Women of Worth

Escaping the Achievement Trap - Why You Never Feel 'Enough' - No Matter How Much You Achieve

• Claire Fealy

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You have everything you've ever wanted—the career, the house, the relationship—yet feel like it's never enough, as if something is still missing. 

This constant feeling of "never enough" isn't a lack of gratitude. It stems from a deeper issue: outsourcing your worth to external validation.

When your entire sense of value is tied to what you achieve and how others perceive you, you're caught in an endless chase for more. 

Our sense of worth often comes from external validation, leading to a cycle where no achievement ever feels enough and the constant need to prove ourselves prevents genuine peace and contentment.

High-achieving women often present a flawless exterior while internally drowning in anxiety, unable to slow down or truly enjoy their accomplishments. 

This pattern typically begins in childhood when we're praised primarily for performance or self-sacrifice, creating a dependency on external approval that becomes nearly impossible to satisfy later in life.

This episode explores the profound difference between achievement-based success and enjoyment-based success, offering practical tools to break free from external validation addiction. 

Learn why "being everything to everyone else" is actually self-abandonment, not virtue, and discover simple daily practices that build internal validation and reduce dependency on outside approval.

If you're tired of living life like a checklist and ready to experience genuine peace that no achievement can provide, this episode will help you reconnect with your inherent worthiness. 

In today's episode we cover:

• High-achievers often appear successful on the outside while battling internal stress and anxiety
• Self-worth becomes tied to achievement when raised on praise for performance and people-pleasing
• The "martyr mindset" creates a cycle of self-abandonment that feels positive but leads to burnout
• True worth comes from who you are, not what you do
• Success should be measured by enjoyment, not achievement
• Daily journaling on wins helps build self-validation and reduces dependency on external approval
• Shifting from "milestone living" to "moment living" changes how you experience your life
• High achievers often struggle with hyper-independence, seeing asking for help as weakness

Success isn't about ticking boxes; it's about living fully in each moment. 

Remember: your only goal in life is to enjoy it, and you're already enough exactly as you are.


PS: If you're a CEO, leader or high achiever with outer success who wants the inner happiness to match I have a limited number of 30-minute strategy sessions available this month where I identify your biggest mindset block and give you three personalized strategies to get you unstuck. If you’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and you want to live, lead and achieve with less stress, more happiness, peace and ease let’s hop on a strategy call!

Click HERE to apply and start your transformation from proving yourself to prioritising yourself TODAY! 

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Women of Worth podcast. I am your host, clare Feely, teacher turned mindset and confidence coach. Each week, I will be bringing you inspiring people messages and science-backed strategies to help you reconnect with your worth. You are worthy because you were born. This podcast is all about empowering you to stop proving your worth and start being it, because the only person that gets to decide your worth is you. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Women of Worth podcast.

Speaker 1:

In today's episode, I want to talk to you about no matter how much you achieve, no matter how well your life is going, it just never feels enough. You never feel that sense of deep inner peace, contentment. Feel that sense of deep inner peace, contentment. Life is enough, I am enough, exactly as I am. So a lot of times when clients come to me, they have everything on the outside. They have the career that they've always dreamed of, a career that they love. They might have the partner, they have the house. They've ticked off all of the things on the checklist, all of the things that we're told bring us happiness. Right, and it's this sense of why is it not enough? Like, why can I not just appreciate what I have? Why can I not just appreciate what I have? Why can I not just and they'll even say, like I just need to be more grateful? And in today's episode, I want to share with you where this actually comes from, like getting to the root of it, so that you realize that this is not a you problem. I see this every day in my coaching, so when clients show up and they share what is going on internally, what it feels like is the constant need to achieve, the constant need to do more, be more, have more, the constant need to even just be perfect, like keep up the persona.

Speaker 1:

I find that high achievers are often very, very high masking. And what I mean by high masking? Everyone around them thinks that they have their whole life sorted, know they have it so easy because of their career success, because of their house, like because they their life looks amazing. People think that they have it all together, but on the inside they are barely keeping their head above water. It's chronic stress and anxiety, and then there's even shame and guilt on top of that, because I shouldn't feel this way. Like they tried to gaslight themselves into just being more grateful, and it has nothing to do with gratitude. It really, really doesn't.

Speaker 1:

And I was working with a client recently who had, you know, built her own house. Uh, with her now husband got married, you know, was in a really good job, had everything on the outside, but literally could not switch off, even though they moved into this beautiful house. Oh my god, it was stunning, like, oh my god, unbelievable. And when she sat down in the evening, when she got in from work, her brain would not switch off and the only way she knew how to switch off was binge watching episodes of her favorite show and scrolling on her phone and then, not being able to sleep at night, could not, could not, could not get up in the mornings to save her life, snoozing her alarm, snooze, snooze, snooze. Her alarm could be going off for an hour, an hour and a half, and then it would literally be jumping out of bed, rushing out the the door, rushing in the car, just living in constant panic mode, constant stress mode.

Speaker 1:

And it is that I so resonated with this client's frustration of, like, I have everything, so why can I not just relax? Why is this not enough? And that was me when I lived in Abu Dhabi and my life looked picture perfect, if you saw my Instagram back then. I was traveling to all these, like Zanzibar safari in Kenya. I had more money than I ever had, I had the best group of friends, I was in my dream job, but it was just constant anxiety. It was just like there was no space for joy, there was no space to relax, and you, just you, wake up every day stressed and you're just dreading the day. You're just getting through the day.

Speaker 1:

And when I look back on that time in my life, I feel like Monday to Friday was just chaos, like not even chaos, but just it was so busy, so like such long days I was trying to do it all, be everything to everyone. And then at the weekends, it would be a big, massive blowout. Like we would go for brunches, bottomless, you know drinks and then Sunday would be spent like hungover, feeling awful and just starting every week, exhausted and feeling like you're never ahead of yourself, feeling like you're never actually on top of things. And it wasn't until I burnt out so so, so badly at the end of 2020 that I really started going into the deeper root causes. That like what was causing me to never be able to slow down, to never feel like, no matter what I achieved, it just never felt good enough like what was at the root of this, because I knew I needed to get to the bottom of it and and obviously where this podcast comes from the women of worth it all came back down to my self-worth. So what I realized, and what I helped my clients realize so that they can take their power back, is how much you are outsourcing your worth and your value. So your worth is completely in your output and this usually comes from if you were a child who was raised on praise for your performance. This is usually where this comes from.

Speaker 1:

So I would have clients who were praised a lot for being a great big sister and looking after the younger ones. Or I remember one client got a lot of praise for looking after a neighbor who had I think it was cystic fibrosis or something like that, and she ended up going into nursing and being nearly completely burnt out from nursing and from being everything to everyone and nothing to herself. And it's this martyr mindset, like I fully believed when I was in Abu Dhabi and even when I was in teaching, even when I started my business that being everything to everyone else it made me a better person, like it made me a really good person and of course, it gave me the hits of validation and the hits of like. I get it. I get why I stayed stuck in that cycle for so long over giving and then just completely burning out.

Speaker 1:

But when you are raised on praise for what you achieve and how you abandon yourself and and that's what it is it's self-abandonment. How you abandon yourself for the needs of others and as women, we are praised for that as if it's a really, really good thing. One of the biggest things my clients struggle with is putting themselves first, like actually without the guilt, because it's this feeling that you're doing something bad, that you're doing something wrong, but putting yourself first, prioritizing your health above anything else and I mean mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health, putting that above everything else. That is not selfish, that's self-respect, love like there's all this buzz out there of self-love and love yourself. What love actually is.

Speaker 1:

Love is trust and respect. Think of someone you love deeply. Think of how much you trust them. You would trust them with your deepest, darkest secrets. You would trust them with your deepest, darkest secrets and think of how much you respect them. How did they get that trust and respect. So imagine, like your partner right, when you first meet that person, they do not have your trust and respect. That is built over time and it is built because they give you their attention.

Speaker 1:

And most women are so stuck in self-abandonment. They have no sense of self. They have no sense of like, trust and respect in themselves because their focus is completely external. Their focus is completely on what other people think of them. Their focus is completely on their achievements and the approval of others and their appearance, how they're showing up. They've completely outsourced their confidence, their happiness, their self-worth and when you get stuck in that cycle, it feels nearly impossible to break. It really, really does. Um. But you have to start to internalize your worth and internalize your confidence and your happiness and stop like. You have to start owning it and not outsourcing it to others.

Speaker 1:

I want to give you a mindset shift right and I want you to really, really let this land. What if your worth and your value comes from who you are and not what you do? I really want you to let that land. What if your worth, your value as a human being? It does not come from what you do for others. It comes from who you are as a person Like you are inherently worthy, deserving of your own trust and respect and love, and it is when you start giving it to yourself.

Speaker 1:

The biggest epiphany for me was when I realized those that chase approval the most get it the least, and those who chase approval the least. It's such a paradox. They get it the most back. When I was living for what other people thought of me. I was consumed by like getting people to like me and oh, just being I was consumed by it, and that repels people, because people can feel that energy off you. So I want you to start detaching and start like separating who you are from what you do. Who you are as a person is so, so, so much more important than what you do. What you do is one part of your life. Who you are at the end of the day is everything, and I want you to think of who you are as the person you fall asleep with every night yourself, the person you wake up with every morning. Is that person nice to be around? Is that person easy to be around? That's who you are at the end of the day, and it's seeing success not as achievement but as enjoyment. If you see success.

Speaker 1:

I was actually working with a client this morning who exactly everything I'm describing in this episode was so like, has built a really successful business and was so afraid of slowing down, even though she knew she could not keep going at the pace she was. And the mindset block we uncovered was she believed that she was nothing without her success, like her whole identity, happiness, confidence everything was tied to the success of her business. When your self-worth is tied to your success, life will always feel like a burden. Life will always feel hard and heavy. It will always feel like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders because you are always trying to prove yourself and prove that you're enough, and it's not possible to prove like you're already enough exactly as you are. The more you try to prove that you are enough, the more you feed the fear that you're not good enough. And that's why, when this client had built one successful business, she then moved on to a second one and, again because she's so driven, the second business was a huge success and it was then that she realized she could open more of these branches. But like it didn't fix anything, it didn't no matter what she achieved, it never felt enough.

Speaker 1:

And I'm sharing this so that you stop chasing society's version of success, which is the milestones, like the successful business, the partner, the house tick, tick, tick. Living life like it's a checklist and you go from milestone living to moments, living living in the actual moment. How much are you enjoying your day today? We don't get a life, we get a day. What you do today, like how you live today, is how you enjoying your day today. We don't get a life, we get a day. What you do today, like how you live today, is how you live your life. So I'm going to give you some practical tools that you can start to practice today, going forward.

Speaker 1:

The quickest and easiest way to start uncovering and processing some of this take out a piece of pen and paper, even do this on your phone, and I want you to journal on. Who am I without my achievements? Who am I without the approval of everyone around me, and how would I live differently if I fully felt like I was enough exactly as I am today? How would I live differently? How would I show up differently in my life? The answers will blow you away and you will realize how much you're living for external validation. As long as you were living for likes, your life is not your own. As long as you were living to impress others, your life is not your own. And I saw something recently and I actually need to print it out and put it somewhere because I think it's such a powerful quote if you are not living a life you love, you are living for others. Because, if you think about it, if you're living a life you love, it's because you're following, like, what feels best for you, not what everyone else is doing. And the last strategy I want to leave with you, because this works really, really, really, really well with my clients and it only takes 10 minutes.

Speaker 1:

At night, the number one thing that got me out of my addiction to external validation was writing down three wins. It sounds so simple that it's nearly too easy that you wouldn't do it, but any time I miss a few nights of doing this, I notice myself needing more validation. So I go back to the practice of writing down three things that went really really well today, three things that you're proud of. Usually, clients like this will bring up a lot of discomfort because you're not used to praising yourself. You're used to criticizing yourself, beating yourself up, but start with a journal and just write down your three wins every day and three things that went well, three things that you're proud of and try and not because sometimes clients slip into making this like their to-do list. Like I did this, I did this, I did this. But even something as simple, as I was a little bit kinder to myself today I am slowly building my own respect and trust. Like little things like that, not just the big things. The more you validate yourself, the less of an addiction and dependence you have on external validation. It is honestly a game changer If this episode is really landing for you.

Speaker 1:

This is exactly the work I do with my clients. We dive deep into the root causes of what keeps you stuck in overdrive, what keeps you stuck in people pleasing perfectionism, procrastination, all of the Ps, so that you can release these patterns that are not you Like if you weren't born with it. It's a belief, so it's changing these survival patterns so that you can show up as the most calm, confident, content version of yourself. I have a very limited number of 30-minute strategy sessions available this month, so this is not just a chat about coaching or what you're struggling with. It's a really, really powerful kind of like a taster for coaching. So what I do on a 30 minute strategy session I identify your biggest mindset block, the main one that is keeping you stuck, and then I give you three personalized strategies. So I would say, okay, the first thing you need to do is this. The second thing you need to do is this. The third thing you need to do is this this call alone gets people like the difference is night and day, because they realize, oh, this is my biggest mindset block and these are the simple steps to get out of my own way. And then, if we're a fit for working together, if I feel like I can support you to get there faster and get there easier than you could do going it alone, then I will go through what that looks like and the whole process and everything.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest things that high achievers struggle with and I see this all the time in my coaching is asking for help, because they see asking for help as a weakness or as like failure. It's this part of high achieving is hyper independence, where you feel like you have to do it all yourself and you feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. The thing is, the most successful women and by successful I mean thriving not just success on paper, but success from the inside out they surround themselves with support. I'm an ex-hyper independent high achiever and now I could not get enough support. I have a coach, I have a therapist, I have my business group of friends, I have my teacher group of friends, I have my hobbies, like I literally surround myself with support and I want you to get out of your own way. So if today's episode is resonating with you, this is your sign. You are not listening to this episode by accident. This is the universe trying to give you that little nudge to take the steps towards your next level life. If that is you, you can click the link in the show notes. So underneath where the podcast episode is, I leave the link in the top line.

Speaker 1:

Once you apply and the application form is really important because it shows me whether you are ready for coaching or not Be as honest as you can on the application form and actually use the application form. I always tell people use the application form as a massive brain dump to get everything out of your head and down on paper, and that means then, when we like, I maximize those 30 minutes because I can already see from your application form what your biggest mindset block is. So fill in the application form. Once you do that, I'll send you a link to my calendar and then you can book in for your 30 minute free strategy session. This is a no flipping brainer. You have nothing to lose by doing a free 30 minute strategy session. There is absolutely zero obligation or pressure to sign up to coaching after this. I only take on clients when they feel excited about oh my God, claire, yes, let's do this, let's go all in, let's work together. There is no shitty sales tactics. I do not do that Just in case, because I've had people who have been on calls with coaches and it turns into like a sales pitch and it's just so wrong.

Speaker 1:

So, just in case that fear was holding you back, I'm going to wrap up today's episode and I'm going to leave you with no amount of achievements, no amount of people liking you, no amount of weight loss or ticking things off your checklist. No amount of success will even come close to your own inner peace and happiness. Honestly, it is life changing when you start living from the inside out and you start living from this place of enoughness. You are enough exactly as you are. You do not have to earn love and respect and approval from others. You simply need to remember how enough you already are.

Speaker 1:

If you enjoyed today's episode, which I hope you did, I would love to know your takeaways. Please drop me a message over on Instagram or drop me an email at clairefeely at gmailcom, and please share this episode with one woman that you know needs to hear. All of this life-changing mindset shifts today and help me to help more women step into their flipping power and step into their next level life. I am so proud of you for doing this work, for showing up. Thank you for listening to today's episode and I will see you on the next one. Remember, your only goal in life is to enjoy it. Success is enjoyment, not achievement.

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Claire Fealy

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