My name is Steve, and I’m a recovering “insecure overachiever.”

Now, you might be thinking “Steve you ragamuffin, what does that even mean?”

Here’s how the BBC describes it:

⁠”Decades of research into elite firms identified a particular type of worker: exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, but driven by a profound belief in their own inadequacy.”

Ding ding ding!

This was me. 

Driven to succeed, while simultaneously hoping that more success would finally allow me to feel “good enough” about my place in this life. 

Unsurprisingly, it led to burnout, and frustration, while also NEVER feeling good enough.

Not that anybody reading this could possibly relate…

What is an Insecure Overachiever?

I realize this term sounds a lot like “Impostor Syndrome,” something I’ve definitely struggled with…but it’s actually even more insidious and unfortunate. 

As Oliver Burkeman wrote in a recent, brilliant newsletter (where I learned about the term):

“‘insecure overachievers’,…accomplish plenty of impressive things, but who do so, deep down, because we don’t believe we’d have earned the right to feel good about ourselves, or to relax into life, if we didn’t.”

In other words, success isn’t driven by outsized ambition…but simply because we’re hoping that once we achieve a certain thing, then we can relax.

Of course, our brains then just move the goalposts or change the score card, sending us right back to “not quite enough.”

And boy does this get exhausting, because we’re looking in the wrong place. 

Burkeman continues:

“The real problem isn’t that you haven’t yet done enough things, or got good enough at doing them. 

The real problem is the fact that for whatever combination of reasons in your childhood, culture or genes, your sense of self-worth and psychological safety got tethered to your productivity or accomplishments in the first place.”

I realized how much this description defined young Steve Kamb:

• Straight A student, class president, member of every club imaginable…
• I sprinted to build Nerd Fitness to a certain level of success…
• My identity became welded to Nerd Fitness’s success (or struggle). 

As the site grew, the more insecure I became: whether it was NEEDING to be successful in a certain way, or maintain a level of success…

It was all based on feeling insecure in whatever level of achievement I had ever reached, or that it would go away in a minute, and I’d be exposed as a fraud…

I pushed and hustled and strove and hoped that MORE success would magically allow me to finally feel enough. 

I remember getting invited to a small writer retreat in 2017 with many internet friends who are also great writers. I spent most of the time thinking: “What the heck am I doing here, these are actual SUCCESSFUL people. I’m just a person masquerading as a successful person!”

I never once thought, “maybe I got invited because I am actually worthy of being here?” 

This insecurity continued, and I think largely drove much of my professional mindset for 5+ years…

Things changed in 2022, and I’ve been working on feeling like “enough” ever since.

How do you define “success”?

Because I’ve spent my life making a living on the internet, it’s really easy for me to judge my success with VERY specific numbers:

• How many website visitors go to Nerd Fitness
• How many employees work at Team NF
• How many email subscribers read my newsletter
• How many books, revenue, coaching clients

Unfortunately, my brain was very good at making me feel “less than” by always changing which one was the most important.

It would pick an arbitrary marker for success (as long as I hadn’t reached it yet), and then tell me I couldn’t feel okay until I had reached that number.

And if I ever reached that number? 

My brain would quickly say “yeah well now you should panic about keeping that level of success. This is your new baseline.”

This is so tragic! 

I’ve spent five years redefining success for Nerd Fitness and myself, and the past few years redefining success for me personally. 

The more I’ve let go of needing a certain outcome, the more I’ve been able to calm down enough to enjoy the work I’m doing (like this newsletter!) 

I still struggle, though. 

Back in January, I found myself unable to make progress on a project because I told myself it HAD to succeed in a very specific way.

I had to give myself permission to let go of that uncontrollable outcome, which let me actually do the work…

Paradoxically, this resulted in the best possible chance for success…but I’m okay with whatever outcome shows up.

I got hundreds of supportive replies to my recent essay about life kicking my ass.

There was one reply from K, that I’ve not stopped thinking about:

“Congratulations on letting go, Steve…

While your success looks different from what you originally expected, it now looks more like yours.”

What a beautiful sentiment. 

Success MUST be defined by ourselves, from a healthy mindset, not as a magical solution to a healthy mindset.

As Burkeman says:

“You don’t need to choose between peace of mind and the thrill of pursuing ambitious goals. 

You just need to understand those goals less as vehicles to get you to a future place of sanity and good feeling, and more as things that unfold from an existing place of sanity and good feeling.”

In other words, I had to START with “I’m okay, worthy, safe, and good enough already,” and recognize I’m choosing arbitrary goals, none of which I actually HAVE to do.

The sun will still rise tomorrow whether or not I lift a certain amount of weight, reach a certain metric, or hit a certain number in the bank.

I can now define what success means to me and how I want to show up in the world. 

It doesn’t look like the success I thought I needed to make me feel okay. 

Success looks more like what gives me the best chance to be Steve:

• Friends and family that I get to spend lots of time with.
• Reading interesting things, doing interesting things, meeting interesting people.
• Sharing my favorite things in my own unique way to help other people (that’s you!).

I hope the same is true for you.

Letting go of specific things we think we need to finally accept ourselves, and starting instead with acceptance.

This frees us up to go get whatever it is we want without all the extra baggage and pressure.

I also want your success to look like YOUR success and not something dedicated by somebody else:

• Not the number on the scale, but your relationship with yourself. 
• Not the number in the bank, but the quality of your connections.
• Not the number of widgets sold, but how you feel day to day.

How do you define success, and how has it changed over the years? 

-Steve