. No matter how much success you have achieved so far, you have unlimited potential to reach new heights of personal and professional success.

As a high achiever, you may have a vision or a ‘big idea’ that you would like to explore but are not sure if it is the right fit for your abilities. Maybe you are looking to make a bigger impact but are confused about the next steps to take.

A non-traditional career coach is experienced in guiding high performers and achievers like you. No matter how difficult the career path looks, a Millennial career coach can guide you towards gaining total career clarity and achieving desired results in an organic way. Career clarity counselling can help achievers enhance their

• Self-esteem and self-confidence.
• Self-awareness.
• Emotional intelligence.
• Motivation and purpose.
• Well-being, energy levels, physical and mental fitness.
• Leadership skills.
• Work-life balance.
• Relationships – both personal and professional,
• Communication skills.
• Decision-making skills.