Why some of the highest achievers are painfully unhappy, according to a Yale-trained psychotherapist

As businesses rush to meet year-end goals, workplace anxiety is everywhere.

It’s the corporate world’s worst-kept secret that dangerous levels of anxiety go all the way to the top, touching C-suites at many of the nation’s top companies. More than 1,900 CEOs left their jobs in 2023, and 19 died in office, the highest level since 2010. A Deloitte study of more than 1,100 executives from around the world found that fully 82% of senior corporate leaders “say they’ve experienced exhaustion indicative of burnout.” About 96% of those who report feeling exhausted say that “their mental health has declined.” And a recent National Bureau of Economic Research study of 1,600 CEOs of publicly listed U.S. corporations found that when there are “industry-wide downturns,” a CEO’s average lifespan decreases by 1.5 years.

This level of distress is more than just overwork. It’s a hidden epidemic. And it’s been badly misunderstood. So what’s going on here?

In my psychotherapy practice, I have seen more and more people whom I call “Unhappy Achievers”—people who regularly achieve what they strive for, but still feel anxious, depressed, and empty. Those around them may believe they have it all together—and on the surface they do. But inexplicably, deep down, they often feel miserable. Here’s why:

Who are Unhappy Achievers?

Unhappy Achievers frequently have great jobs, attractive partners, and lifestyles that are the envy of their friends. They may notch win after win, believing the next achievement will finally allow them to relax. But any satisfaction they feel vanishes quickly, and they feel more compelled than ever to start on the next attempt to impress. Many Unhappy Achievers are socially successful and appear outgoing. They may even be seen as the “life of the party.” But they secretly feel exhausted when they’re surrounded by people, and can only truly relax when they’re alone.

On top of this, Unhappy Achievers are often embarrassed to admit that they are struggling. Who could blame them? With so many people striving for material and professional success, who wants to admit that they feel unhappy, even anguished? And because it’s so counterintuitive, I’ve found that almost none of these Unhappy Achievers can make sense of why they feel the way they do. Too often, they feel that there’s simply something shameful and broken about them. And that makes them feel lonelier.

But they can be understood, and they are not alone.

Many researchers have examined high achievers who feel unsatisfied by their achievements. For instance, management experts George D. Parsons and Richard T. Pascale describe a “summit syndrome,” in which some overachievers, driven by the “search for stimulation” and “addicted to their own adrenaline,” struggle to maintain their drive and interest once a hard-earned achievement has been reached.

Social psychologists Philip Brickman and Donald T. Campbell coined the “hedonic treadmill,” in which high achievers’ expectations rise with their success level, meaning that they experience only an ephemeral gain in happiness before returning to their baseline. Most of the advice offered by researchers suggests that these kinds of people should try to increase their gratitude or learn to “savor” their success.

How to help Unhappy Achievers

But when it comes to Unhappy Achievers, I believe many researchers are asking the wrong question. Instead of, “Why can’t I appreciate these wonderful achievements?” a better question might be, “Why do I feel so compelled to achieve these things at all?” While it’s fine to learn how to savor success or practice gratitude, the real issue often begins upstream from all of that. People become Unhappy Achievers because of the circumstances that have shaped the way they feel about success in the first place.

Unhappy Achievers come from all walks of life, but their stories often share striking similarities. For important reasons, often related to the ways the grownups in their lives focused on childhood achievements, they absorbed the idea that they had to achieve, just to be valuable or worthy. As a result, achievements have taken on a different value than they do for most people. Achievements aren’t a joy—they’re a necessity. The misguided math is simple but brutal: if you have to achieve just to have value, then you can’t ever stop and relax. Stop achieving, and you stop being lovable.

Even if you become adept at leaping from one achievement to the next—and lots of Unhappy Achievers do—there are still two problems. The first is that a drive predicated on the need to be lovable cannot ever truly feel enjoyable—it is desperate, scrambling, fraught. The second is that any resulting positive feelings are tarnished by this exhausting process. After all, everyone wants to feel valued and loved, but no one wants to have to jump through hoops to feel that way. Over time, this idea can drive Unhappy Achievers to feel anxious, depressed, resentful, even enraged.

It gets worse. For Unhappy Achievers, who already believe their value is based on what they do, not who they are, the rise of social media and the ubiquity of celebrity culture have turbo-charged the problem. The modern world insidiously reinforces pressures to achieve, but now there’s a public scorecard: likes, follows, clout. It’s as if Silicon Valley said, “if you’re someone who locates your self-esteem through external validation, have we got a suite of apps for you.”

When Unhappy Achievers trumpet their achievements on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram, they can’t win. Either they don’t get much attention, which is another reason to feel inadequate, or they get a lot of attention, providing further proof that their achievements are what make them valuable. Neither outcome provides what Unhappy Achievers badly need: a durable, internal sense of self-esteem that can withstand external failure and success alike.

We are living in a time when we are buffeted by aspirational images like never before, when far too many of us are hyper-focused on getting into the best school, winning the biggest trophy, and having the deepest pockets. These are reductive measures of success and are bad for everyone. But for Unhappy Achievers it is an especially painful way to live.

My advice to the Unhappy Achiever: Log off, take a breath, and consider whether the source of your drive is also the source of your misery. Think about the next hoop that awaits you. After the glow of jumping through it wears off, where will you be? How will you feel? What would happen if you simply decided to let that one go, or to go in a different direction? Maybe you would begin to feel some relief and a sense of control. Remember you are not alone. And remember that learning to genuinely understand and value yourself could be your highest achievement.