#070 The Diary of a High Achiever with Amanda Parker
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In this episode, Amanda gives an honest, personal look at the hidden cost of being a high achiever — and how to step off the treadmill of endless goals and finally feel the fulfillment you've been chasing.
Read the full Show Notes below!
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“Achievement does not just allow you to say, ‘Oh my God, yay, I got the certificate. I’m done now.’ What it actually does is it keeps you on a continual search for the next thing to achieve.”
Today's Guest
Amanda Parker
Amanda Parker is the host of the Don't Step on the Bluebells podcast and an intuitive guide that helps people to deeply trust their inner wisdom, quiet the external noise, and intentionally create a life fully aligned with their true self. She is a Certified Professional Coach (ICF PCC, CPCC) and spiritual guide using a unique blend of shamanic and energy healing practices to support you on your journey towards inner knowing and deep self-trust.
Amanda is a Reiki Master Healer and a member of the UK Reiki Federation, and has trained in psychic mediumship with the College of Psychic Studies and shamanism with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.
Amanda has worked in the field of leadership and personal development since 2017 - supporting clients from organizations such as World Bank Group, World Economic Forum, UNICEF, Zalando, Nestle, and LinkedIn. She previously worked in wildlife conservation with the World Wildlife Fund - supporting projects in forest and wetland protection across South America.
Amanda is a native New Yorker who has been living in London for the last 4.5 years, after over a decade in Berlin, Germany. She now lives in North London with her husband and their two cats, Zaki & Oreo.
How to get in touch:
Inner Authority Gameplan: https://www.amandaparker.co/gameplan
Website: https://www.amandaparker.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaparker.co/
Substack: https://substack.com/@theamandaparker
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Show Notes
What if the very drive that makes you capable of achieving almost anything is also the thing keeping you from ever feeling like it's enough? In this deeply personal solo episode, Amanda opens her diary and lets you see the shadow side of being a high achiever — the part nobody brags about.
She names something many driven people quietly live with: the moment you complete the big thing — the MBA, the certification, the 70th podcast episode — you don't get to rest in the joy of it. Instead, your mind is already three steps ahead, scanning for the next goal. The goalpost moves before you've even caught your breath. And underneath it all sits a quieter question: who is this achievement actually for, and will it finally be the thing that makes you feel like enough?
But this isn't an episode about pushing harder. It's about the antidote. Amanda shares what she's actively learning — how to step off the treadmill, do less and go deeper, and find the kind of fulfilment that endless striving never delivers. From crossing "learn French" off her list to letting her nervous system finally settle by the second week of a holiday, she offers an honest, grounding look at what it takes to appreciate how far you've already come.
If you're someone with big visions and a to-do list that never ends, this one is a gentle, permission-giving pause. Come sit with it.
Key Takeaways
The finish line just becomes the next starting line
"Enough" stays out of reach when the goalpost keeps moving
Ask who the achievement is really for — you, or the outside world
Unnoticed milestones are the real cost of always looking ahead
The antidote is subtraction — cut the list, drop the "legacy" goals
Depth beats more: going deeper is the fulfilment striving promised
Rest is a practice — laptop off, mornings protected
What We Talked About
Why "high achiever" can sound like a brag — and why Amanda owns it honestly
The shadow side of achievement: how hard it becomes to rest, celebrate, or close a chapter
The continual search to feel acknowledged, worthy, and like enough
Looking back over eight years of business and realising the milestones flew by unnoticed
Launching the podcast without ever pausing to say "I launched a podcast"
Reaching episode 70 — and openly wondering whether she'll actually celebrate it
Working herself toward near-burnout, and why she's learning to do less and go deeper
How presence and grounding tend to arrive only in the second week of a holiday
Crossing "learn French" off the list — and giving herself permission to let goals go
Practical ways to pace into rest: shutting the laptop at 6pm, protecting the morning
Guest Quotes
"Achievement does not just allow you to say, 'Oh my God, yay, I got the certificate. I'm done now.' What it actually does is it keeps you on a continual search for the next thing to achieve."
"There's this continual search for trying to feel acknowledged, for trying to feel like enough."
"And I'm not coming here from the mountaintop, just to be clear."
"I still fall into cycles of trying to achieve more and more and never feeling like what I've done is good enough."
"Hello, like 70 episodes, that is a massive achievement. So I'll let you know in the following episode if I actually celebrate it."
"There's always something more, there's always a new creation, there's always a new idea."
"Whenever I accomplish one thing, it's like the next thing is already lined up waiting, and that can mean that I work myself into a state of, like, near burnout quite often."
"There's also a sense of deep fulfillment when you're able to complete something and really look at it and honor it and feel grateful."
"The antidote to continually creating that next layer of achievement or goal is to allow yourself to slow down, to get rid of at least probably 65% of the things on your list of what you wanna achieve."
"I remember the day still that I, like, crossed learn French off of my list of things I wanted to do because the list was already so long, and I really wasn't that committed to learning French."
"The task that I always have is to continually eliminate things from the list of what I wanna do so that I can go deeper."
"The deeper that I can go into any one task or project, the more satisfied that I feel, and the more that I feel like that depth, that mastery fulfills what I was previously searching for in achievement."
"You finally let your nervous system calm down enough to feel at ease and you're off that treadmill, that, you know, hamster wheel of chasing different success."
Resources to Learn More
Inner Authority Gameplan - to get off the treadmill and get clear on what you actually want - https://www.amandaparker.co/gameplan
Terms & Tools to Dig Deeper
Burnout — A state of physical and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged stress and overwork; here, the near-constant striving Amanda describes when one goal immediately rolls into the next.
High achiever — Someone with strong internal drive who reliably sets and completes ambitious goals, but who can struggle to pause, rest, or feel that any accomplishment is "enough."
Moving the goalpost — The pattern of raising the bar or lining up a new goal the moment the current one is met, so a sense of completion or satisfaction never quite arrives.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] There's this continual search for trying to feel acknowledged, for trying to feel like enough. And somehow, like that next thing that you create, the next goal, the next task, the next business, whatever it might be, that's finally gonna be the thing that makes you feel like, "Wow, look at how much I've done.
Look at how great it is that I accomplished all these things. I can rest now."
Welcome to Don't Step on the Bluebells, the podcast where personal healing and transformation take center stage. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides, and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations.
Listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life. And don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode. [00:01:00] Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and today we are talking about All things related to being a high achiever.
This episode is officially called "Diary of a High Achiever," and I really wanted to record this to share some of my experiences, some of the things that are really positive and amazing about wanting to achieve a lot in life, but also some of the dark side, the shadow of that, where you might find yourself continually trying to achieve and not having as much time to really appreciate how far you've come.
So I'm recording this episode as much for myself as I am for all of you who might be listening and resonating with this message. I know for a fact that let's say 99% of the clients that I work with are also high achievers. They have big goals, big visions, and they always wanna be creating something new.
So this is [00:02:00] an area I'm very familiar with from personal experience, but also supporting others through that process. So because I am calling this episode a diary, the truth is that I wanna share some of my experience of what it is like to be a high achiever and what that feels like in my own experience of the world, and maybe some of this will resonate for you as well.
And I'm not coming here from the mountaintop, just to be clear. It's not that I figured out the one best path forward. Sure, I have found a lot of learnings along the way and ways that I am able to really allow myself to be grounded in the present moment and appreciative of everything that has come before.
Yes, I've done a lot of work on that, but I don't have all the answers, and I still fall into cycles of trying to achieve more and more and never feeling like what I've done is good enough. Let us dive in now, and I'm gonna share a bit of what that experience has been like for me. [00:03:00] When we hear the word high achiever, we might have a very specific visual in mind of what that looks like, or it might even sound like a brag, like, "Oh my God, I'm so good at achieving things."
And the truth is that I am. So from my personal experience, I set my mind to do something, and I will almost certainly complete it. The thing is that it doesn't stop there. Achievement does not just allow you to say, "Oh my God, yay, I got the certificate. I'm done now." What it actually does is it keeps you on a continual search for the next thing to achieve.
So even if you've done one unbelievable thing, like, you know, for me, maybe getting my MBA or completing my coach certification, this amazing thing happened. But rather than being able to really sit and experience the joy of that thing that has just happened, that you [00:04:00] just worked so hard for, you start to look already for what the next achievement is And if you don't give yourself the opportunity to really slow down and to celebrate or to be in the moment with how amazing it is that you just did this thing, then you might find yourself just on a continual treadmill of trying to get the next achievement.
And this has a lot to do with potentially not feeling like enough. So the achievement is how you feel like you've done a good job or like you are worthy or have accolades that other people can recognize. But there's this continual search for trying to feel acknowledged, for trying to feel like enough.
And somehow, like that next thing that you create, the next goal, the next task, the next business, whatever it might be, that's finally gonna be [00:05:00] the thing that makes you feel like, "Wow, look at how much I've done. Look at how great it is that I accomplished all these things. I can rest now." So the shadow side of achievement, as you're hearing in this description, really is that it can be difficult to rest.
It can be difficult to fully acknowledge when you've done something well. It can be difficult to accept that you've reached the end of a goal, like to actually close that chapter, um, because there is this yearning for something more. And I think there's something also with the achievement itself. Who is it actually for?
Is it for yourself because you just wanna see if you're capable, or is it because you're trying to prove something to the outside world? And I think for me, this can happen in both ways. Sometimes I just wanna prove that I'm [00:06:00] capable of doing XYZ so that everyone on the outside looks in and goes, "Damn, look at what you did."
But most of the time, it's really internally driven. It feels like a goal that I set for myself, something I really wanna achieve, that I hardly even notice as it goes by. I mean, since I started my business, like if I were to really look back at the catalog over the last eight years of the different kinds of clients that I've worked with or events that I've hosted or the number of podcast episodes that I have put out or the lessons that I've learned along the way, I mean, holy cow, there have been a lot of lessons, and that in itself is a huge achievement.
If I were to really look at that and think of where I was mentally during those times, was I actually hitting pause when I launched my podcast to go, "Oh my God, I launched a podcast"? No, of course I wasn't. I was just thinking, "Who's the next guest? When do I record next? Oh my God, I have to do the [00:07:00] graphics now.
Who's gonna do the show notes?" Et cetera. So even today, as I'm, you know, looking to release episodes 69 and then this will be episode 70. Hello, like 70 episodes, that is a massive achievement. So I'll let you know in the following episode if I actually celebrate it. But yeah, so there is this, like, feeling sometimes of being on a treadmill.
There's always something more, there's always a new creation, there's always a new idea, and if you're not careful and you don't really take the time to hit pause to acknowledge yourself and your achievements, you might actually not feel like you're achieving as much as you want to because the goalpost keeps moving.
And that is certainly true in my case. Whenever I accomplish one thing, it's like the next thing is already lined up waiting, and that can mean that I work myself into a state of, like, near [00:08:00] burnout quite often. And it's something I'm actively working on to be able to take a step back And really be able to do less and go deeper with it.
'Cause there's also a sense of deep fulfillment when you're able to complete something and really look at it and honor it and feel grateful. There's a whole different feeling than if you're just continually moving the goalpost and looking to that next thing. Now, I don't really know what it's like, um, in the mind of someone who maybe isn't as much of a high achiever or who isn't as driven or motivated to achieve as I am, so I can't tell you what that might feel like in contrast.
I think it just depends on what the different goals are that someone is trying to reach, and I would imagine that someone who's not continually trying to achieve something new might have more of an opportunity to [00:09:00] be more present and grounded in their life or to really feel more deeply or integrate more deeply the things that they experience and the things that they're learning.
So this is definitely an edge for high achievers, is finding that grounding and finding that moment or those pauses where you can really allow yourself to experience the happiness that comes from just being without needing to achieve, and letting yourself be fully in that moment, immersed in whatever setting that you're in.
I know for me, I very often feel that when I'm on holiday, but not in the first few days, maybe not even in the first week. It will usually start to set in around, you know, the second week of a holiday where you finally let your nervous system calm down [00:10:00] enough to feel at ease and you're off that treadmill, that, you know, hamster wheel of chasing different success.
So this has been very much my experience. Um, I would be very curious to hear from you if you're listening if this resonates, what your experience of being a high achiever is, or, you know, what it is that you have done to be able to feel some more of that gratitude and that grounding in your life so that you're not always just chasing that next goal.
I know that I go through different phases and different cycles where some might be moments of, yeah, true creation and big goals and big vision, and I can get lost in that. Like I'm writing at the moment, and when I get into a flow, I'm totally lost in it. But if I pause to even think about everything I wanna do on my to-do list, you know, I might lose that flow a bit.[00:11:00]
So I think, um, the antidote to continually creating that next layer of achievement or goal is to allow yourself to slow down, to get rid of at least probably 65% of the things on your list of what you wanna achieve. I remember the day still that I, like, crossed learn French off of my list of things I wanted to do because the list was already so long, and I really wasn't that committed to learning French.
So actually taking stock of what it is that I wanted to do and seeing what was still true. Maybe some things were legacy items that didn't matter to me anymore, and I could actually give myself a break and say, "No, I'm not gonna achieve this now. This isn't something that I wanna put my time and energy into."
And the more that you're able to simplify what it is that you're trying to do, [00:12:00] the more that you're able to reduce the number of things, the less overwhelmed you feel, the less like, yeah, uh, fire that you have to do more and more and more, and the more that you actually are able to pace yourself into phases of rest.
And that means, you know, shutting your laptop off at 6:00 p.m., or that means that if you do your morning meditation and you take your time or journaling, whatever it is that you do in the morning, you're not already thinking about that to-do list and all the things that you need to get on top of so that you don't feel behind.
So this is a bit of a rambling, I understand that, but it really is the way that my brain so often functions whenever I'm working towards a goal. And the task that I always have is to continually eliminate things from the list of what I wanna do so that I can go deeper. Because I find the deeper that I [00:13:00] can go into any one task or project, the more satisfied that I feel, and the more that I feel like that depth, that mastery fulfills what I was previously searching for in achievement.
Please do let me know how this resonates for you and how you experience it. If you consider yourself to be a high achiever or maybe there's another term or definition that you feel fits you better, I would absolutely love to hear from you what your experiences are. And of course, what are the different mechanisms that you have put into your life to support you so that you really feel that deep fulfillment and satisfaction, not just like you're on a hamster wheel to get to the next goal?
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells, and I can't wait to see you next time. [00:14:00] Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five-star rating wherever you listen. And don't forget to hit subscribe and follow along so you never miss a new episode