The Insufferable Pain of Living an Unfulfilled Life

Start building a life that feels as good as it looks

Introduction

You’re seated at the corner table of a Michelin-starred restaurant, sipping an exquisite vintage that cost more than your first car. Your Rolex gleams in the soft glow of the candlelight, a quiet reminder of just how far you’ve come. The view is stunning, the ambiance impeccable. You’ve achieved what most people can only dream of—corner office, six-figure bonus, the home with the view. But as you swirl that vintage glass, a gnawing emptiness creeps in, one you can’t explain. The satisfaction from your last victory is already fading, leaving behind a deafening silence. You wonder, “Is this it?”

For successful professionals like you— whose lives are defined by their exceptional accomplishments—this scenario might well be all too familiar. You have excelled, outpaced, and over-delivered, leaving others marvelling at your relentless dedication and drive. And yet, behind the polished exterior, you often grapple with a profound dissonance: the paradox of success without lasting satisfaction.

Success, after all, is supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to fulfil you, make your life meaningful, to prove that the late nights and sacrifices were worth it. But for many, the climb to the top doesn’t bring contentment—it only amplifies a profound ache, a longing for something more meaningful, more genuine. It’s the cruel irony of success: the higher you rise, the more you feel the weight of what’s missing.

I encounter this “insufferable pain” again and again, during iNFINITE iMPACT mentoring sessions. And I always wonder, “Why does this happen? What are the deep underlying origins of this pain? Of this pressing need to succeed?”

So in this article, I’d like to explore the deeply rooted origins of this pain, tracing it back to childhood pressures, societal expectations, and the insidious belief that self-worth must be earned through achievement. I’ll shine a light on the psychological patterns and cultural dynamics that drive you to chase milestones, only to find them hollow when you reach them.

Understand why you feel like this will go a long way towards living a more meaningful life and if you need professional support, you can enrol in my iNFINITE iMPACT mentoring program. Or even better, attend a Troubled t Triumphant Transformational Camino de Santiago walking retreat here at my little farm in the southwest of France, so that we can chart a path for you – not as yet another relentless pursuit, but as a fulfilling and sustainable way of living.

1. The Making of a Uber-Achiever

The story often begins long before your first promotion or award ceremony. It starts in your formative years, where the seeds of ambition are planted—sometimes with love, sometimes with relentless pressure, sometimes with great anxiety.

Early Family Dynamics and Expectations
For many successful professionals, the earliest lessons about worth come from family dynamics. Perhaps YOU were the child who always “did well” in school, whose report card was framed on the refrigerator like a trophy. This wasn’t just about academics—it was about a deeper, often unspoken family narrative: The more you achieve, the worthier you are.

Some families impose expectations so high they verge on the impossible, setting the child on a lifelong treadmill of proving their value. Others may be more subtle, encouraging excellence but inadvertently tying love and approval to outstanding performance. Either way, the message is internalised: achievement equals acceptance.

The Gifted Child’s Burden
Successful professionals are often labelled as “gifted” early on—a title that can feel both flattering and suffocating. Giftedness comes with its own set of expectations. This burden can make failure or mediocrity feel intolerable. The child learns to equate effort with survival: be exceptional, or risk losing your identity altogether.

Cultural and Societal Pressures
Society has a way of magnifying these family dynamics, turning them into a full-blown ethos. Modern culture idolises achievement and relentless productivity, celebrating the grind as though it’s synonymous with virtue. From early school awards to competitive college admissions, the world outside the home reinforces the belief that success isn’t optional; it’s essential. Failure is unacceptable.

The Role of Early Praise and Recognition
The uber-achiever’s trajectory is often reinforced by early praise. The gold star on the test, the standing ovation at the recital—these moments teach you a seductive lesson: external validation feels good. But it’s a double-edged sword. The more reliant you become on applause, the more you fear its disappearance. Achievements become not just milestones but lifelines.

2. Disturbing Origin Stories

Behind every uber-achiever is an origin story—a set of personal and emotional circumstances that fuel their relentless drive. While the details vary, the themes are strikingly universal.

Compensating for Childhood Insecurity
Some uber-achievers grow up in environments where stability or security is lacking. Perhaps it was financial limitations, an emotionally unavailable parent, or constant unpredictability. Achievement becomes a way to create a sense of control and safety. If the external world is chaotic, at least success offers acceptance and predictability.

The Desire to Escape Difficult Circumstances
For others, success is a ticket out. Whether escaping a toxic home, a stifling community, or a painful identity imposed by others, achievement becomes the exit strategy. Climbing the ladder isn’t just about ambition—it’s about survival in an ever more demanding world.

The Need to Prove Your Critics Wrong
Many super-successful professionals can trace their drive to a pivotal moment when someone doubted them. A teacher, a parent, a peer—someone suggested you wouldn’t succeed. Every milestone is a silent scream, “Look at me acing it!” But beneath the triumph lies an uncomfortable truth: proving others wrong is a powerful motivator, but it rarely brings lasting fulfilment.

Seeking Parental Approval That Is Never Granted
A tragically common thread is the uber-achiever who longs for the approval of a parent who withheld it. No matter how many accomplishments you rack up, it never feels like enough to fill that void. You’re chasing applause that, in many cases, will never come your way.

Using Achievement to Gain Love or Acceptance
In some cases, achievement is a way to compensate for emotional neglect or a lack of unconditional love. If you couldn’t be loved for who they were, you reason, perhaps you could be loved for what you’ve done. But love earned through achievement is precarious—what happens if the success can no longer be guaranteed?

3. Psychological Patterns

Behind every successful professional is a complex web of psychological patterns—some constructive, others subtly destructive. These patterns are often forged in childhood and refined over years of striving, creating a double-edged sword: they drive success, but they also perpetuate eternal dissatisfaction.

Perfectionism Rooted in Conditional Love
For many successful professionals, the desire to excel isn’t just about ambition—it’s about perfectionism, a relentless need to exceed expectations. This mindset often stems from conditional love experienced in childhood. How many of you recognise this setup? When love or approval was tied to achievements, we learned that being “good enough” wasn’t enough. Perfectionism, while productive in the short term, creates an exhausting and ultimately destructive internal dialogue: You can do better. You must do better.

Fear of Failure as a Driving Force
Success often carries a shadow: an intense, sometimes paralysing fear of failure. For successful professionals, failure isn’t just a setback; it feels like a fundamental threat to their identity (and sometimes existence. This fear propels them forward, but it also keeps them in a state of high alert, unable to own their wins. Failure isn’t simply feared—it’s avoided at all costs, even at the expense of personal well-being. And this is at the root of many health problems that I saw when I was working as a medical doctor.

Achievement as a Shield Against Vulnerability
Vulnerability is often seen as a liability by those who equate worth with success. Instead of facing insecurities or emotional pain, you often use your achievements as armour. As long as the accolades roll in, the cracks underneath remain hidden. But this strategy has a flaw: the shield of achievement causes loneliness, self-doubt, and a deep need for connection.

The Role of Childhood Emotional Neglect
One of the most insidious contributors to these patterns is childhood emotional neglect. Successful professionals often grew up in environments where emotional needs were overlooked in favour of tangible accomplishments. Perhaps you received praise for grades but not comfort for tears, or recognition for trophies but not empathy for struggles. This creates a lifelong pattern of prioritising external achievements over internal emotional health.

4. The Hedonic Treadmill Effect

Even the most dazzling accomplishments lose their lustre over time. This phenomenon, known as the hedonic treadmill, traps successful professionals in an endless cycle: always chasing the next milestone, only to find it just as unsatisfying as the last.

How Achievements Quickly Become the New Normal
The first big win—a promotion, a bonus, a public accolade—can feel euphoric. But that feeling doesn’t last. Instead of savouring the accomplishment, you move the goalposts, focusing on what’s next. The new normal becomes just that: normal. What once felt extraordinary now feels baseline, and the cycle begins again.

Why the Thrill of Success Is Often Fleeting
The initial thrill of success is a dopamine hit, a fleeting rush that fades as quickly as it arrives. This is why you who seem to “have it all” can feel perpetually dissatisfied. Your life looks extraordinary from the outside, but inside, the high of achievement is quickly replaced by a gnawing sense of, What’s next?

The Constant Pressure to Exceed Previous Accomplishments
Success creates its own pressure. The higher you climb, the harder it becomes to maintain your position. You often feel trapped by your achievements, caught in a relentless race to outdo yourself. And with every step up the ladder, the stakes—and the anxiety—increase.

5. Moving Goalposts Syndrome

For successful professionals, one of the most persistent challenges is the tendency to move the goalposts. No matter how much you achieve, your definition of success keeps shifting, leaving you in a constant state of striving for more.

How Standards for “Success” Keep Shifting Upward
A successful professional rarely celebrates for long. That big deal? It’s forgotten the moment the next target looms. The promotion? Just another step toward a more important title. The satisfaction of hitting a goal is fleeting because the standards for success keep evolving—always upward, always just out of reach.

The Tendency to Discount Current Achievements
One of the cruellest aspects of Moving Goalposts Syndrome is the tendency to downplay accomplishments. You might receive a prestigious award and think, Anyone could have done this. Or you might hit a financial milestone and immediately worry it’s not enough. Your current achievements are overshadowed by the next big thing, creating a persistent sense of inadequacy.

Comparison
Social comparison compounds this problem. No matter how successful you become, there’s always someone more accomplished, wealthier, or more influential. This comparison trap feeds a quiet but relentless insecurity: If they’re doing that, why can’t I? Instead of celebrating your own wins, you fixate on someone else’s, perpetuating the feeling that you’re always falling short.

6. Identity Fusion with Achievement

Here’s a fun (but slightly tragic) thought experiment: if your LinkedIn profile vanished tomorrow, who would you be? For many successful professionals, the answer is unsettling. Their identity has become so tightly fused with their accomplishments that without the titles, awards, and glowing performance reviews, they feel like a ghost in their own life.

The Danger of Tying Self-Worth Entirely to Accomplishments
When your worth is measured solely by your achievements, every success feels like a validation of your existence—and every failure feels like a personal collapse. It’s exhausting, isn’t it? There’s no room for mistakes, rest, or even being an ordinary human being. This mindset turns life into a performance, where the applause never lasts long enough.

How Achievement Becomes an Addiction
Like any addiction, achievement offers a high—a rush of pride, validation, maybe even a bit of envy from your peers. But just like a sugar crash, the glow fades, leaving you hungry for the next hit. And because the stakes are always rising, the next “fix” has to be bigger, better, and shinier. It’s a cycle that looks glamorous from the outside but feels hollow on the inside.

The Emptiness When External Validation Isn’t Enough
The nuisance is, even when the applause is deafening, it doesn’t fill the void. You finally realise that external validation can’t replace the deeper, more personal sense of fulfillment you’re craving. After all, a trophy looks great on a shelf, but it’s pretty lousy at keeping you company on a bad day.

How Childhood Experiences Created This Fusion
This identity fusion doesn’t come out of nowhere. Many successful professionals grew up hearing messages like, “You’re going to be someone special,” or, “You’ll make us proud one day.” While these words may have been well-meaning, they can plant a seed: Who I am is what I achieve. It’s a belief that’s hard to shake—even when it starts to hurt.

7. The Cost of Single-Minded Focus

Success demands time, energy, and often, a long list of sacrifices. For successful professionals, the single-minded pursuit of achievement often comes at a cost—one that’s rarely acknowledged in glowing acceptance speeches.

Neglected Personal Relationships
When success is the goal, relationships often take a backseat. Missed dinners, forgotten anniversaries, and texts that begin with, “Sorry for the late reply…” are all too common. It’s not that you don’t care about your loved ones—it’s that the relentless drive leaves little room for anything else. Over time, though, the absence adds up, creating a distance that’s hard to bridge.

Sacrificed Hobbies and Interests
Remember when you used to paint, play guitar, or try to master sourdough bread? No? That’s because those hobbies likely got shoved aside in favour of replying to late-night emails and weekend strategy sessions. The problem isn’t just that these interests fade—it’s that they’re often the very things that make life rich and meaningful.

Limited Emotional Development Outside of Professional Growth
Here’s the quiet irony: while you’re busy climbing the professional ladder, other parts of your life—your emotional awareness, your capacity for vulnerability—may be stuck on the ground floor. Success often demands a tough exterior, leaving little space to explore the softer, messier parts of being human.

8. The Authenticity Gap

If you’ve ever felt like a walking contradiction, you’re not alone. Successful professionals often wrestle with what I like to call the authenticity gap—the disconnect between their public persona and their private reality.

Disconnect Between Public Success and Private Fulfillment
From the outside, it looks like you’ve got it all: the career, the accolades, the enviable lifestyle. But inside, it can feel like you’re playing a role in someone else’s soap opera. The polished version of you—the one on social media and in boardrooms—doesn’t always match the person you see in the mirror. And that disconnect? It’s soul-destroying.

Imposter Syndrome and Its Persistent Effects
Imposter syndrome loves to crash the party, even for the most successful professionals. No matter how many wins you stack up, there’s a tiny, annoying voice in the back of your mind whispering, “You don’t really deserve this, do you?” The paradox is cruel: the more you achieve, the more you fear being “caught.”

Fear of Being ‘Found Out’ or Losing It All
Speaking of being “found out,” there’s another fear lurking in the shadows: the fear of losing it all. The higher you climb, the further there is to fall—or at least that’s what your mind tells you. This fear often leads to an exhausting level of vigilance, where you’re constantly trying to protect what you’ve built instead of enjoying it.

9. The Missing Meaning Factor

Let’s cut to the chase: all the success in the world means nothing if it doesn’t feel meaningful. Successful professionals often find themselves at a crossroads, staring at their long list of accomplishments and wondering why none of it quite hits the soul. The problem? Achievement isn’t the same as fulfilment—and chasing one doesn’t guarantee the other.

Achievement Without Purpose
Here’s the rub: success can be dazzling, but without a sense of purpose, it’s like fireworks on a foggy night—bright for a moment, then gone. Many successful professionals achieve for achievement’s sake, ticking off goals like items on a grocery list. But purpose? That’s harder to pin down. And without it, even the most impressive accomplishments can feel hollow.

The Difference Between Accomplishment and Fulfillment
Accomplishment is external—it’s about the trophy on the shelf, the promotion, the applause. Fulfilment, on the other hand, is deeply internal. It’s about living in alignment with your values, connecting with others, and doing work that feels meaningful. The tricky part? You are often so busy chasing accomplishments that you rarely stop to ask what fulfilment might look like.

The Challenge of Finding Intrinsic Motivation
When you’ve spent a lifetime chasing gold stars, shifting to intrinsic motivation feels like learning a new language. What drives you, if not your resume? What makes you feel alive, not just accomplished? These aren’t easy questions, but they’re worth asking. Because at the end of the day, fulfilment isn’t something you win—it’s something you create.

10. Breaking the Cycle

Here’s the good news: the cycle of overachievement and dissatisfaction isn’t set in stone. With self-awareness, intention, and a bit of courage, you can break free from the patterns that keep you stuck and start building a life that feels as good as it looks.

Recognising Inherited Patterns
The first step is awareness. You may be operating on autopilot, driven by beliefs and patterns they inherited from childhood. Maybe it’s the idea that love has to be earned, or that rest is laziness in disguise. Recognizing these patterns isn’t easy—after all, they’ve been running the show for years—but it’s the only way to start rewriting the script.

Challenging Core Beliefs About Your Worth
Here’s a wild thought: your worth isn’t tied to your latest quarterly performance. Revolutionary, right? You often need to challenge the deeply ingrained belief that you’re only as good as your last achievement. This takes time, but the payoff is enormous: a self-worth that isn’t tied to external validation.

Building Identity Beyond Achievement
Who are you without the title, the accolades, the applause? It’s a scary question, but also an exciting one. You can start exploring parts of your identity that have nothing to do with work. What brings you joy? What makes you curious? These are the threads of a richer, more balanced sense of self.

11. Finding Balance

Balance isn’t about doing less—it’s about doing what matters more. For successful professionals, finding balance means stepping off the hamster wheel of achievement long enough to build a life that feels whole, not just impressive.

Healing the Wounded Achiever
Before balance is possible, there’s often healing to be done. This means addressing the wounds that drive overachievement—whether it’s a childhood longing for approval or a deep-seated fear of failure. This is where iNFINITE iMPACT can have its greatest, well, impact. Because sometimes, the most powerful thing you can achieve is peace with yourself.

Developing Healthy Ambition
Ambition doesn’t have to be the enemy. When it’s healthy, it can be a force for good—driving you toward goals that align with your values instead of draining you. Healthy ambition isn’t about proving yourself; it’s about expressing yourself, contributing, and making an impact.

Creating Sustainable Success
Sustainable success is about more than hitting numbers—it’s about creating a rhythm that works for the long haul. This might mean setting boundaries, taking breaks (yes, real ones), and giving yourself permission to slow down. Success shouldn’t burn you out; it should lift you up.

Conclusion: The Freedom to Redefine Success

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: for many successful professionals, the greatest accomplishment isn’t another promotion, another award, or another zero added to the bank account—it’s stepping off the relentless hamster wheel of achievement altogether.

Because that ladder you’re climbing with such (flagging?) determination? It might not even be leaning against the right wall. What if success isn’t about reaching the next rung but about figuring out which wall actually matters to you?

The pain of an unfulfilled life isn’t a sign that you’ve failed—it’s a sign that you’re human. It’s the universe’s way of nudging you to pause, to question, to recalibrate. Sure, society might applaud your accolades and your relentless grind, but at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live with your choices.

The beauty of it all is that success, like life itself, is not set in stone. It doesn’t have to be the narrow, exhausting definition you grew up believing in. It can be messy, unconventional, and deeply personal. It can look like saying “no” more often. Like rediscovering that hobby you abandoned years ago. Like taking pride in how you treat others, not just what you achieve.

Redefining success doesn’t mean giving up ambition—it means redirecting it. It’s about building a life where your accomplishments aren’t the only things that define you. It’s about creating a legacy that feels good to you, not just impressive to everyone else.

So here’s the challenge: stop living for the applause. Start living for the meaningful moments. Because at the end of the day, the loudest applause isn’t external—it’s the quiet, steady kind that comes from knowing you’ve built a life that truly suits you.

And that? That’s the ultimate success.

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