Performance-related self-esteem is essentially when your sense of worth comes from your achievements and the recognition from others that you get because of them. It can be associated with mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, substance abuse and a range of other complex clinical manifestations of mental health difficulties, including the risk of burnout and engagement in unhealthy relationships.
The constant stress that performance-related self-esteem brings to a person’s life may also expose them to physical health problems in the future, as chronic stress is now a known risk factor for the development of certain physical health problems. Why does performance-related self-esteem lead to chronic stress? Because your sense of worth is linked to being constantly praised for your achievements, which means your top priority is productivity and it never stops; or because your life is so affected by it that your work/life routine isn’t balanced at all; furthermore, it means you’re engaging with people whose validation you’re constantly seeking, which is another stress factor you may not even be aware of. When we perceive relationships as conditional on our achievements, we never connect authentically for who we are and we always have to make sure we have something to show, otherwise attachments can be threatened; this is stressful for the body.
In a world where the emphasis tends to be placed on productivity, it’s important to recognise the signs of performance self-esteem and seek professional support to address it, in order to free oneself from its consequences on not just one’s mental and physical health, but also one’s overall quality of life. This article presents the main signs that may signal you may be prone to performance self-esteem.
However, this article is not aimed at giving you a diagnosis about your self-esteem; if you would like mental health support and would like to discuss this further, please email me to arrange a consultation [email protected]
Achievement driven identity
Since your identity is rooted in productivity and your achievements, this means that you are constantly working towards the next best thing and performing with a lot of ambition. It can even become uncomfortable to stop and take a break because you feel like you don’t even exist (or feel excluded from society) when you’re not engaged in productivity. Your focus is on remaining very ambitious and continuing to pursue goals that you believe will bring you recognition from others. There is a certain need to be praised by others, so the goals you set are also in line with what you believe will bring you that external validation, which brings me to my next point.
Dependency on External Validation
You are constantly looking for validation from others and this makes you very sensitive to feedback. It may look like you can cope with receiving feedback, but inside it feels like rejection, abandonment or fear. Because when someone gives you feedback, it’s no longer just about performance, you interpret it as an attack on your self-esteem, and that hurts all the more. It also brings attachment issues to the surface, because you need validation of your performance from others to feel that you exist as an individual, but also to feel secure in your relationships. There is an underlying belief that if they continue to praise you for your performance and achievements, they will continue to be interested in you and stay close to you.
Fear of Failure
Considering that your achievements are associated with your identity, your relationships and your sense of belonging to the world, it’s understandable that you would develop a fear of failure. If you fail, how will others perceive you? What does it mean to you? This fear of failure can be associated with anxiety-related symptoms and a general sense of overwhelm, including a tendency to be or become highly self-critical.
Social Behaviour
The above points influence the way you behave towards yourself and others. Many people will tend to adopt people-pleasing behaviours, for example, or withdraw and isolate themselves when they fail. These behaviours can prove problematic in the long run.
The main problem with people-pleasing is that it has an impact on your well-being, as you never sufficiently stand up for your own needs. This is because others take up too much space, or you’re too busy going with the flow of what others want or advise you to do, as you want their recognition and want to “fit in”. The problem is that you don’t authentically show yourself, but you conform to what you perceive to be expected from a certain environment in order to get that recognition, and you abandon yourself to get it.
Withdrawal and isolation are also problematic, as they can prevent us from experiencing authentic relationships where we can lean on each other, for example. Many people have never experienced this vulnerability with others, and assume that asking for help places them in a vulnerable space, rather than understanding that helping each other can be a form of vulnerability that strengthens the quality of relationships, which we need in order to feel at ease as human beings anyway. No one is meant to be alone.
Withdrawal usually stems from the fear that others will judge the failure, or from the attempt to hide the failure from others because there is an underlying fear of being rejected for it, and for many people this is associated with high levels of shame. Instead of feeling like they’ve done something wrong and can learn from it to improve in the future, they feel like a bad person for having made a mistake. This is the essential difference between guilt and shame (thanks Brene Brown!). Guilt is about saying “I’ve done something wrong”, while shame is about saying “I’m bad”. One concerns behavior, the other identity. Now, since performance-related self-esteem is about having a sense of identity rooted in achievement, it makes sense to experience high levels of shame in this context.
Emotional instability
You may be more prone to mood swings because your internal emotional world depends on the external world validating you. This puts you in a vulnerable position, as your emotions and mood fluctuate in response to external stimuli. It can also mean that emotions fluctuate more and at a higher intensity than necessary, so you can experience greater highs and lows and be easily overwhelmed by emotions (even positive ones!). This type of mood instability can have a negative impact on the dynamics of your interpersonal relationships, as not everyone will agree to ride your emotional rollercoaster and/or cause long-term tensions and have a negative impact on the quality of your relationships.
Suppressing emotions & Avoidance
If a person is constantly busy looking for achievements to focus on and searching for external validation, it’s very likely that they’re suppressing their emotions, because nobody has time to be sad or angry, do they? It’s also possible that the constant quest for greater productivity functions as a coping strategy to avoid emotions. What’s more, the focus is so much on the external that it’s possible for individuals not even to identify what’s going on in their inner world, creating a disconnection within themselves that can eventually have drastic impacts on long-term health. The problem with suppressing emotions and avoidance is that individuals don’t develop the necessary tools to regulate their emotions, which can lead to chronic health problems, as well as “random” outbursts or breakdowns. This means that they are lacking the tools to cope with their emotions, and are therefore more likely to lack emotional resilience. People with performance self-esteem can also avoid taking certain risks when they fear they won’t be able to accomplish the task and therefore fail, which can have an impact on growth.
Work-life imbalance / Lack of self-care
A common sign of performance self-esteem is difficulty in prioritising well-being. Of course, anyone can have a busy schedule, but there’s a difference between acknowledging that you’re overwhelmed and going through a phase of overwork and therefore need to adjust certain priorities or ways of taking care of yourself, and settling for the excuse of being busy and not committing to trying to maintain good mental and physical health. Indeed, contrary to what many people think, taking care of yourself is NOT just about taking the time to have fun once in a while, or to have a drink with friends after a long day’s work. It’s also about knowing how to prioritise, setting limits, taking the time to check how you’re feeling, implementing consistent coping methods to take care of yourself, being proactive in managing stress and, fundamentally, taking responsibility for your state of health.
Want to stop relying on the outside world to make you feel valued and start nurturing your own sense of worth and empowerment? Book your consultation: [email protected]