Unhappy Achievers
- Kim Meninger
- Mar 25
- 27 min read
In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about unhappy achievers. We talk far more often about impostor syndrome than we do unhappy achievers yet both are rooted in an unhealthy relationship with achievement. This week, I’m talking with Josh Dodes, a psychotherapist who coined the term “unhappy achievers” to describe professionals who feel unsatisfied, or even empty, despite their high levels of success. Here we talk about the similarities and differences between unhappy achievers and those who struggle with impostor syndrome. We also talk about what we can do as parents to minimize the threat of unhealthy attachments to achievement. And we explore how to know when it’s time to seek help.
About My Guest
Josh Dodes is a psychotherapist in private practice in the Philadelphia area. He studied psychology at Yale, received his master’s degree from NYU, and trained at the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center in New York. He coined the term "Unhappy Achievers" in 2017 and was asked to write a blog on the topic for Psychology Today-- a blog which has now connected with more than 150,000 readers. Josh is also a former professional musician who toured internationally with his own band (the Josh Dodes Band, which starred on VH1’s Emmy-nominated Bands on the Run) and as a band member for dozens of other artists. This experience before becoming a psychotherapist led him to be particularly familiar with the emotional struggles of high-achieving performers.
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Connect with Josh:
Website: www.unhappyachievers.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/joshdodes
Fast Company article: https://www.fastcompany.com/91228056/why-some-of-the-highest-achievers-are-painfully-unhappy-according-to-a-yale-trained-psychotherapist
Psychology Today blog: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unhappy-achievers
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Websites: https://kimmeninger.com
Transcript
Kim Meninger
Josh, welcome, Josh. I've been looking forward to this conversation for so long. I'm so glad it's finally here. I'd love to start by… Would you be open to introducing yourself?
Josh Dodes
I would be delighted to. My name is Josh Dodes. I'm a psychotherapist in private practice, and I am somebody who is increasingly focused in on a niche that I refer to as unhappy achievers, and have been focusing a lot of my not just my practice, but my writing and speaking on that subject as well.
Kim Meninger
And is this a long time coming, or was there a moment when you realized this is a population that you wanted to pay more attention to?
Josh Dodes
It's a little bit of both, actually. I mean, it's a long time coming from the standpoint of it being a subject that's always been really interesting to me, not least because I have some of that sort of psychology in my own background and history, which is often a good place to start. I find for therapists to sort of start, where they start with what you know. But it did become clearer and clearer to me. I started out actually as a professional musician at a first career in that field, and then was somewhat surprised to find that when I shifted gears, I was seeing people who seemed to have a lot more in common with the performing version of myself than I would have expected, and I put a lot of thought into what that was about, and came to realize how much performative quality there is to this population, and it became a more organic kind of progression to focusing on it as a special thing.
Kim Meninger
Well, now I have to ask if you're open to sharing what, what brought you from performing music to be a therapist?
Josh Dodes
Well, ironically, actually, there's this. I mean, there was a specific moment. It was, it was a long time coming. Music is a, you know, not to be too blunt about it, but it's a terrible profession. You have to really, I've often told people that if you can think of anything else you'd rather do, you should do that. You only do it if you have to, because it's so unpredictable. But for me, actually, there was a kind of a specific moment toward the end of my performing career that that had a big impact, not only on my leaving music, but also in my, you know, getting involved in this unhappy achievers population. And that was that I was somebody who was very, very driven to be the best and most charismatic and successful performer that I could be from a very early age, and had gotten quite adept at it as a result. And my band was actually pretty successful, and we were on television, and there was a whole slew of things, but in any event, there was one night that I was on stage and I realized, sort of in the middle of a song, that I had lost my focus on what was happening on stage in a way that had never happened before. I was so laser-focused prior to that, and afterwards, I was a little bit startled by what had happened. I came back within a few seconds. I don't think the audience noticed, but I was, I was very jarred by the fact that I found myself thinking about an episode of The West Wing while it was in the middle of a song. So, you know, I was sort of asking myself, What the hell happened any event? What I realized is that through my own therapy over the prior few years, I had gotten to a point where I actually no longer needed to spotlight in the way that I had originally, and therefore I just wasn't I didn't need to be as focused as I had always been, in a way that was both really healthy for me mentally and really bad for my career as a performer, because I had just lost my drive after all these years, and that was around the time that I decided to retire, which was actually the one of the happiest decisions I ever made, and switch gears into my other love, which was psychology.
Kim Meninger
Wow, that's fascinating. And I love the way you say it was good for your mental health, but…
Josh Dodes
Yeah, it doesn't always line up. That's right.
Kim Meninger
Well, can I think this is a good opportunity to, to define what an unhappy achiever means to you.
Josh Dodes
Sure, unhappy achievers is a kind of a catch all term for a population that I see a lot of in my practice, and it's actually a very large population, as far as I can tell, particularly from the response stuff I've published online and elsewhere. Generally speaking, it's people who are very high functioning, very high achieving. But are, ultimately, for one reason or another, defined by their achievements to themselves and to the people around them. Nothing wrong with achievements, of course, in and of themselves, but for this particular population, it becomes clear to them, if they're in treatment or if they're thinking about it, that they are achieving because they learned somewhere along the way that achievements were what made them lovable and valuable, and as a result of that, they often become quite good at it. But there's a downside, which is that if you're if you're driven by that kind of a need, then if you're not achieving. You're not really lovable to yourself, and so that makes achievements not a joy at all, but a necessity. You know, if you have to achieve and keep achieving, and you know as a result of that, there's a lot of underlying often unknown to people at first when they come into my office, resentment and anger about having had to jump through so many hoops to, to be as successful and achievement-oriented as they are. So in other words, they present oftentimes as people who are, you know, I don't know, what the hell is the matter with me? I, you know, I've got this extremely successful career. Everyone thinks that I'm sort of the most successful person they know. Whatever it may be, why do I feel so empty? Why do I feel so down? And through the work itself, they can come to realize that it's because they're really doing something that isn't fundamentally what they otherwise would want to be doing.
Kim Meninger
And it is so interesting because the way you describe it, right? The people looking in from the outside would likely see these people and say, Wow, right? [Yeah.] They're so successful, they're even in imposter syndrome. Speak Right? Like, oh, there's better than, than I could ever be if we compare ourselves to others. [Sure.] We assume that people who have reached a certain level of success, who have the trappings of success that you're describing, right, that it's been smooth sailing, that they're, you know, they're loving their lives that they have, right, the rest of us would love to have.
Josh Dodes
That's right, that's right. And I think that, yeah, in thinking about this, you know, in preparation for talking to you again about it, one of the things I was realizing is that although there are some significant differences between people who suffer with imposter syndrome and people who are unhappy achievers, they have in common something very important, which is that they're very uncomfortable with their successes. Either they feel like they don't deserve it, or they feel like they deserve it in the case of unhappy achievers, but don't know why they have to have it.
Kim Meninger
And I think you're absolutely right. When you and I first connected, I've read your article on Fast Company about unhappy achievers. I have to talk to this guy, because it really did feel like the other side of the coin, right? There's, there's this almost addiction to achievement, right? This need that if I don't do it, then I'm letting myself down. I'm letting everybody else around me down there for external validation. In the form of imposter syndrome, it often shows up as I want to achieve. I'm a high achiever, but I may take, I maybe hesitate to take more risks. I'm going to jump every step of the way. In the case of unhappy achievers, it sounds like they don't really struggle with self-doubt. It's, no, it's not the issue, right?
Josh Dodes
No, that's right, not at all. I mean, if anything, it's, you know, they it really is smooth sailing in that particular regard. You know, they're often extremely adept at achieving and have no question at all about their deservedness in terms of what they've accomplished, because, you know, they've been accomplished and achieving from the beginning, and that's sort of how they've defined themselves. The problem is on the back end, where they have had the feeling of recognizing that they are achieving and not knowing why. It's not making them feel better. In fact, it's often making them feel worse because of this business about having to jump through hoops and jump through hoops and the like.
Kim Meninger
And what I'm interested in, from your perspective as a therapist too, is what you see in sort of the backstory, right? Because one of the things that we think about in terms of imposter syndrome is a lot of times parents gave their children messages about and how important it is to achieve. So if you had parents, let's say that you came home from school with four A's and a B, and your parents said, What's that B doing there? Right? That your core interpretation of that would be, oh, they expect perfection from me, and they're not going to love me unless I'm perfect, right? And that's path forward. It's, I would imagine there's something in the childhood upbringing, or in the messages from parents, in your in your population as well, and similar. But where do they diverge?
Josh Dodes
Yeah, it's really interesting, because what you've just described is very much the kind of thing that I see in the population that I work with. You know, this idea that there's been often inadvertently but, but powerfully, a message sent by parents or other adults that this is what gets me attention and love and the things that every child sort of needs. But what's interesting to me is the fact that I wouldn't have thought of that as necessarily leading to people who have imposter syndrome. And so I'm actually curious to ask you about that, if that's all right, because I, you know, to me that seems like such a recipe, at least in the cases of unhappy achievers, for really coming to define oneself this way, in a way that often, again, makes them very successful, and therefore not necessarily feeling like imposters, but feeling deserving and yet having to do it. So I'm curious, if you can, you tell me. Be a little bit more what? How that psychology, in your opinion, leads to imposter syndrome?
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that's a really interesting question because I think what ends up happening is that people feel this overwhelming pressure, and maybe at one point in their lives, school came easily to them, or whatever they were doing to them, but all of a sudden they find themselves in maybe it's a really hard math course or something, and they're not used to struggling, and now it's a oh no, if, if I'm not, if I'm not good at this, then who am I right? They are challenged in some way. And they're thinking like I'm the I'm the Smart kid in the family, or my parents expect this of me, and I can do it. And so it's usually a stumble after that kind of messaging that instead of perceiving it as learning, or, you know, as a challenge, they perceive it as a personal failure, and now they are rewriting the narrative, right? Okay, I, I won't be loved unless I achieve, but I, I can't meet my own expectations or the expectations of the people around me.
Josh Dodes
And so then the idea is that they are still finding themselves in those circles, but feeling much less deserving of being there.
Kim Meninger
Yes, exactly. So there's this feeling of, I'm so aware of what I don't know. I'm so how hard it is for me, but, but when I look at everybody else, it seems like they're all , they're so put in they it comes easily to them. So who am I to sit in this room with all of these people?
Josh Dodes
That makes sense? That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, there's, you know, I think that there are subtle differences, but there's, I mean, it's, it would be really interesting to think about, and I don't know that something I can do on my feet exactly, but what it is that drives some of these kids, let's say, to respond to failures the way that your population does, and some of them to respond to it the way that my population does. Because there's something about, you know, the idea of it being a kind of what, you know, in psychoanalysis, we would call a narcissistic injury, right to have experienced that, you know, something at our core has been challenged, right by a failure or whatnot, that I think can be responded to, obviously, in multiple ways. And it's, it's, it's a really interesting distinction. I would want to think about that more.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, it is really interesting to see you reach this point, and then which path do you right? So would you say that the people that you work with? I guess I'm struggling to answer this, to ask this question, because I think it's pretty broad, but I'm curious if, if somebody comes out of your work feeling like I have solved this problem, they still continue to have a healthy relationship with achievement, or do they basically have to go in a different direction, you know, because there's always that tendency to want more of what society tells you, you should want, right? And so I'm curious if, if you see people who are at the level of success that the people that are the unhappy achievers are and they can still stay in that world, but with a different mindset?
Josh Dodes
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, in fact, when you ask the question, do they still have a healthy relationship to achieve? And I would twist that slightly to say that they develop a healthy relationship to achievement after not having had one, right? And what that really means. And this is a question that comes up all the time with clients of mine, where they will, as they're getting into the work more, they'll start to ask themselves, you know, oh, my god, is this, if this works out, am I going to have to leave my job as CFO or, you know, I mean, you know, that kind of thing, and the answer is no. I mean, there's absolutely a way of establishing a healthier relationship with achievement, wherein you can separate out a little bit, but sufficiently the joys of accomplishing something, particularly if it's in line with your values in one way or another, without the level of pressure that comes from this, you know, internal imperative to succeed or else not be lovable. So, you know, in other words, it's a matter of turning the volume down or changing slightly what, maybe more than slightly, what, what it is that is driving the achievement. So I've certainly had clients who have done exactly that, who have left their very high powered C suite kind of jobs to do something that's much more in line with their loves and passions elsewhere. But I've had many more people who have been able to stay more or less where they are, but with a much healthier attitude. Now, it's possible that some of them end up being, at least, from external metrics standpoint, less successful in the sense that you know, perhaps they're, they're going down from working, I don't know, 80 hours a week, to 40 hours a week. Let's say, right? There's a certain kind of way in which that that necessitates being a little less productive. But the upshot for them is so much more pronounced than whatever downside there is, because they're living a life that's much more in keeping with what they, they themselves care about, rather than what they have long uh, assumed everyone else does.
Kim Meninger
Well, and it, it seems interesting to be able to do that basically reinvent yourself in context, right? Because the environment stays the same, but you're trying to change within it, and the people have certain expectations of you or relationship to you, and so it's always interesting. I think of it almost. You know, for recovering addicts who don't change their environment, there's just so much temptation, or so many ways in which you can easily fall back into old patterns. And yes, would you say there are, there's a need for certain support systems, or how do they, how do they actually maintain that follow through?
Josh Dodes
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, you know, the kind of work that I do, which is to say more psycho, dynamically oriented and long term, you know, in sort of, in a certain manner, speaking deeper, has as its own benefit the fact that it tends to last on its own considerably more effectively than, say, CBT oriented approaches. So it's not to say that people don't need and require, you know, certain levels of support, but by the time people work through this issue, it's, I don't want to say that they've become allergic to the old stimuli around this, but that there's something about it that it becomes less appealing. It's a little bit like the experience that I described of myself on stage where, you know, I had, I got to a point where, even if I had wanted to, and I did, for a little while briefly, before I retired to kind of recapture, oh, well, I know exactly how to respond to this spotlight. This is where I step up. The drive had essentially dissipated because of the work that I had done. I mean, the work I did in my own therapy was much more halting and indirect because it wasn't focused in the way that I've learned how to focus it with other people, but I got there in any event.
Kim Meninger
So that I'm glad you reminded me of that too, because you were going through therapy at that point. I was wondering. You reached that point before you made that decision, too. So it's not like it just came to you out of the blue. You were doing work.
Josh Dodes
Yeah, I was doing a lot of work in in I was actually in psychoanalysis at the time, and I was also, you know, obviously thinking about it a lot. It was, it was in my I was in my 20s, or late 20s, I guess, by that point. And, you know, it was a time of my life where I was really evaluating, in some respects for the very first time, what some of my deeper motivations were that I had never questioned. I had always assumed, for example, that I was going to be a performer, and that I was going to drive myself until I became a rock star in a very sort of small way I did, and then lost the drive. And who knows where I would have been had I not gotten a little healthier. But, you know, it's yeah, it's a much better path.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and you know, going back to sort of the environment that we're in, one of, one of the things that I loved about the article that you wrote, and I'll, I'll link to that in the show, well, was you talk about the effect of social media, right? [Oh yes, yeah.] And I think that's true for people who struggle with imposter syndrome too, especially because so much of it is driven by comparison to [That's right.] Right? So can you say a little bit more about that too? Because I think that is such an important difference in this moment in history than maybe previous generations had to deal with who struggled with similar challenges.
Josh Dodes
Absolutely. I mean, I've sometimes described this as the world's worst, the worst time in the history of the world to be an unhappy achiever, right? Because we are surrounded by these very carefully curated pictures of success, which is not only creating, not only creates a comparative environment that is fundamentally sort of bad, but it also feeds directly into the original problem for unhappy achievers. So if they post, let's say something that is about an achievement of their own. They're either getting one of two messages, both of which are bad. One is, I'm getting all this attention for, for this achievement, which only feeds into the idea that this is what makes them lovable. I mean, literally, you can click love now on the damn thing, so you know, there's that. Or they don't get nearly as much attention as they want, which only feeds their desire to work harder at it still. So it's, I mean, you know, look, I don't want to be a on a soapbox. I'm on social media, and there are ways in which I think it can be useful in terms of building community. But good grief, is it not the worst possible thing psychologically for people in any of these kinds of categories. I think.
Kim Meninger
I was just having this conversation with someone earlier in the week too, who was saying, I have such a hard time on LinkedIn because I go through and I just keep thinking, I should be more like this person. Or there's it's not just a fun way to stay connected. It's a constant, constant reminder of [that's right] even, or what you're doing wrong, or what other people are doing better than you. And [yes, yeah.] And I think it's interesting that you say it, it can be on the on the one hand, right? We, we sort of suffer in watching how few likes or loves we get on different things, but on the other, getting, having a lot of attention just feeds the problem, right? [That's right.] That is what, that's what I'm here for, right?
Josh Dodes
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's very hard to establish a healthier relationship with that kind of thing within those worlds of social media, in my experience.
Kim Meninger
And I'm curious what your thoughts are on this, because I know this is a very complicated topic, and we could probably be here for days talking about this whole relationship to external validation, but there is, there sort of a core wound, or, like a sort of a starting point that most people have that kind of sets them on this path. Like, what people will always say that me, why am I like this? Like, why do we why do we care so much about what other people think? Or, why, why are we so addicted to external validation? Do you have a sense as to why that plays such an important role?
Josh Dodes
Well, I think it's two things. I think that on a more general, kind of universal level, I actually think that our focus on external opinions is fundamentally healthy to a point, right? In other words, I think of us very much in terms of being, you know, kind of relational creatures. We're defined in a lot of very fundamental ways as a species, but also as individuals, by our relationship to and with other people around us. So I don't think that there's anything I think it's baked into our evolutionary psychology. We might say right to be focused on that. But I think that for, for example, unhappy achievers, it's a matter of degree, right, as it often is with these things, you know, up to a certain point, being focused on what other people think is, you know, is a useful and sort of wonderful quality, in fact, to be able to be in community with people. But for people like unhappy achievers, they often have internalized a message much more often than not, that was inadvertently, indirectly communicated to them when they were kids. To get back to the question about the original kind of wound that not that they were told, you know, you, you'd better do this, or else you're, you're nothing to us, although there are certainly people like that, much more than that, the they have noticed that the amount of attention and focus and various other kinds of things that kids really need from their caregivers has gone up pronounced degree in the face of their achievements compared to when they don't. This is one of the reasons, by the way, I'm a parent, obviously, why it's so important that people talk more and more about praising kids for their efforts rather than their outcomes, right? It's sort of fundamental, I think, and it's not something, to be honest, that was, I think, nearly as well-known certainly when I was growing up, or when a lot of people I work with, so it's, you know, it's, it is, I think, just about the degree with which they were treated differently when they, when they had a big success, or conversely, kind of ignored or treated much less with much less attention when they didn't. So it's very rarely, in my experience, a particularly dramatic or traumatic experience for people in the unhappy achievers category.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, and that, you know, that's interesting, because when we were talking about the, the messaging around achievement and the pressure good grades, the opposite side of that, which was my own experience, is having a parent who tells you that you're wonderful no matter what you do. And I grew up with a mom who, no matter what I mean, if I, you know, was banging on the piano like I was the next Mozart right, like, right from the time I was born, was extraordinary, and so not prepared when I went out into the world and was starting to get feedback from other influencers in my life. [Yeah.] Or, you know, I couldn't reconcile her inputs with Other inputs. And so what I found myself doing was either really struggling with who to believe and what, you know, yeah, am I actually good enough or not? And then also I would give up very easily because assumed that I should be a natural at everything that I do.
Josh Dodes
That's interesting, that's that makes perfect sense, and that is definitely, I think that's the downside of the, you know, the more recent trend towards, you know, giving everyone participation trophies and all that sort of shorthand, right? [Exactly.] Which is absolutely goes too far as well.
Kim Meninger
That's right. And so to your point about praising the effort versus the outcome, I think very consciously about that with my own children. To my, you know, my, my instinct may be to say, oh my gosh, you're so good at math, or you did, you know, congratulations on that 100% as opposed to saying, you know, you worked really hard on that, and you should be proud, right, right, right?
Josh Dodes
I find that it's best to ignore my children outright, and I actually sometimes will just put them in cages for days at a time, just to just not interfere with their development too much. You know, directly, I'm a fair to screw it up one way or the other, so I'm just going to keep them in the basement. My experience, I've probably said too much. I've said too much.
Kim Meninger
Well, then that ensures that won't say the wrong thing to them.
Josh Dodes
Exactly, exactly. How can you screw up if they're not even, you know, able to reach their parents? That's right.
Kim Meninger
I'm really glad that you brought up the parenting piece too, though, because I think they're listening who are thinking, oh no, how do I keep my kids from going down these paths? Right? [Sure] proactively to prevent that from happening. And you know, [yep] that's the thing I think about when you're a child, you just do not have the sophistication to be able to process a nuanced message, right? I'm not going to be myself. Oh, my parents have good intentions. They're just delivering this message in an, you know, a critical way. [Right]. Like I'm just taking it at face value and in a very personal way. It's not until we become parents, I think, where we can start to appreciate that the unintended consequences of our…
Josh Dodes
Absolutely, and it's, there's no winning. You know, the onion had a headline years ago that I was something like, you know, new study finds that all styles of parenting create hmpty, hollow adults, or something like that.
Kim Meninger
You know, it's, there's a lot more truth to that than not I think, well, and of course, that's, you know, for high achievers, on the parenting front too.
Josh Dodes
That's right. Hi, that's right.
Kim Meninger
So, you know, I'm curious when it comes to the work that you do, how do you know when it's something that you really would benefit from some additional help on, versus, you know, life is hard. There are lots of challenges. I mean, when do I know that I've crossed the line into it's probably worth spending some more time working on this.
Josh Dodes
That's a great question. I mean, I think that it's ultimately, it's sort of a subjective experience of being unhappy. I mean, that sounds very simplistic, but I think that is actually what it comes down to, because if you have a relationship with achievement or your own successes, that leaves you feeling, let's say, you know, not entirely satisfied, but you feel like your life is more or less in line with what you want. You know, I suspect it's not going to end up driving you into, into therapy, and probably shouldn't. On the other hand, the key thing for at least this population that I work with is often that they feel like they have everything going for them, and that they, quote-unquote, should be happy, but don't feel that way, and often don't know why. And so that experience of emptiness or depression or anxiety or whatever kind of constellation of symptoms they have around that you know feels not only unpleasant enough for them to get help, but confusing enough to need help sussing it out. So it's a little bit of an abstract answer, I guess, but it's a great question. I you know, it's, I think it's one of those, you know, things where people reach a point often, frankly, too late. I mean, not chronologically, but it would be nice for them had they come in earlier, right? But because they're just not feeling satisfied with where they are.
Kim Meninger
Well, and I think it's gotta be hard to in the way that you talked about the feel like they should feel here, there has I'm imagining there has to be an element of shame there too, of I should be more grateful for what I have, or I should feel happier. And I don't want to let people know that I don't, right?
Josh Dodes
That that's exactly right. And I think it's also, I mean, you know, one of the problems is that, you know, and this actually is where another point of overlap, I think, with the imposter syndrome issue, is that there is so much more focus on issues like imposter syndrome, in terms of people in the popular media, for example, talking about, and it's a very good thing for most people, by the way, talking about, you know, trying to enjoy and appreciate your achievements more and be grateful for what you have and all that, and all of that is terrific, except for the fact that if you're already suffering from achieving at a high level and not appreciating it for other reasons, it just does. It absolutely increases the feelings of shame. You know, if everyone's trying to do this thing, and I have it and I'm not satisfied, what the hell is the matter with me?
Kim Meninger
Yes, exactly, exactly, you're absolutely right that there is a strong emphasis on imposter syndrome, and very little, I mean, and that's why your article jumped out at me, because I thought hurt anybody have this conversation. [And that's right.] and it's just as important as the imposter syndrome conversation, yeah. I mean, the struggle for people who are going through that is real.
Josh Dodes
Absolutely. And, yeah, I mean, it's very common for people to, you know, be embarrassed when they start out, you know, I don't understand. I've got, you know, a $3 million you know, beach house, and I've got, you know, all these, these trappings of success, and everyone thinks I'm the life of the party, whatever. And yet, here I am in therapy, and they often will last themselves, you know, do I even deserve to be able to? Are my problem significant enough, you know, to be in therapy? Because I have all these things as if that could possibly affect their subjective experience, you know.
Kim Meninger
So well. And I just, I, you know, I don't know whether you define it as core values or, or some other sort of anchors that we can think about outside of achievement, because I think for people with imposter syndrome, many of them, like I said earlier, see the people who represent the population that you're talking about as sort of the, the pinnacle, right? Like this get and to remember that not everybody is an unhappy achiever, but that if the grass isn't always greener, right? And that you know, if you are doing this because you feel like you have to in order to be lovable, in order to be accepted, to belong, then no matter which path you take, you're always going to it's always going to be harder for you than it needs to be, right? And so I think, [right] I'm always trying to talk with people about, what's your definition of, of success, not what society's definition of success, right? Like, what do you want for your life, not what are your parents telling you, you should want? And so really trying to separate out those forces, like, is there sort of a you know, baseline set of anchors that we could think about to get more in touch with ourselves, as opposed to what we think we should want.
Josh Dodes
Yeah, this is where I sometimes bring in Act, which is an offshoot of CBT, or it's a version of CBT called its Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. But in any event, it's, it's a, it brings a focal point to the what you're calling core values, what they would simply call values, which has to do with helping people to recognize what it is that is most central to who they are, deep down and for unhappy achievers, and I suppose also maybe people who suffer with imposter syndrome, that's a question that they have rarely, if ever, asked themselves, because they have been so focused on doing and being these other things, that once They are able to strip some of that away, it's incredibly common for the question to come up, you know, what do I even care about? What do I even like? You know, I'm, I've been, I've become so good, I'm a machine at pleasing everybody else. Now, now what? And so that's when you know stuff, like thinking about what you're calling core values can be much more significant in terms of, you know, trying to redirect your, at least parts of your life in that in that direction.
Kim Meninger
And I think too about, I always refer to it as testing the system, because we have certain assumptions about what's going to happen if we do something differently from the way we do it, right? But we don't know that to be true. [That's right.] Like you said before, maybe some of the people will go from 80 hours to 40 hours in it, and at one point that's unimaginable, [right,] right? And so how do you start to make incremental changes that allow you to recognize, oh, the world doesn't fall apart if I don't work out?
Josh Dodes
Absolutely, absolutely, and that applies within individual relationships as well. I talk often with people about experimenting with being a little bit less focused on pleasing or achieving and seeing what happens for exactly the reason you just said, because I think that there's this idea if I don't blow people away, let's say, in some way or another, they're not going to like me or love me, and it's often sort of a shock, and a very restorative shock, I think, for people to do a little bit less and find that lo and behold, people still care about them, and that can really move the needle that sort of experience.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. And I think about that with, with so many of the things that we're talking about with perfectionism, like maybe just leave a typo in an email.
Josh Dodes
That's right, that's right. Or, you know, just, just don't, don't blind, carbon copy. Everyone. Just carbon copy, everyone of the companies. Yeah? See what happens. Yeah. Says, see what happens. Yeah, you know what could possibly go wrong? So, but yes, no, that's right. I mean, I have actually encouraged people to, maybe not to make mistakes, but to really genuinely try to do a little bit less and see what happens. It's a big ask, obviously, for people, people in these categories.
Kim Meninger
Absolutely, absolutely. So you certainly want to be thoughtful about the baby steps that you're taking and the environments in which you're taking them. But [that's right], but I think that's how your brain catches up, right? Otherwise, [that's right]. Stay firm in those beliefs.
Josh Dodes
Yep, that's right. I think that's exactly right. Yeah.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. I love the work you're doing. Josh, I think it is so important.
Josh Dodes
Thank you, Kim, and I appreciate that.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. I mean, like I said, it is just an, I think, an under-examined challenge right now. And so for people who want to learn more about you your work, you know, follow, follow you. Where can they find you?
Josh Dodes
Well, I have two fundamental places that I can be, actually three not to think about. I have my kind of clinical website, which is just joshdodes.com, J-O-S-H-D-O-D-E-S, which is essentially how to get to my practices website in other words. I'm on LinkedIn, and I never know exactly how to spell it out, but it's also my tag. Is just Josh Dodes. One word. I don't think it's just LinkedIn slash Josh Dodes but something like that. And then I am also, I blog periodically for Psychology Today on this topic as well. And I can, we can put a link in to the, the Unhappy Achievers blog that I have. It's not something I post to that regularly anymore but that's another place to sort of find out more about this kind of idea.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say, even though you're speaking to a different audience, what you're saying does resonate with people with imposter syndrome as well. So I'd recommend [yes] you know, people check out the blog. I appreciate that you identify with, right?
Josh Dodes
That's right. Eventually, we'll have some sort of a warm we'll, we'll see, you know, see who comes out on top. But you know.
Kim Meninger
Well, thank you so much for being here, Josh and thank you for doing the work you're doing.
Josh Dodes
Oh, that's very kind. Kim, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
