YOUR RAINFOREST MIND

SUPPORT FOR THE EXCESSIVELY CURIOUS, CREATIVE, SMART & SENSITIVE

Managing Expectations and Pressure to Be a Super Achiever When You Are Gifted

“…So often, expectations of worldly success are hung like a dead albatross around the neck of the cognitively gifted, when what we really need is permission to become ourselves in unencumbered weirdness. My favourite humans — the ones I’ve learned most from — are gloriously, heroically, and unapologetically weird...” dw

Permission granted.

I am not suggesting you are weird, by the way. (Unless, we define weird as smart and creative.) You may feel that way, however, because your cognitive abilities along with your sensitivities are well beyond the average range. You may feel that way because your intuitive experiences and creativity are not mainstream. You may think you are weird because no one else you know understands string theory, adores learning new words (Are you bafflegabbing?), or can appreciate the many layers of your mind palace.

It is lonely.

“It’s a lonely venture. I’m desperately trying to self-generate that permission right now; the effect is not dissimilar to yanking my own bootstraps. It’s clear I need to go into the world and find a few more people willing to mingle their light with mine, and perhaps, if the occasion suits, take a turn about the mind palace.” dw

Self-generating that permission can be daunting. That is why I am here. Why we are here. Until you locate those few more people, mingle your light with me. With us. After all, I see that mind palace of yours and it is truly magnificent.

And, as you feel that connection with us, as you breathe it in, you will be able to take some steps toward removing that dead albatross.

How? you might ask.

What if you start by setting these goals: Let go of the traditional definitions of success. Ignore the pressures to be a super achiever. Be gloriously, heroically, and unapologetically yourself.

I know. Easy for me to say.

There might be a few obstacles: You may feel pressure from family, teachers, social media, and yourself. You may not know what *being yourself* means. You may have grown up in a family steeped in trauma and need to spend time in therapy repairing your broken heart. You may crave worldly success and be a high achiever and wonder why I’m writing about this. You may be used to the albatross and would feel weird without it.

I understand.

Letting go of expectations and pressures can be tricky. Being unapologetically yourself takes time. Granted, you are a fast learner. But this process may take a bit longer than learning your fourth language or mastering your next musical instrument. You will need to be patient.

Here are two exercises you can try that may help. They are adapted from the soon-ish to be published book Saving Your Rainforest Mind: A Guided Journal for the Exceedingly Curious, Creative, Smart, & Sensitive!

  1. Create a mind map. Put your name in the middle of a page with the question: Who am I? Then go crazy with all of the possible answers, the big and the small, the obvious and the subtle. Use an app for the mind map, if you prefer. Include who you were when you were younger and who you will be when you are older. Be creative and impractical. See what you find.
  2. Take time to get quiet. Imagine meeting a wise inner advisor. This person might be your future self, someone you admire, an animal, or a spiritual guide. What do you want to ask? Write your question. Then write a response without thinking or trying to control the answer. If this is difficult, you may need to practice a few times before you can relax into the process. Your advisor might tell you how you can define success for yourself or describe how dearly you are loved.

As you can see, managing expectations and pressure to be a super achiever, when you are gifted, is, well, complicated. After all, you do have a pretty spectacular mind palace. It does need to be seen and known. You do need to be seen and known. But on your terms. In your own time.

In your glorious, heroic, and unapologetically, unencumbered, weirdly rainforested way!

________________________________

To my bloggEEs: How do you deal with the pressure and expectations? Did you try the journal techniques? How did it go? And, thank you, as always, for being here and for your shining light and love.

(Note: Thank you to the dear blog reader who contributed the beautiful quotes that I changed just slightly.)

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Author: Paula Prober

I’m a psychotherapist and consultant in private practice based in Eugene, Oregon. I specialize in international consulting with gifted adults and parents of gifted children. I’ve been a teacher and an adjunct instructor at the University of Oregon and a frequent guest presenter at Oregon State University and Pacific University. I’ve written articles on giftedness for the Eugene Register-Guard, the Psychotherapy Networker, Advanced Development Journal and online for psychotherapy dot net, Rebelle Society, Thrive, Introvert Dear, and Highly Sensitive Refuge. My first book, Your Rainforest Mind: A Guide to the Well-Being of Gifted Adults and Youth, is a collection of case studies of gifted clients along with many strategies and resources for gifted adults and teens. My second book, Journey Into Your Rainforest Mind: A Field Guide for Gifted Adults and Teens, Book Lovers, Overthinkers, Geeks, Sensitives, Brainiacs, Intuitives, Procrastinators, and Perfectionists is a collection of my most popular blog posts along with writing exercises for self-exploration and insight.

36 responses to “Managing Expectations and Pressure to Be a Super Achiever When You Are Gifted”

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  1. David Avatar
    David

    Thank you as always Paula 🙂

    I’ve spent a large part of my life chasing institutional prestige. Not because it’s something I intrinsically cared about, but because it was expected of me, and because (not unrelatedly) it reproduced a dynamic of toxic conditional acceptance I had with my father. There is nothing sustaining in that, of course, nothing to feed me; when you are only as good as your last perfect mark, the latest scholarship, your current h-index, you must feed it, and it is insatiable.

    Last year, I finished a PhD and declined job offers from a number of prestigious universities. I didn’t want to feed it anymore. Instead, I joined a high-profile startup, hoping it would be free of the deadening atmosphere that, in academia, turns bright young bookworms into hardened careerists. I was wrong. I promptly found that my creativity and enthusiasm were unwelcome; the ground was barren, riddled by an impenetrable rhizome of protocol, envy, groupthink, and anxiety masquerading as task commitment, no more rainforest-friendly than the fruitless groves I left behind.

    I hope I can negotiate a more suitable role (and the exercises helped!), but the basic phenomenon is confusing. Why do some elite places, so full of brilliant minds, yet feel so lifeless? I think that, in short, the albatross can become a uniform. Try to remove it, and someone will put it back with a ‘tut-tut’, adding: did you think you were different? That you could simply float, like a balloon, into the ether? No, no. We are down here. We are tethered to this barren earth, its norms and expectations, for each of us carries a dead bird. It is no less than the price of admission.

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      I have not heard great reports from clients who are in academia. I used to be confused by that…aren’t the gifted people there? But the reports are of competitiveness, politics, pressures, narrow-mindedness. (of course that is a generalization, I’m sure it’s not everywhere, it’s what I am hearing) I am so sorry the startup was no better, David. I wonder if there might be the highly intelligent (gifted) folks who are not rainforest-minded, so they do not come with the sensitivities, empathy, and creativity?? It is interesting that RFMs seem to do better when they run their own businesses or become writers, artists, creating on their own terms. Finding their small pod of sweet, kind, smart fellow mind-palaces.

      Reply
      1. David Avatar
        David

        Thanks Paula! Academia is a weird place for RFMs. I think this is partly due to (1) the “inaffordances” of non-RFM giftedness; (2) institutional culture; and (3) broader issues of personhood.

        Take (1). I’m allergic to convention, blend genres, go sideways, prefer to reinvent from scratch, etc, and most colleagues find this scary and unintelligible. There is a (possibly apocryphal) MIT exam that simply says: “You have a pile of warm metal shavings in the shape of a cone. Discuss.” I love this more than any exam I’ve heard of; maybe it’s an RFM litmus test! (We’re not even talking about empathy or sensitivity, just the impulse to spontaneous, creative play.) The warm cone of swarf is anathema to most people in academia, or the startup, who want precise, well-defined tasks they can measurably succeed at.

        A related fact is (2): most smart people need institutional approval. I understand this (I needed it myself for many years), and there’s a pragmatism/realpolitik here. But zooming in, what do institutions value? In my opinion, the sign of the dead bird: the things that make gifted people easier to predict, quantify, control. I have yet to see evidence of institutions that value living birds.

        Finally, (3): why not welcome what you don’t understand? The answer is that it takes more ego, more stability, more self, than most people have, to welcome what is not yet intelligible. I know many of the smartest young scientists on the planet (as measured by, say, Breakthrough Prizes). The small pod of sweet, kind, fellow mind-palaces is about something that goes beyond “mere” reception.

        Reply
        1. pprober Avatar
          pprober

          Oh, thank you for this explanation, David. Appreciate reading your insights and experiences!

          Reply
          1. David Avatar
            David

            My pleasure! I wish I could edit my last post, or rather, append the following:

            Of course, reception is great! But the ability to work with gifted people, to be “co-gifted”, is more than that, and has almost nothing do with being gifted. I mention smart young scientists because some are obviously co-gifted, and some are very obviously not. The former would rather find something out than know it already, welcome correction, show gratitude, can harmonize with the other. The latter, in contrast, need to be the smartest person in the room, win every argument, know everything already. Sadly, this type is much more common in places smart people hang out. I suspect this is connected to institutional filtering/incentives and perhaps also styles of giftedness.

            But what is co-giftedness? It’s a bit wibbly-wobbly, but we know it when we feel it. It is probably some overlapping combination of receptivity, potential space, a will to truth, and fellow humanity; when there is enough empathic intelligence and bigness of soul to allow a person in, to create a comfortable space for them to park their giftedness, and maybe to offer them a warm cup of existential tea. At least, that’s the image I have, and very much inspired by the way I feel here 🙂

            Reply
            1. pprober Avatar
              pprober

              Oh, David! Someone on FB commented on my most recent post saying how I sounded like I was saying all gifted people have sensitivity and creativity and she was saying that wasn’t true. So I clarified and said all RFMs have those traits but surely not all gifted. I’m afraid I might have to quote you once again as you describe the differences so eloquently. Have you started writing your own book yet?? 🙂

              Reply
              1. David Avatar
                David

                Thank you Paula!! Of course 🙂 I haven’t started yet unfortunately, but it’s somewhere in the mind palace!

                Reply
                1. pprober Avatar
                  pprober

                  Let me know when you find it, David. 🙂

                  Reply
            2. Marina Avatar
              Marina

              Totally agree with you, thanks for bringing this up!

              Reply
    2. Marina Avatar
      Marina

      Dear David, I just started a PhD in historical sociolinguistics after a 2nd MA (first one in 1991). In May 2022, I attended a three-day conference in Spain and discovered the narrow little world of research, with researcher fighting to get to the top, to get the best positions in academia. They happily threw not-so-subtle criticism at each other, and I detected competitive attitudes, envy, and fear of losing face in all of them (I was a professional coach for a few years), just like in any other work environment. There was absolutely no creativity in the presentations (well, apart from a few rare exceptions, as always) but much hard work and hours of reading and following protocol and academic politics. Academia is not necessarily a creative place, and it is not a place where only gifted and RFMinded people move around. To me, it is only a mirror image of society as a whole, but in a smaller format. There are lots of hard-working non-gifted, non-RFMs students who are pushed by professors into academia. So personally, I do not expect to find like-minded people at university, I just do my thing and work on my topic, participate in conferences, workshops etc., and now I can choose where to be visible and where to just turn my back. I am turning 60 in a month, so I will not be making an academic career, which takes away a lot of pressure concerning the future. But just like you, I am disappointed about not finding my place and like-minded people in places you would expect them to be.
      I have never worked in a start-up, but I can only imagine it is even worse there as the question of finding funds is essential to the survival of the company, i.e. it is necessary to show that you are the best, and this must create immense competition between team members. Perhaps you would be happier creating your own start-up, with RFM values, just like Paula describes?

      Reply
      1. pprober Avatar
        pprober

        Thanks for sharing your assessment, Marina. Sounds like you’ve been able to manage academia to get what you want out of it and leave the rest!

        Reply
      2. Ciera Avatar
        Ciera

        So who is ready to create a unique, RFM value start-up? 🤔 Thanks David and Marina for your valuable insights into academia. I have found some very interesting people in my MEd, but it took a long time just to find my program. There are certainly the people who just want to get a piece of paper to get a raise and some of the PhD students seem to lack real world experiences and empathy, but overall I feel lucky about who I have come to know. My program consists of 10 electives in or outside of the huge College of Ed and my proposal to study in 3 areas of the College of Ed plus two separate language departments was not denied. I am being encouraged to innovate across disciplines and bring in the arts and music ed, which are both separate from what my MEd program focuses on (global inequities as exacerbated by ed systems). I know that if I pursue a PhD I might feel more restricted and that competition for funding will be real, but I am hoping to continue learning to navigate paths that allow for curiosity, creativity, intercultural and multilingual learning.
        Sending good vibes to each of you!

        Reply
        1. pprober Avatar
          pprober

          It is good to hear about a program in academia that allows for (encourages??) interdisciplinary study and creativity. I do think it takes lots of searching to find those little gems. Glad you found one Ciera!

          Reply
        2. David Avatar
          David

          Thanks Ciera! Sounds like an awesome program. I think with a PhD it’s potentially easier to be interdisciplinary — you get to make the whole thing up! — as long as you can get it supervised and funded, which admittedly can be nontrivial. But I’m so glad you’re finding space for “curiosity, creativity, intercultural and multilingual learning” and have no doubt you’ll continue to do so 🙂 And if a PhD doesn’t work, maybe there will be an RFM startup 😉

          Reply
        3. Marina Avatar
          Marina

          Oh Ciera, I’m so happy for you, that you experience such positive and encouraging attitudes! As Paula says, it is difficult to find those little gems.

          Reply
      3. David Avatar
        David

        Hi Marina! That narrow, competitive and uncreative world is sadly familiar. I agree that academia is filled with hard-working non-gifted folk, but I think also a lot of gifted, non-RFM folk who are made narrower by institutional pressure. The restrictions definitely mirror society at large 🙁 I don’t think RFMs can abide being made narrow, and like you, figure out ways to “do their thing” and be discerning about where they show up and who they interact with. Sounds like you’ve found a great balance! I’m still looking, but an RFM-friendly startup is an amazing idea 🙂

        Reply
  2. Marcos Costa Avatar
    Marcos Costa

    I fully understood and accepted what you said. It is so lonely sometimes! Now I am trying to reborn myself in another labor and the only people I have been talking now are my Mother and my girlfriend. I Started therapy with the physiologist once again let’s see if it helps. I lost a little the willing to read the books once no one have interest in the issues but it is how the live goes. Let’s see what comes from these new activities which I am Ok because I can do it alone. Thank you for sharing.

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Thank you for being here, Marcos! I hope the therapy helps.

      Reply
  3. Robin Heinen Avatar
    Robin Heinen

    It makes a lot of sense 🙂. I would probably like to be free of that for a while, but I might get bored soon as well.

    Reply
  4. Ciera Avatar
    Ciera

    Feeling this. Very deeply. Oh, Paula. It is a perpetual challenge, no matter how much I know myself, perhaps more so as I come to know and accept myself, because I can sure analyze society’s never ending expectations of me and why they are still so problematic, even if human rights have been ‘advancing’ (they are constantly receding, too). I’m getting closer to being ‘over’ my own family’s expectations of me, but society’s expectations…my OWN? …Ha!… yes, I’ve learned much more about and in several languages and to play the cello since I found your blog in 2017 and started to try and understand what gifted really means, started trying to see myself and then dared to try to accept myself and then ran away and tried again, and again, in a rocky loop.
    Yet this month alone I both resigned from one job with a toxic work environment and turned down a job promotion that I never even officially applied for in my other job. I debated whether to take the promotion so very thoroughly and asked for advice from so many friends and colleagues for over three weeks.
    In the end, it was a friend on the phone who said that my decision to take the promotion ‘seemed too calculated’, that it seemed I was trying to justify taking it, not to anyone else but to myself. He said the promotion seemed interesting but more like a ‘2nd place’ option, not what I would actual like to do. I admitted that yes, I would rather not have the stress of the manager position, even if it meant that I would be able to innovate more as an educator, lead a new NGO music centre. He asked what I’d rather do and I didn’t blink: Go back to Peru, finish my master’s, adopt a dog, buy a little house, plant a garden (in no particular order, but in the next few years). And also, hopefully, find a PhD supervisor and some scholarships. Or just forget that option and just write…for ME.
    And that was that. I declined the job in a polite email the next morning and the head of the NGO was actually really understanding and grateful for the time that I put into considering it, and the PDF of thoughts and tables that I shared in my email with info and thinking that might be of help to the person that they do end up hiring.
    Why do I make things harder than they have to be, for myself? I have a love-hate relationship with my own brain. Mostly love, but sometimes it is really too powerful and goes too fast. Meditation, yoga, playing instruments and reading are literally necessary, and you’ve been helping me to accept and embrace that, along with one of my professors who said that a few months ago. Hearing if from more than one strong and resilient female helps a lot given how I was raised and the issues that still stem from those formative years filled with contradictions. Not to mention 15 years (yes, counting preschool, as that was traumatic in some very concrete ways) of strict, competitive schools that tried to ’empower’ us as individuals, not as a collective, not as a society. They tried to shape each one of us into everything and anything society and our families wanted each of us to be, not what we wanted to be. And they taught us that this world is tough and that we need to compete and be better than each other to win. 15 years of those schools, 15 years of healing (my 15th anniversary is in June). That only leaves the 2 years before I attended preschool. I just realized that. Maybe now is when I start living fully. Maybe 15 years is how long it took to partially dig myself out of the deep, dark hole.
    My happiest periods of life have been talking, collaborating and playing with (and just witnessing) artists and musicians who know and act on the fact that we are in this together, that our common humanity is what matters and what we have to strive to embrace and protect.
    Much, much <3 to all.

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      The complexity of the layers that you describe here, Ciera, will help many of my readers see themselves and feel less alone in their struggles. Thank you. Indeed, we are in this together. Let us all “strive to embrace and protect.”

      Reply
    2. Marina Avatar
      Marina

      Dear Ciera, thank you for sharing. I just love the way you express your thought about your love-hate relationship with your brain, I totally agree with you. I think there’s many of us in that situation! I, too, wish there was more solidarity in this world, that people would understand that it is indeed our common humanity that matters. So just go for it – buying a house, moving back to Peru, starting a PhD, writing for yourself! Next month, I will turn 60, and I have just started a PhD after a 2nd MA (first one in 1991), and my brain thrives. With a friend, we are writing an e-book for parents of gifted children, and I am also writing short anecdotes about my experiences as a RFM that I hope to publish. No pressure, just fun. And hope!

      Reply
      1. Ciera Avatar
        Ciera

        Thank you so much, Marina. Knowing that you have found some beautiful projects to keep busy with makes me hopeful. The e-book for parents of gifted children sounds like it will be very helpful, given that you yourself have experiences as a RFM. I’ve had the challenge of trying to help a few parents understand the uniqueness and sensitivities of their children (my students); it is not easy to explain, so a book specifically for parents sounds amazing.
        I’m working out my plans to make my short-term goals happen. If I can buy that little house with room to plant a garden, then I’ll have a home base and more stability. Then I can go to Peru for 6 months (the max length of visitor visa) and be with the many, many amazing people and families and musicians I know down there, and really start healing, away from the very competitive culture of North America. When I return to Canada, I can figure out my next steps. I’ve always been a writer–I just want to actually edit and finalize and share some personal writing as I haven’t done that in way too many years.
        I look forward to connecting with you more, Marina. Take care.

        Reply
  5. narita Avatar
    narita

    I enjoyed reading Paula’s article again.

    As for coping with pressure, I used to resist the fear that I might not live up to expectations by assuming that I was actually a natural-born big bad.

    But now I’ve come across (or was it a book?) on Paula’s blog. ), and Janeane Garofalo’s remarks have helped me completely.

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Glad you have you here, narita!

      Reply
  6. Marina Avatar
    Marina

    A mind map of who I really am? I never thought about that, thank you, Paula, I am definitely going to try that. And I really like your image of a mind palace, wow, that is a place to explore! But don’t you think other people are blind to mind palaces? They only stare at their own cottage and protect it with fences. By the way, I am so much and so many, so it is difficult to know who I truly am. I don’t want to be just one thing, one person, in only one way, that is very limiting – I need that space in my mind palace. And that becomes complicated for others. So to them, I am just weird and they walk away. I’m too complicated, too sensitive, too inquisitive and curious, too fast, as this highlights their own limits. I always need to slow down, to deal with ‘stupid’ questions and behaviour in the best possible way, and it’s tireding, I admit. And lonely. But on a brighter note: I look forward to your new book, Paula, it is the next one on my reading list as soon as I can get hold of it!

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Part of knowing who you are, then, is allowing for all of your facets, all of your layers and complexities. Your multitudes! It will be a very large mind map! 🙂

      Reply
  7. S Avatar
    S

    Question I’ve been pondering: is it ‘safe expression’ and/or ‘self-expression’?

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Can you say more about this pondering, S? Interesting query. When is self-expression not safe??

      Reply
  8. Clignett Avatar
    Clignett

    Weird, yes! Absolutely! In a very positive and complex way. And I own it. I actually tell people “I have no shame”, meaning I really don’t care what they think of me (of course I do, but at that particular moment, no..). Usually I’m on my knees or ass playing with dogs when I say that. Getting kisses all over, laughing and enjoying them and myself.

    Fear of failure.. I’m happy to see that the older I get, the more I lose that feeling. I remember it well, though! And I have failed, many many times. In my eyes and for my standards. People I speak to cannot see it, they all say that my standards were higher than expected of me. But where does that feeling of failure leave me then? Why did it feel like failing? Probably because of the high standards I put myself through, and pushing them higher as I went along.
    Losing my ability to work, to engage in a professional environment, thát felt like the biggest failure! Now, almost a decade later, a whole lot of therapy later, many ruminations later, analysis and re-analysis, discussions with me, myself and I, and others of course, I have finally given myself permission to accept that it is not failure, but succeeding to be me. Completely me.
    Of course there are other obstacles, real or just in my mind, which keep me losing sleep, and keep me from enjoying the acceptance sometimes. I’m not there yet, but well on track (I think, I hope).
    Being who I am, being what I am, it’s a journey. Feeling, seeing, knówing, sensing, learning, questioning, wondering and pondering is a full time job some days. And most people do not see or understand that. That makes it lonely and hard.

    So, to return to your blog, I’m so grateful for you and all rainforesties here that I can soak your and their light and love! It helps so much, if only to keep reminding myself that I’m really not that strange. Weird, yes, but strange, no! 💕

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Ah, yes, Clignett, the benefits of animals, getting older, and therapy! 🙂

      Reply
  9. Eric Larson Avatar
    Eric Larson

    Another post that resonates with the esprit du temps. I am person finding the energy to shift from a set of expectations that are not a fit for my complex self (nor have they ever been!) to ones that better conform to my beautifully irregular and weird self. This is not a simple exercise. I’ve long had a cognitive understanding of how I’m “wired.” That can only take you part of the way; it’s the emotional shift of understanding where the heavy lifting can lie.

    Again, thank you for seeing our community!

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Thank you for being here, Eric.

      Reply
  10. Robin Heinen Avatar
    Robin Heinen

    This post really hit home. I sometimes wonder why I’m somehow always expected to work at 200% and always deliver on every single thing. I don’t like failing – does anyone? – but it would be so wonderful if there would be zero expectations. And room to breathe, room to explore, room to be weird (weird is the right descriptor).

    Thanks for always showing us that there are others that function this way! It’s so easy to forget.

    Reply
    1. pprober Avatar
      pprober

      Knowing others are making the room to breathe, explore, and be weird can be the encouragement you need to do it anyway, in spite of the expectations! Thanks, Robin.

      Reply
    2. Ciera Avatar
      Ciera

      “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it” comes to mind.
      Yes, wouldn’t that freedom be amazing? The possibilities would be literally endless.

      Reply
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