What happens when you finally make it to the top of the mountain?
Have you ever worked really long and hard at something you really wanted to achieve, only to finally achieve it and then be a total weirdo about the achievement, and hide it from mostly everyone?
Yeah, no, me neither. I was asking for a friend…
Just kidding. Exactly one month ago, I achieved something I’d been pursuing for nearly five years. And my plan was to proudly announce it two days later in this very blog post you’re reading, along with sharing what I learned along the way to the summit of my Everest.
Instead, it’s a full month later and I’m still dragging my heels writing this post, like I have been for the last thirty days. I mean, I could have even written this post ahead of time. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming: five years is a pretty decent heads up, after all.
Honestly though—and this is embarrassing to admit—I was embarrassed by how long it took me, and I let that self criticism overpower the celebration and the achievement.
While I have plenty of thoughts to share on what’s gotten in the way, let me begin by letting you know what I achieved, before I move onto sharing all the reasons I’ve been shying away from sharing it.
Five years ago, I set out to achieve my MCC (Master Certified Coach) credential, which is the highest level credential awarded by the International Coaching Federation. The ICF is the world’s largest and most robust global organization dedicated to setting professional standards in the coaching industry, which can otherwise be a bit like the wild, wild west.
Only around 2,000 coaches in the world have ever received this credential, so it’s a pretty big achievement in my world. You need to have acquired over 2,500 coaching hours, work with a mentor coach, recording calls and getting feedback until your mentor coach feels you’re ready to submit for assessment, nearly all of which can feel mind-twistingly frustrating because it’s a very subjective experience.
It was important to me to achieve my MCC, less to collect more letters in my signature, and more because mastery is something I have always sought after in all my pursuits. It’s who I am, as a driven person. I don’t really tend to do things moderately; I’m generally all in on things I choose. I love learning and I like going after improvement and excellence, especially when it’s in the realm of something I really care about, like my life’s work, which is coaching and leadership development.
Given all this, why then did I keep my achievement to myself, you ask? Great question. Luckily, I have several answers.
First of all, as I mentioned, it’s a challenging credential to acquire, period. Secondly, I had some beliefs about how this would go that definitely got in my way.
My previous mentor coach told me when I achieved my PCC (Professionally Certified Coach) credential that she felt I’d have an easier time getting my MCC, because my coaching style already lent itself more to the MCC markers. A couple of other mentors echoed this sentiment, and let me tell you: my ego LOVED this intel. It was going to be EASY for me. I was a NATURAL, after all. This would be a breeze.
But here’s the thing: while they might have been right about my coaching style, they forgot one other quirk of mine: I tend to like to do hard things, and beyond that, I tend to find the hardest way to do them. But sometimes, I forget that hard things are supposed to be hard. So while I’m doing hard things the hardest way possible, I’m hanging onto the secret belief that if said hard things don’t come easily to me, then I’m deeply inadequate and flawed as a human.
Just to be clear, the logic of my survival mechanism goes as follows: I want to do the hard thing, the completion of which doesn’t count unless it’s hard, but it should also be easy for me, while being extremely difficult at the same time.
So, I only win if it’s really hard, but if I struggle with the hard thing, then I’m a failure. Basically, if I win, I lose, and if I lose, I also lose. And when I eventually do win at the hard thing, I’ve somehow not earned it properly, so I should hide my achievement.
It’s tough to win and feel good in this context, which is also tricky for a driven person focused on achievement to prove my worth.
It’s a real pickle, y’all. There’s a lot of changing the finish line over here.
Hoo boy, am I ever good at striving and struggling and then making all the striving and struggling that I’ve actively chosen over an easier route EXTREMELY MEANINGFUL about me. And, in case it’s not clear, it’s not meaningful in a good way about me.
Oh no: I’m struggling, not because I’m resilient and determined, but because I’m not good enough and need to try and be better. When other people struggle, it’s because they’re tough and commited. Whereas when I struggle, it’s because I suck.
My survival mechanism can make a REAL MEAL out of a challenge, probably for many reasons, none the least of which is that I have a belief that a challenge has gotta be hard for winning to really count, and that I have an old ingrained belief that an important part of my story is my suffering.
You guys, I can admit that I’m good at many things, but one thing I’m INCREDIBLY talented at is suffering.
This is a talent that has honestly gotten me a long way, because, truthfully, a lot of my life has been pretty challenging, especially in my early days. Being able to persevere and even thrive in the face of challenges and tumult was the source of my resilience, and my resilience is what got me to where I’ve gotten, instead of where my life predictably might have gone otherwise.
I can also be pretty stubborn about how I think things should go. I know—this is absolutely shocking news, I’m sure. But when I think I know the right way to go about a thing, I can get pretty stuck on MY way being THE ONLY WAY. This is part of being driven: focus and fixation are an over-expression of my devotion.
Now, there are other parts to this story, and I can definitely hold my process with some humility, a boatload of compassion and understanding. It’s been a really challenging 5 years in my world:
To begin with, I worked with a mentor coach who was highly recommended but turned out to not be a good fit for me. My work with her really impacted my confidence negatively, and even though she realized she was projecting her own issues onto me and apologized for it, the damage was done. What should have been an empowering learning experience was totally disempowering and traumatizing to me instead.
To my credit, I didn’t give up: I found a new mentor coach and we started making some real progress, and then I became pregnant, which was exciting and thrilling. And then we lost the pregnancy. It would take me nearly a year and a half’s hindsight for me to realize that I was avoiding working on my MCC because part of me was still grieving the loss of my baby and the future family that we almost created. I was deeply afraid to fail at something again and unwilling to try anything that I couldn’t ensure the success of myself.
After realizing this, amidst much of my own deep healing journey, I was ready to start again, which I did, only to find out that my mom had cancer, then to quickly find out it was terminal. My focus shifted to being present throughout the journey of walking her home. And my mom and I experienced the miracle of reconciliation and falling in love with each other, enjoying what would turn out to be far too little time in our newly recreated mother-daughter relationship. My mom’s cancer took her home, sooner than anyone anticipated, in April of last year, and the heartbreak of my grief meant I had little room for anything but healing, once again.
As I began to be able to focus again, late last year, determined to not let 2024 pass without creating something on purpose in a year of loss, I discovered that the symptoms of grief I’d been experiencing since losing my mother six months earlier had manifested into two separate autoimmune disorders. My health was not in a safe place and I needed to pause, again, while I stabilized my condition.
So, again, I took space and time to heal. And then I got back up, and I tried again. This time, I was able to complete what was needed, passing the requirements to receive my MCC.
Writing all of this out has required several tissues. When I witness myself, keeping going in the face of impossible heartbreak and challenges, I’m so proud, not only of getting my MCC, but of who I became along the way.
Commitment asks something of us. We lose things to gain other things. But the losing and letting go part isn’t always easy or obvious.
Being proud of achievements can be really hard for a driven person, ironically, because they are so damn driven to achieve them. We make up reasons to diminish, discount or qualify the winning, maybe in part because we know that, to ourselves, the peak always seems less impressive than the mountain we moved to get there.
By now I know that the prize never seems as sweet once I have it in my hand as it did when I was gazing at it from afar.
Of course, part of that could be because I don’t actually allow myself to relish in the winning, not very loudly, and not for very long. I tend to tuck my trophies away into a closet and move onto the next big challenge. I hide my wins away, never wanting to seem arrogant, and then wonder why I feel unseen and under-acknowledged.
Part of the hero’s journey for a driven person is learning how to allow their desire for the goal to co-exist with the enjoyment of the journey of achieving it. Most driven people are fixated on the peak at the cost of the experience of the whole mountain. And when they inevitably discover the euphoria of the prize fades really quickly, they’re left looking for another mountain to climb, because it’s the pursuit, not the prize that motivates them. It’s the itch of striving, wanting and focusing on getting somewhere we are not that makes a driven person feel most alive. But climb enough peaks and celebrate too few of them, and a driven person can burn out the zest for life that used to light their way.
I let the sheepishness I’ve felt about taking “too long” to get there get in the way of the fact that I did the thing. Regardless of any of the circumstances of my arrival at the finish line, I’ve met all the same requirements and crossed the same finish line, just like anyone else. I’ve let my ego be bruised by how I got there, at the expense of recognizing and celebrating the heck out of the most important part: that I got there.
And you know what? While I’m focussing on how long it took me and making that the most meaningful part of the story, instead of the triumph itself, I’m also missing out on acknowledging myself for repeatedly dusting myself off, coming back to my vision and getting back in action, no matter what Life threw in my way, and she was throwing some curveballs at me.
What if HOW the achievement was achieved didn’t diminish the achievement itself, but rather amplified it?
I mean, if anyone else shared a similar story with me, I’d be so dang impressed with their chutzpah and perseverance. I’d probably be even more impressed with their accomplishment if I knew how much it took them beyond it being an easy, sure thing.
So celebrations for others, just not for myself, I guess?
That seems pretty yucky. After all, “It ain’t braggin’ if you done it,” as the saying goes. And, hiding my light under a bushel doesn’t really encourage other people to celebrate much, either.
Life is short. We should be celebrating everything. And that includes me, celebrating my wins, too.
Leave a Reply