May 14, 2026 • 42 mins
In our 20s, we can feel intense pressure to be extraordinary, to stand head and shoulders above the pack, to thrive across all aspects of our life. But when we put pressure on ourselves to be extraordinary, we can fall victim to social comparison, lose sight of what we really want, and experience long-term feelings of inadequacy. In this episode, unpack where the pressure to be extraordinary comes from, and reframe our thinking towards a healthier, more balanced approach.
We explore:
• How social media creates an ‘artificial average’, making us feel inadequate
• Why being gifted as a child can lead to burnout as an adult
• The myth of linear success, and why taking a scenic route is just as worthy
• Why learned helplessness can make us stop trying at all
• How we can expand our definition of being ‘extraordinary’ into many areas
• Why our relationships, not our work achievements, are the biggest predictor of long-term happiness
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Our favourite sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/nov/05/under-pressure-why-athletes-choke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI
https://paulasanderson.com/2020/12/04/30-under-30-and-the-pressure-to-be-extraordinary/
The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is
(00:26):
so great to have you here. Back for another episode.
Today we are talking about a very insidious part of
our twenties, the pressure to be extraordinary, the pressure to
be the best, to be the wonder kind, to be
the star, This idea that if we don't make it
(00:49):
big now in our twenties, we will never have what
it takes. This feeling follows us around everywhere, and I
personally think it destroys a lot of our organic love
for so many things, and it destroys our ability to
be truly curious and truly passionate during your time in
(01:12):
our lives, when that is like our number one asset.
I cannot be the only one who feels this implicit
sense that we are all in this race and we
are all losing at the exact same time. We're all
in the race, none of us are winning. There are
like ten or twelve people in this world, ten or
twelve amazing twenty somethings who are Olympians, who are business owners,
(01:36):
who are authors, who are experts.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
They're winning, but we are not. And the question always
seems to be like, why can't that be me? Why
didn't I make it? Why don't I have the motivation
to be this extraordinary person? Does that mean that I
am less than? It is so exhausting, and I think
we really need to dissect where that comes from from
(01:59):
us psychological standpoint, what it does to our ambition. I
also want to talk about the role of viral fame,
how that has changed our interpretation of what it means
to be extraordinary, the gifted child phenomena, all of these things,
but mainly the personal cost of this pressure to be
extraordinary that just seemingly follows us around everywhere, and why
(02:22):
our current version of what is extraordinary is probably deeply,
deeply flawed and deeply deeply wrong. So, without further ado,
I feel like this is the pep talk I need
right now. This is an important episode for me as well.
Let's get into it. What doesn't mean to be extraordinary
(02:43):
in modern society? Right now? I think there are a
few major themes that spring to mind, the biggest being fame, money,
status items, being busy, being the best, accomplishing as much
as possible a very short time. It is all very visible,
(03:04):
isn't it, And it's all very dependent on external validation.
It's all very hyper competitive. The appeal of external validation
and meeting those external expectations for what success looks like
is very understandable at this time in our lives, at
this stage in our twenties, in our twenties, there are
(03:25):
so many unknowns in front of us, like, there is
so much that we don't understand. It is only natural
that we fixate on this very narrow vision of what
extraordinary is that we know guarantees us approval because that
makes us feel steady. Striving to be exceptional can provide
(03:47):
a kind of emotional security, but also a social security
that we don't often we don't really get from anything else.
Like this is the blueprint if we follow it well.
All these people who have found this success seem happy,
so we must be happy as well. We will be
happy if we find that validation. Also, the social validation
(04:08):
in particular that comes with visible success from your friends
and family praising you right up to viral Internet fame
is very seductive, but it also limits our version of
what a successful life looks like to only something that
can be seen and praised. You never see people bragging
(04:28):
about the quality of their time off, the devotion to
their hobbies. You never see people bragging about how deeply
they've gotten to know themselves or how much rest do
they get. There's no prize for being the best kind
of friend or for surviving hard emotional things. We have
one version of success. Either you are that, either you
(04:49):
are famed luxury money, or you're not successful. That is
what society says. I think this has in part been
and I know has been intensified by social media in
two ways. Firstly, the rise of viral fame that can
take somebody from like seemingly ordinary to extraordinary in the
span of hours and like change your life, your status,
(05:11):
your bank account balance overnight. This is the first time
in human history that this could be somebody's pipeline, that
this could be somebody's life, and that makes extraordinary or
being extraordinary feel so much more accessible genuinely like fame,
even like twenty years ago, thirty years ago, fame used
(05:33):
to be like a slow burn. It used to be exclusive,
and it used to be reserved for people who were
really dedicated to a craft or who were perhaps became
like sensational stars overnight. I actually read a study the
other day that interviewed like, I don't know, I think
like teenagers, like thousands of teenagers who were like and
(05:54):
actually even younger children like ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen year
old kids, on what their dream job would be, and
the majority of them said like YouTuber, online gamer, or influencer. This,
like the viral fame, makes it feel so much more
in reach for so many more people to be this
(06:16):
extraordinary person, and that ups the pressure. The second way
I think social media has intensified the need to be
extraordinary is that unlike our parents' generation, who could probably
only really compare themselves to the people that they know
or mutual friends or I don't know, people their age
who like made it bigger and who were like in
(06:36):
the paper, who were like public figures you and I like,
we now have the entire online world to compare ourselves to.
We are flooded with opportunities to see how we measure
up against our peers, literally everybody people our own age
who appear to be killing it from like all over
(06:57):
the world, like I don't. You would not have to
search very far to find somebody your age, from your
part of the world who looks like you doing things
that are just insanely cool and amazing. And they are
one in a million, but we see a million of
them a day. We don't see like the normal lives.
(07:20):
We don't see the tough bits unless they want us
to see it. We don't see. We only see like
the people who have broken through a very tricky algorithm
to reach our screen, or to reach like our public
knowledge or like our public yeah, the public arena. And
this creates a cognitive fallacy that if these are the
(07:41):
only people we see online, everybody else must like it
must be accessible. These people were just like us before
they got here, and everybody could have this, so why
don't we In a more professional context as well. I
think LinkedIn has done that for even more traditional career
past as well. Obviously, not everybody wants to be an
(08:02):
influencer or a YouTuber, but LinkedIn does that for finance,
for consulting, for law, for accounting. There was a twenty
sixteen study that assessed a sample of seventeen hundred university
students and measured the correlation between LinkedIn usage and depression
and social anxiety, and they found that participants who used
(08:24):
LinkedIn at least once per week were much more likely
to have these indicators of poor and mental health. And
that's the problem with constantly striving to be extraordinary. At
this age, extraordinary feels exceedingly normal because of how cases
(08:44):
of extraordinary people are everywhere and rise to the surface
and dominate what we see because it's exciting. It's exciting
and alluring to see somebody make it. And this of
course breeds a very deep, intitious form of social comparison.
I should say this social comparison in itself is not
a bad thing. I actually think it's a useful thing.
(09:07):
It's completely normal to look around you and to look
at others for information about what you should be doing,
and how you think, and how you feel and how
you should behave It provides an incredible evolutionary advantage in
a highly complex and interconnected modern social world. Knowing what
is the norm is often good for social standing. But
(09:28):
there are obvious problems that come with constantly looking at
other people to validate our lives and our choices, especially
when what we see of them may be incorrect or
probably is the incomplete picture. I came across this article
written by this woman. I cannot remember her name, but
(09:48):
she was on the thirty Under thirty list in twenty
and eighteen. If you don't know what the Forbes thirty
Under thirty list is, it's like basically a list of
thirty people aged thirty and under who have done like
really impressive things, and it's like a real thing to
get on this list. And this woman, this author of
this article, talks about how the award it doesn't account
(10:14):
for the whole picture of people's lives. It doesn't like
it doesn't look at the facts of their achievements. It
doesn't think about it doesn't weigh up who was self
made versus who had family support. It doesn't weigh up
their failures. She points to when Forbes there was like
a really famous article a couple of years back about
(10:35):
like Kylie Jenner being like the first self made billionaire
woman on one of its covers, and in this article,
this woman talks about how, like this list, that's an
example of how they fetishize achievement, but they erase the
role of privilege and access, like they only spotlight the individual,
not the system, not all the stuff that went right
(10:57):
for them, not all the luck they have or even
not when like they never talk about what went wrong
or anything that isn't glamorous. I'm like, I'm totally banking
on her name. I'm gonna leave a link below. It
is such a good article. It's on vox if you
want to read it. And again, this woman who wrote
this article was a Forbes thirty under thirty, like a wardie,
(11:18):
Like she belongs to this extremely tiny group, just thirty
people under thirty every year who are deemed to be extraordinary.
And if she is calling out the lack of transparency
with young people and the true stories of people who
achieve these huge milestones and how it's not all that
it seems like, I think we should listen, and I
think we should acknowledge that the I don't know, the
(11:40):
idols that we have, the visions or the views or
the pictures of success we have are probably not correct.
I think part of the pressure to be extraordinary also
comes down to hustle culture, very obvious hustle culture, This
idea that we should always be on always should be
burning the midnight oil, or it always should be optimizing.
(12:00):
Our free time is everywhere, like they villainize free time.
Time spent relaxing is times you should be spent, like
that should be spent working and pushing ourselves harder. And
there's this whole narrative of like pressure is privilege. I've
been saying more and more videos on TikTok and Instagram
(12:21):
that are like I can't complain when there's work to
like when there's work to do, Like I can't complain
that my plate is full when I wanted to eat,
I can't complain about the pressure that I wanted. Like
that's this whole mentality of like, if you're not suffering
and working hard, you're not deserving. Even the things that
are purely done for enjoyment. These days need to be maximized. Literally,
(12:44):
maximizing is the trend, like hobby maxing, looks maxing, life maxing,
outside maxing, flow state maxing. Like I could go on,
everything needs to be maximized. It's created this lingering sense
that we have to be found to get all our hobbies,
we always have to be gearing towards monetizing them. We
(13:04):
need to strive to be extraordinarily beautiful, happy, fun, rested, successful, friendly.
We have to have everything in order to like just
be normal or especially I think the idea is like,
(13:26):
in order to be satisfied again, partly because of how
visible our lives are now, everything needs to be for
an audience. Everything needs to be and you need to
have the most of the things, the most of everything
that you can get. Everything needs to be balanced to perfection.
And I think they really like they start us young
(13:46):
when it comes to this pressure. Obviously I'm blaming social media.
I think that this comes down to a lot more
complex ideas than just that. I have to say, if
you were a gifted child or an overachiever as a teenager,
this next bit of this episode is for you, because
the straight a student to burnt out twenty something pipeline
(14:09):
is so real. I think the pressure to be extraordinary
in our twenties begins with the obsession with excessively smart, talented,
wonder kid like type people when we were children, like
the accelerated programs, the child savant, the bragging rights like
(14:32):
our parents received. Everybody wanted a gifted child, and it
actually ends up being a little bit of a curse,
of course, Like it's only natural that our society praises
and wants to celebrate intelligence and wants to celebrate, you know,
being talented. But boxing a child into that identity so
(14:54):
young and during such a formative time for their self
concept does psycho logical damage long term because it delivers
the expectation that you can never deviate from this identity
as the star for the rest of your life. You
will have to continue to be the best. Like your
(15:16):
trajectory is set. You were a gifted child, you better
be a gifted adult, and if you deviate, that's because
you messed up. You've squandered your potential. You didn't work
hard enough. But adult life like isn't the same as
our lives as children or even as teenagers. There's a
(15:38):
much bigger playing field. We have so many other options
open to us that weren't there before. There's a whole
new set of challenges to balance. That means that when
we're exposed to people or environments or situations that are challenging,
(15:58):
or where we aren't the smartest person in the room
or we aren't the most talented person in the room.
After being told to believe that we always would be
from a young age. It can be really, really jarring.
Frustration can set in when we can't master new skills
with ease. We might believe that we're not clever anymore,
that we peaked in high school. We suffer from imposter syndrome.
(16:21):
There isn't often an entire identity collapse that comes that
I think afflicts every person who was praised for being smart, creative,
the best as a child, who then as an adult,
you know, it's still smart, amazing, and talented, but cannot
operate at the same level that they could when they
(16:41):
had didn't have bills, didn't have complex relationships, didn't have
global wars to worry about. I think we may wonder
where our feeling of being special will come from now, Like,
now that we're out of that system, how do we
set ourselves apart? And so we set ourselves unrealistically high
(17:03):
standards to achieve something that will make us feel worthy,
and then we still don't feel satisfied when we get there.
The truth is A twenty twenty five study found that
former gifted children often struggle more than non gifted children
after graduation because their only coping mechanism is working harder,
(17:23):
and they struggle in environments whether there just aren't those
same clear metrics for them to achieve against and for
them to feel validated by. Like that's the truth. That's
probably what a lot of you guys are going through
right now. And the other thing that gets confusing, and
I kind of just mentioned it, is that after high school,
after university, like the idea of linear success is revealed
(17:48):
very quickly to be a myth. When we were in
high school, when we were in college, everything is kind
of this step up, like we achieve this, and then
we achieve this, and then we climb this, and then
we get to the top. And when we graduate, we
climb the career ladder and every two years were rewarded
with the promotion, and we're rewarded with the raise until
we get to the top of the ladder, and then
we are predictably, naturally our happiest because we have done
(18:11):
it and we have the success story we always want
it to be. But like that progression is not true anymore,
if it ever was true. Instead, we live in a
very uncertain time for all of our careers, for all
of our lives. Rapidly evolving technology, AI, financial crisis, a
(18:34):
volatile job market means that our age group isn't going
to have that same sense of upward mobility and progress
that a lot of other generations have. There was this
woman called Eliza Philby. She wrote the book Inheritocracy, and
she's the one who estimated that gen Z will have
(18:55):
five careers and work for fifteen different employers in their lifetime,
whereas in the past that typically would sit around the
one to two mark. When we change jobs, when we
shift industries as is necessary for us at the moment,
it can make us feel like we are falling down
the ladder and that we're not exceptional because taking a break,
(19:15):
taking a detour, any kind of deviation, is basically like
we're out of the running because, you know, compared to
somebody else who didn't deviate, like we are now behind,
and that that is a really stressful situation to be in. Again,
the pressure that puts on us, it's a deeply it's
(19:36):
deeply anxiety inducing. It's also incredibly unproductive and actually counterintuitive.
As much as I do agree pressure may be a
privilege for some, when a certain version of success is
the be all and end all, of life and you
are not achieving or anywhere close to achieving that success.
It actually ends up making our goals feel less achievable
(19:59):
and uses our motivation. This is what I want to
talk about next. You know, we know where the pressure
to be extraordinary comes from. We know that what kind
of set up to fail in many ways? Now what
does it actually do to our motivational systems and our
mental health when our only version of what would make
(20:21):
us happy or what would constitute a good life is
this outdated model of like the brilliant young individual. We're
going to talk about that and so much more after
this shortbreak. So, the pressure to be extraordinary does a
few things, the most important being it just creates a
(20:44):
chronic sense of inadequacy. It also kills our motivation. It
stops us from experimenting, It stops us from like sometimes
doing anything at all. Let's break those down one by one.
The problem with being extraordinary is that it never lasts,
even if you do achieve everything you want. It's a mirage,
(21:07):
you know, once you have met the expectations that you
set for yourself or somebody else set for you, like
the bar is always going to be raised because that
is like the pure definition of extraordinary, like it pushes boundaries.
Being extraordinary is about being constantly challenged, and it runs
off this hyper competitive narrative in society. I'm sure many
(21:29):
of us have had this experience whereby we achieve one thing,
we are so happy about it for about a minute,
and then we are already looking towards the next thing
and the next This feeling has a name in psychology.
It's called achievement adaptation. It's very similar to hedonic adaptation. Basically,
it is the tendency to overestimate how great big achievements
(21:56):
are going to make you feel a long term, and
to essentially become desensitized to your own efforts and accomplishments,
such that all good feelings lose their impact over time.
So basically it's like an addiction, like you need more
and more to feel happy. Every bar that you rise
(22:16):
to meet will be raised, and you will feel like
you're not doing enough to get there. Some of the
most like conventionally successful people you know, struggle with this
this inability to look around and be like, hey, like
I'm where I always wanted to be. I'm really proud
of that. I'm so proud of how far I've come.
Taylor Swift is a great example, literally the most famous
(22:38):
person in the world. And I don't know if you've
watched her documentary. I'm sure what many of you have,
but the one from a few years ago, I think
it was called like Miss Americana. There is this scene
in that documentary that I think about all the time,
like constantly. It's the scene where she's like waiting to
hear about Grammy nominations and she's like just written her
(22:59):
album Lover. This woman has already won at that point,
I think a dozen Grammys, and her publicist is like, no,
you didn't, you didn't win any you didn't even get
nominated actually, and you can see she's just like crushed.
She just crushed. And I distinctly remember her being like, well,
I just have to be better. I have to make
a better album. I have to push myself more. And
(23:22):
it doesn't look like at that time that was an
enjoyable thing for her, Like obviously now, and she did.
She did obviously meet that new level. But being exceptional
can become a bit of a curse because your worth
is dependent on your ability to outperform yourself. I think
when we begin to recognize this loop that nothing is
(23:43):
ever enough. We will never be as good as a
version of us that doesn't exist or a version of
other people that doesn't exist. I think that actually kills
our motivation in a way, because we're kind of like
why bother? Like why do I? Why bother trying so hard?
If every time I do achieve something the goalpost shift,
(24:03):
if I'm never going to be that person. I think
this logic comes into play, which is like, you know,
it's better not to try it all. You know, I'd
rather feel unexceptional because I didn't try than unexceptional because
I did, and like that has revealed my inadequacy. This
is called learned helplessness, or a version of learned helplessness
(24:26):
called self handicapping. So this term was coined in like
the sixties, self handicapping. Learned helplessness coined in the sixties
by these two researchers who basically realized sometimes people get
so adjusted and so used to being dissatisfied every time
they do try that they just stop trying, Like they
(24:48):
just realize that they're never going to be this extraordinary person,
so they don't even try to be ordinary. In a way,
when they were testing this theory on humans, Selgaman, who
was one of the researchers, he would subject participants to
really loud, unpleasant noises using a lever that would not
(25:10):
stop the sound. So basically there was a lever they
were told I can't remember exactly, but essentially they were
told that the lever would stop the sound. And they
were sitting in this room and the sound was really annoying,
really frustrating. In the first round that people were pulling, pulling,
pulling the lever, it wasn't working. In the second round,
(25:32):
the lever was working. But by this stage they just
kind of learned to adjust to the circumstances and they'd
stop believing that they could do anything to change it.
So none of them pulled the leather, or like a
very few of them did, even though like if they
had tried again it would it would have worked and
the sound would have gone away. They just learnt and
(25:53):
really leaned in, learned in to the sense of helplessness
that like, nothing is going to change for me. The
biggest result of this is a chronic state of apathy.
When we experience prolonged exposure to not meaning our expectations
to uncomfortable situations that we feel like we can't avoid,
(26:14):
we can't alleviate, We're never going to be what we
want to be. We effectively learn to accept the situation
we are in as a given. We become stuck. We
become convinced that because we can't be the most exceptional,
we are doomed to mean nothing at all. It is
a very black and white form of thinking. It can
(26:34):
also mean that when we do get opportunities or we
are put in luxe path, all the expectation about what
that could mean for us makes us choke. This is
classic performance anxiety that I think is directly derived from
the pressure to be extraordinary, whereby pressure gets to a
(26:55):
point where it's no longer motivating, it is debilitating, and
it means that even when you have all the opportunities
you could ask for, you cannot act on them because
you are so nervous about screwing the moment. This has
traditionally been observed obviously in athletes who are like the
final moment, they are doing something that they have done
(27:15):
since they were children. They choke, for example, There is
evidence of this happening time and time again. Research has
shown that in the last thirty seconds of type basketball games.
NBA players sorry are I think five point eight percent
less likely to score from a free throw line than
(27:39):
at any other time in the game or during their history.
They're also more likely to perform worse in front of
a big home crowd. We are at risk of doing
the same. Yes, we may not be playing basketball, but
in job interviews, exams, during big meetings for big opportunities,
when we start gaining momentum with something we're really passionate about,
(27:59):
we get I'm so anxious about not doing it correctly
or about the possibility that something's going to go wrong,
that we just we do nothing and we feel incapable.
The best way we can actually counteract this is to
bring back the fun to it. Basically, when you say
to yourself, like this is meant to be fun, This
(28:21):
isn't meant to be that serious. I'm just here to
enjoy myself. I'm here to learn, I'm here to play.
This is actually one of the best things you can
do for this kind of pressure and this performance anxiety,
because you actually trigger your nervous system to calm down
and to stop viewing your current situation as a threat. Genuinely.
They have done studies on this. People who counteract pressure
(28:43):
by asking themselves, how can I enjoy this more? How
can I play around with this more? How can I
make a game out of this? Do better? They do better.
A playful mindset is like magic because it lets you
loosen your grip a little bit. And that's really what's
killing a lot of this ambition and dreams is that
we're so stressed, we're clinging on to it so tightly
(29:08):
that we're like choking it. We need to be able
to let things naturally move and flow. With that in mind,
I think it is time that we talk about some
other important mindset shifts that can lessen the pressure to
be extraordinary and let you start flourishing without the need
to be the greatest. And that The first one is
(29:29):
the mindset of like, how can I have fun here?
Another is this mantra of being like, even the ordinary
can be extraordinary if I do it with care, if
I do it with authenticity, if I do it with focus.
Being on Forbes thirty one to thirty, being a CEO,
being famous, getting headlines all great, But you can be
(29:53):
the best at anything you like that is completely small
and minute. You can be the best cook in your
friendship group. You can be the best at hosting your
games nights. You can be the best at making Campa
graphics in your workplace. You can be the best at
finding I don't know, like remarkable Facebook marketplace deals. I
have a friend like that. I genuinely think she could
(30:14):
win a world championship. You also don't have to be
the best at anything to be extraordinary. This is again
like where we need to remake our definition of extraordinary altogether,
Like we need to revise that being extraordinary to this
current world looks one certain way, and I don't know
(30:36):
about you, but it gets rather boring, Like it's kind
of boring. Being extraordinary to you, though, might be very interesting.
It might look like collecting a vast number of experiences,
meeting lots of people, taking time off when you know
you need it, the ability to travel whenever you want to,
hopping off the so called career ladder, doing something that
(30:59):
you're passionate about, taking care of yourself, and maybe having
a lot of interesting side quests. It maybe being the
person who can always connect others, gaining experiences in every
single way possible, not just the career way, like, there
are so many other versions of extraordinary that I think
are more extraordinary than what our current definition is, Like
(31:22):
the current definition of like what makes extraordinary Again, it's
kind of plain like making a lot of money, being
very successful in a traditional way. I think at this
point it's kind of like, well, I don't know that
everybody can do it, but so many people are there,
and they don't seem particularly happy. Some of them don't
(31:44):
seem like particularly fulfilled or nice people, and they don't
seem like they have very fulfilling lives. The version of
extraordinary that we're kind of willing to explore, just like objectively,
looks more interesting and probably will lead you to experience
reads a lot more that is like quite nourishing. I
also think like our careers, speaking specifically of careers you know,
(32:06):
are not They're a journey, not a race, and they're
especially not worth being a race if you hate what
you're doing the entire time. And again, what people won't
tell you is that people who are stereotypically exceptional, especially
early on, like that in itself can be its own
version of golden handcuffs, and not just in like the
(32:29):
gifted child being pigeonholed way, but in a really complex way.
People who find success early on it's not all that
it's cracked up to be. They often speak about this
lack of flexibility they now have. They speak about the
curse of a reputation, even a good reputation. They will
always be the youngest lawyer. They will always be the
(32:51):
teenage CEO. They will always be the athlete, the star
from that one show that they made when they were
twenty five, the person who did that one thing once
when they were young, and because they were young it
was significant. That means that people question them more when
they go to try new things. They see them more
or they see them only as what they used to be,
(33:13):
and that makes it hard for them to kind of
challenge assumptions. It also gives them less room to experiment.
Experimentation in itself is extraordinary and I think actually gives
you more choice down the line because you've explored the
what ifs, You've had more diverse experiences and more opportunities
(33:35):
for learning than someone who found success in the first
thing they ever did. Probably they probably don't have that.
Not to bag on them obviously, like they're very impressive people.
I personally know people who are like Forbes thirty onunder thirty.
I think they're fantastic and they're very nice. But you
actually do have a freedom they don't have. You have
(33:55):
reputational freedom to be whatever you want to be when
you want to be it, not just when you're twenty,
and not just at something that's going to follow you
around for the rest of your life. Again, being extraordinary
may be aspirational, it is no guarantee of happiness. And
there's a lot of people, I mean a lot of
people who are probably on your vision boards or who
(34:17):
come to my mind and would come to your mind
when we are asked to describe an exceptional or extraordinary
person who are deeply, deeply miserable and who cannot have fun,
cannot fail, cannot explore the way that you can as
a novice. I also think there's a lot more that
matters for our happiness and health than being the best.
(34:40):
Let's talk about it some more after this short break.
There's a lot more that matters for our happiness and
health than being the best. And the biggest one that
comes to my mind is our relationships. They never get this,
but light that professional success does that same psychotherapist who
(35:04):
talked about learned helplessness, Martin Sielgman. He also invented the
field of positive psychology. If you want another fun fact,
he has conducted extensive research that shows that the strength
of our relationships, whether that is with friends, family, a partner,
that is the single most reliable measure of wellbeing, more
(35:29):
so than fame, for sure, more so than money, for sure,
more so than achievement, more so than accomplishment. All these
things that we think are hallmarks and will determine a
good life, none of it, all of it pales in
comparison to close relationships. Close relationships, more than money, more
than fame, are what keep people fulfilled and happy throughout
their lives. Again, sometimes we need this grounding reminder. If
(35:53):
you're solely focused on being impressive or being seen in
a certain way, that it means you don't spend time
with your friends, you don't focus on being somebody who
can love and be loved like those things are going
to carry you so much further in the people who
sacrifice that do miss out in a way that you
(36:13):
may not be. The final reminder, the final mindset shift
I have for you today is to remember fulfillment and
your dreams and executing your purpose has no deadline. There
is no expiration date. This is the curse I think
a lot of us struggle with in our twenties. If
I am not all that I want to be by
(36:34):
a certain age, well it's never going to happen. I
simply don't believe that's true, and I don't see any
evidence for that being true either. I can give you,
like a very cliche list you guys have probably seen
of all those people Oprah, Harrison Ford, Vera Wang like
Morgan Freeman who have become successes at forty fifty sixty.
(36:56):
But I just think in everyday life, there are so
many stories if you start looking for them, of people
who have found success at ages that are never highlighted,
or that we would never expect success to come to
us at. I'm going to give you an example, and
it's a really weird one. But I was in Amsterdam
(37:16):
the other day and I went to this strange museum
called the Mouse Mansion, and whilst we were there, I'm
going to be real, it's a children's museum. But my
friend Rosie was like, you have to go, it's really endearing.
We go we do a tour, we like paint these
little doors for the mice. And this woman shout out
(37:38):
to Eleanor. The host was telling us the story of
this museum is like one now one of the most
famous museums in Amsterdam. And I was like, who made
this museum? Like who where did this come from? And
she was like it was this woman in her like
forties or fifties who had had her kids, had a
Korea and she he just like was having this vision
(38:02):
of these mice stories and she wanted she wanted to
make children's books about mice, and she wanted to make
this mice mouse mansion and she did it and she
found this like level of success and like fame, and
she's created all this joy for other people, Like at
(38:25):
an age that like, I don't think society wants you
to find particularly extraordinary like finding success in our forties
and fifties like this woman did, like the mouse Mansion
creator did, is not highlighted as much. But I genuinely
think that, like it is impressive at any age, and
(38:45):
it's probably sweeter at that age because you've had all
this time for self exploration. You've had all this time
to explore and to make relationships and make memories that
maybe you wouldn't have gotten if you were visibly successful,
and that all comes back to you in dividends later on.
So I think that that's kind of what I want
(39:05):
to end the episode on. The pressure to be extraordinary
is immense. All of us have felt in some form
or another, whether that is when you were at university,
whether you were at high school and it was to
perform academically or to find internships, whether it is now
to be somebody who is considering viral fame, somebody who posts,
somebody who starts a business, somebody who starts an AI
(39:27):
tech company. It's like never ending, it's aggressively in our faces.
It's not all that it's cracked up to be. The
pressure to be extraordinary actually sucks the joy out of life,
and I think finding ways to counteract it and to
be like, actually, my objective is to have fun. My
(39:51):
objective is to have experiences. My objective is to have
great relationships. Is probably going to make you happier then.
And the people we see highlighted as these exceptional people
who at forty fifty sixty and now having the realizations
of like, who the frick am I that you were
(40:11):
able to have at twenty because you didn't have mega
success and you hadn't found yourself before you even knew yourself.
So I don't know. That's been what I've been thinking
about a lot recently, and I think it's a real
sign that we need to reinvestigate what is successful and
what is extraordinary in our society, because I think our
current version of it isn't all that it's cracked up
(40:35):
to be and doesn't seem to be particularly enjoyable for
the people who find it. So that's where I'm gonna
leave the episode. If you have made it this far,
and if you are listening on Spotify, what is something
in your life right now that you think you should
be having more fun doing rather than stressing out as
(40:57):
much as you probably are about Korea relationship? What is
something that you think that you and that you want
to focus on enjoying more than you are performing at.
Mine is my hobbies. That's an easy one. I feel
such a like I constantly feel like I need to
monetize or make public everything that I do because like,
(41:17):
being in my twenties and living as a twenty something
is like my my brand, and I'm really trying to
be better at just enjoying them for me and seeing
where they flow personally and for me, not where they
flow like for others and foreign audience. So that's my answer.
Leave yours below. As always, thank you to our researcher
Lucy Davidson. She helped us out with this episode. She
(41:39):
is great. We have full episodes, including this one video
episodes on Netflix that is correct, probably in your country
at this point, Australia and New Zealand, the UK, Canada,
the US. I don't know any of the others. On
Germany maybe I actually don't know. I think it's in Germany,
but yeah, go and check it. Yeah, if you're in
(42:00):
like if actually, if you were in Germany, that's your
that is actually your objective. Leave a comment because I
don't have German Netflix, so I don't know if it's there,
So you can do some research for us, Substack, Instagram.
All of those things are also in the episode description,
as well as some of our favorite resources if you
want to do a bit more investigating on the pressure
(42:20):
to be extraordinary yourself. But I do just hope you
enjoyed this episode. I hope it's made you feel better
about your own path, and until next time, be safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very
very soon.
Hello everybody, I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. It is
(00:26):
so great to have you here. Back for another episode.
Today we are talking about a very insidious part of
our twenties, the pressure to be extraordinary, the pressure to
be the best, to be the wonder kind, to be
the star, This idea that if we don't make it
(00:49):
big now in our twenties, we will never have what
it takes. This feeling follows us around everywhere, and I
personally think it destroys a lot of our organic love
for so many things, and it destroys our ability to
be truly curious and truly passionate during your time in
(01:12):
our lives, when that is like our number one asset.
I cannot be the only one who feels this implicit
sense that we are all in this race and we
are all losing at the exact same time. We're all
in the race, none of us are winning. There are
like ten or twelve people in this world, ten or
twelve amazing twenty somethings who are Olympians, who are business owners,
(01:36):
who are authors, who are experts.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
They're winning, but we are not. And the question always
seems to be like, why can't that be me? Why
didn't I make it? Why don't I have the motivation
to be this extraordinary person? Does that mean that I
am less than? It is so exhausting, and I think
we really need to dissect where that comes from from
(01:59):
us psychological standpoint, what it does to our ambition. I
also want to talk about the role of viral fame,
how that has changed our interpretation of what it means
to be extraordinary, the gifted child phenomena, all of these things,
but mainly the personal cost of this pressure to be
extraordinary that just seemingly follows us around everywhere, and why
(02:22):
our current version of what is extraordinary is probably deeply,
deeply flawed and deeply deeply wrong. So, without further ado,
I feel like this is the pep talk I need
right now. This is an important episode for me as well.
Let's get into it. What doesn't mean to be extraordinary
(02:43):
in modern society? Right now? I think there are a
few major themes that spring to mind, the biggest being fame, money,
status items, being busy, being the best, accomplishing as much
as possible a very short time. It is all very visible,
(03:04):
isn't it, And it's all very dependent on external validation.
It's all very hyper competitive. The appeal of external validation
and meeting those external expectations for what success looks like
is very understandable at this time in our lives, at
this stage in our twenties, in our twenties, there are
(03:25):
so many unknowns in front of us, like, there is
so much that we don't understand. It is only natural
that we fixate on this very narrow vision of what
extraordinary is that we know guarantees us approval because that
makes us feel steady. Striving to be exceptional can provide
(03:47):
a kind of emotional security, but also a social security
that we don't often we don't really get from anything else.
Like this is the blueprint if we follow it well.
All these people who have found this success seem happy,
so we must be happy as well. We will be
happy if we find that validation. Also, the social validation
(04:08):
in particular that comes with visible success from your friends
and family praising you right up to viral Internet fame
is very seductive, but it also limits our version of
what a successful life looks like to only something that
can be seen and praised. You never see people bragging
(04:28):
about the quality of their time off, the devotion to
their hobbies. You never see people bragging about how deeply
they've gotten to know themselves or how much rest do
they get. There's no prize for being the best kind
of friend or for surviving hard emotional things. We have
one version of success. Either you are that, either you
(04:49):
are famed luxury money, or you're not successful. That is
what society says. I think this has in part been
and I know has been intensified by social media in
two ways. Firstly, the rise of viral fame that can
take somebody from like seemingly ordinary to extraordinary in the
span of hours and like change your life, your status,
(05:11):
your bank account balance overnight. This is the first time
in human history that this could be somebody's pipeline, that
this could be somebody's life, and that makes extraordinary or
being extraordinary feel so much more accessible genuinely like fame,
even like twenty years ago, thirty years ago, fame used
(05:33):
to be like a slow burn. It used to be exclusive,
and it used to be reserved for people who were
really dedicated to a craft or who were perhaps became
like sensational stars overnight. I actually read a study the
other day that interviewed like, I don't know, I think
like teenagers, like thousands of teenagers who were like and
(05:54):
actually even younger children like ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen year
old kids, on what their dream job would be, and
the majority of them said like YouTuber, online gamer, or influencer. This,
like the viral fame, makes it feel so much more
in reach for so many more people to be this
(06:16):
extraordinary person, and that ups the pressure. The second way
I think social media has intensified the need to be
extraordinary is that unlike our parents' generation, who could probably
only really compare themselves to the people that they know
or mutual friends or I don't know, people their age
who like made it bigger and who were like in
(06:36):
the paper, who were like public figures you and I like,
we now have the entire online world to compare ourselves to.
We are flooded with opportunities to see how we measure
up against our peers, literally everybody people our own age
who appear to be killing it from like all over
(06:57):
the world, like I don't. You would not have to
search very far to find somebody your age, from your
part of the world who looks like you doing things
that are just insanely cool and amazing. And they are
one in a million, but we see a million of
them a day. We don't see like the normal lives.
(07:20):
We don't see the tough bits unless they want us
to see it. We don't see. We only see like
the people who have broken through a very tricky algorithm
to reach our screen, or to reach like our public
knowledge or like our public yeah, the public arena. And
this creates a cognitive fallacy that if these are the
(07:41):
only people we see online, everybody else must like it
must be accessible. These people were just like us before
they got here, and everybody could have this, so why
don't we In a more professional context as well. I
think LinkedIn has done that for even more traditional career
past as well. Obviously, not everybody wants to be an
(08:02):
influencer or a YouTuber, but LinkedIn does that for finance,
for consulting, for law, for accounting. There was a twenty
sixteen study that assessed a sample of seventeen hundred university
students and measured the correlation between LinkedIn usage and depression
and social anxiety, and they found that participants who used
(08:24):
LinkedIn at least once per week were much more likely
to have these indicators of poor and mental health. And
that's the problem with constantly striving to be extraordinary. At
this age, extraordinary feels exceedingly normal because of how cases
(08:44):
of extraordinary people are everywhere and rise to the surface
and dominate what we see because it's exciting. It's exciting
and alluring to see somebody make it. And this of
course breeds a very deep, intitious form of social comparison.
I should say this social comparison in itself is not
a bad thing. I actually think it's a useful thing.
(09:07):
It's completely normal to look around you and to look
at others for information about what you should be doing,
and how you think, and how you feel and how
you should behave It provides an incredible evolutionary advantage in
a highly complex and interconnected modern social world. Knowing what
is the norm is often good for social standing. But
(09:28):
there are obvious problems that come with constantly looking at
other people to validate our lives and our choices, especially
when what we see of them may be incorrect or
probably is the incomplete picture. I came across this article
written by this woman. I cannot remember her name, but
(09:48):
she was on the thirty Under thirty list in twenty
and eighteen. If you don't know what the Forbes thirty
Under thirty list is, it's like basically a list of
thirty people aged thirty and under who have done like
really impressive things, and it's like a real thing to
get on this list. And this woman, this author of
this article, talks about how the award it doesn't account
(10:14):
for the whole picture of people's lives. It doesn't like
it doesn't look at the facts of their achievements. It
doesn't think about it doesn't weigh up who was self
made versus who had family support. It doesn't weigh up
their failures. She points to when Forbes there was like
a really famous article a couple of years back about
(10:35):
like Kylie Jenner being like the first self made billionaire
woman on one of its covers, and in this article,
this woman talks about how, like this list, that's an
example of how they fetishize achievement, but they erase the
role of privilege and access, like they only spotlight the individual,
not the system, not all the stuff that went right
(10:57):
for them, not all the luck they have or even
not when like they never talk about what went wrong
or anything that isn't glamorous. I'm like, I'm totally banking
on her name. I'm gonna leave a link below. It
is such a good article. It's on vox if you
want to read it. And again, this woman who wrote
this article was a Forbes thirty under thirty, like a wardie,
(11:18):
Like she belongs to this extremely tiny group, just thirty
people under thirty every year who are deemed to be extraordinary.
And if she is calling out the lack of transparency
with young people and the true stories of people who
achieve these huge milestones and how it's not all that
it seems like, I think we should listen, and I
think we should acknowledge that the I don't know, the
(11:40):
idols that we have, the visions or the views or
the pictures of success we have are probably not correct.
I think part of the pressure to be extraordinary also
comes down to hustle culture, very obvious hustle culture, This
idea that we should always be on always should be
burning the midnight oil, or it always should be optimizing.
(12:00):
Our free time is everywhere, like they villainize free time.
Time spent relaxing is times you should be spent, like
that should be spent working and pushing ourselves harder. And
there's this whole narrative of like pressure is privilege. I've
been saying more and more videos on TikTok and Instagram
(12:21):
that are like I can't complain when there's work to
like when there's work to do, Like I can't complain
that my plate is full when I wanted to eat,
I can't complain about the pressure that I wanted. Like
that's this whole mentality of like, if you're not suffering
and working hard, you're not deserving. Even the things that
are purely done for enjoyment. These days need to be maximized. Literally,
(12:44):
maximizing is the trend, like hobby maxing, looks maxing, life maxing,
outside maxing, flow state maxing. Like I could go on,
everything needs to be maximized. It's created this lingering sense
that we have to be found to get all our hobbies,
we always have to be gearing towards monetizing them. We
(13:04):
need to strive to be extraordinarily beautiful, happy, fun, rested, successful, friendly.
We have to have everything in order to like just
be normal or especially I think the idea is like,
(13:26):
in order to be satisfied again, partly because of how
visible our lives are now, everything needs to be for
an audience. Everything needs to be and you need to
have the most of the things, the most of everything
that you can get. Everything needs to be balanced to perfection.
And I think they really like they start us young
(13:46):
when it comes to this pressure. Obviously I'm blaming social media.
I think that this comes down to a lot more
complex ideas than just that. I have to say, if
you were a gifted child or an overachiever as a teenager,
this next bit of this episode is for you, because
the straight a student to burnt out twenty something pipeline
(14:09):
is so real. I think the pressure to be extraordinary
in our twenties begins with the obsession with excessively smart, talented,
wonder kid like type people when we were children, like
the accelerated programs, the child savant, the bragging rights like
(14:32):
our parents received. Everybody wanted a gifted child, and it
actually ends up being a little bit of a curse,
of course, Like it's only natural that our society praises
and wants to celebrate intelligence and wants to celebrate, you know,
being talented. But boxing a child into that identity so
(14:54):
young and during such a formative time for their self
concept does psycho logical damage long term because it delivers
the expectation that you can never deviate from this identity
as the star for the rest of your life. You
will have to continue to be the best. Like your
(15:16):
trajectory is set. You were a gifted child, you better
be a gifted adult, and if you deviate, that's because
you messed up. You've squandered your potential. You didn't work
hard enough. But adult life like isn't the same as
our lives as children or even as teenagers. There's a
(15:38):
much bigger playing field. We have so many other options
open to us that weren't there before. There's a whole
new set of challenges to balance. That means that when
we're exposed to people or environments or situations that are challenging,
(15:58):
or where we aren't the smartest person in the room
or we aren't the most talented person in the room.
After being told to believe that we always would be
from a young age. It can be really, really jarring.
Frustration can set in when we can't master new skills
with ease. We might believe that we're not clever anymore,
that we peaked in high school. We suffer from imposter syndrome.
(16:21):
There isn't often an entire identity collapse that comes that
I think afflicts every person who was praised for being smart, creative,
the best as a child, who then as an adult,
you know, it's still smart, amazing, and talented, but cannot
operate at the same level that they could when they
(16:41):
had didn't have bills, didn't have complex relationships, didn't have
global wars to worry about. I think we may wonder
where our feeling of being special will come from now, Like,
now that we're out of that system, how do we
set ourselves apart? And so we set ourselves unrealistically high
(17:03):
standards to achieve something that will make us feel worthy,
and then we still don't feel satisfied when we get there.
The truth is A twenty twenty five study found that
former gifted children often struggle more than non gifted children
after graduation because their only coping mechanism is working harder,
(17:23):
and they struggle in environments whether there just aren't those
same clear metrics for them to achieve against and for
them to feel validated by. Like that's the truth. That's
probably what a lot of you guys are going through
right now. And the other thing that gets confusing, and
I kind of just mentioned it, is that after high school,
after university, like the idea of linear success is revealed
(17:48):
very quickly to be a myth. When we were in
high school, when we were in college, everything is kind
of this step up, like we achieve this, and then
we achieve this, and then we climb this, and then
we get to the top. And when we graduate, we
climb the career ladder and every two years were rewarded
with the promotion, and we're rewarded with the raise until
we get to the top of the ladder, and then
we are predictably, naturally our happiest because we have done
(18:11):
it and we have the success story we always want
it to be. But like that progression is not true anymore,
if it ever was true. Instead, we live in a
very uncertain time for all of our careers, for all
of our lives. Rapidly evolving technology, AI, financial crisis, a
(18:34):
volatile job market means that our age group isn't going
to have that same sense of upward mobility and progress
that a lot of other generations have. There was this
woman called Eliza Philby. She wrote the book Inheritocracy, and
she's the one who estimated that gen Z will have
(18:55):
five careers and work for fifteen different employers in their lifetime,
whereas in the past that typically would sit around the
one to two mark. When we change jobs, when we
shift industries as is necessary for us at the moment,
it can make us feel like we are falling down
the ladder and that we're not exceptional because taking a break,
(19:15):
taking a detour, any kind of deviation, is basically like
we're out of the running because, you know, compared to
somebody else who didn't deviate, like we are now behind,
and that that is a really stressful situation to be in. Again,
the pressure that puts on us, it's a deeply it's
(19:36):
deeply anxiety inducing. It's also incredibly unproductive and actually counterintuitive.
As much as I do agree pressure may be a
privilege for some, when a certain version of success is
the be all and end all, of life and you
are not achieving or anywhere close to achieving that success.
It actually ends up making our goals feel less achievable
(19:59):
and uses our motivation. This is what I want to
talk about next. You know, we know where the pressure
to be extraordinary comes from. We know that what kind
of set up to fail in many ways? Now what
does it actually do to our motivational systems and our
mental health when our only version of what would make
(20:21):
us happy or what would constitute a good life is
this outdated model of like the brilliant young individual. We're
going to talk about that and so much more after
this shortbreak. So, the pressure to be extraordinary does a
few things, the most important being it just creates a
(20:44):
chronic sense of inadequacy. It also kills our motivation. It
stops us from experimenting, It stops us from like sometimes
doing anything at all. Let's break those down one by one.
The problem with being extraordinary is that it never lasts,
even if you do achieve everything you want. It's a mirage,
(21:07):
you know, once you have met the expectations that you
set for yourself or somebody else set for you, like
the bar is always going to be raised because that
is like the pure definition of extraordinary, like it pushes boundaries.
Being extraordinary is about being constantly challenged, and it runs
off this hyper competitive narrative in society. I'm sure many
(21:29):
of us have had this experience whereby we achieve one thing,
we are so happy about it for about a minute,
and then we are already looking towards the next thing
and the next This feeling has a name in psychology.
It's called achievement adaptation. It's very similar to hedonic adaptation. Basically,
it is the tendency to overestimate how great big achievements
(21:56):
are going to make you feel a long term, and
to essentially become desensitized to your own efforts and accomplishments,
such that all good feelings lose their impact over time.
So basically it's like an addiction, like you need more
and more to feel happy. Every bar that you rise
(22:16):
to meet will be raised, and you will feel like
you're not doing enough to get there. Some of the
most like conventionally successful people you know, struggle with this
this inability to look around and be like, hey, like
I'm where I always wanted to be. I'm really proud
of that. I'm so proud of how far I've come.
Taylor Swift is a great example, literally the most famous
(22:38):
person in the world. And I don't know if you've
watched her documentary. I'm sure what many of you have,
but the one from a few years ago, I think
it was called like Miss Americana. There is this scene
in that documentary that I think about all the time,
like constantly. It's the scene where she's like waiting to
hear about Grammy nominations and she's like just written her
(22:59):
album Lover. This woman has already won at that point,
I think a dozen Grammys, and her publicist is like, no,
you didn't, you didn't win any you didn't even get
nominated actually, and you can see she's just like crushed.
She just crushed. And I distinctly remember her being like, well,
I just have to be better. I have to make
a better album. I have to push myself more. And
(23:22):
it doesn't look like at that time that was an
enjoyable thing for her, Like obviously now, and she did.
She did obviously meet that new level. But being exceptional
can become a bit of a curse because your worth
is dependent on your ability to outperform yourself. I think
when we begin to recognize this loop that nothing is
(23:43):
ever enough. We will never be as good as a
version of us that doesn't exist or a version of
other people that doesn't exist. I think that actually kills
our motivation in a way, because we're kind of like
why bother? Like why do I? Why bother trying so hard?
If every time I do achieve something the goalpost shift,
(24:03):
if I'm never going to be that person. I think
this logic comes into play, which is like, you know,
it's better not to try it all. You know, I'd
rather feel unexceptional because I didn't try than unexceptional because
I did, and like that has revealed my inadequacy. This
is called learned helplessness, or a version of learned helplessness
(24:26):
called self handicapping. So this term was coined in like
the sixties, self handicapping. Learned helplessness coined in the sixties
by these two researchers who basically realized sometimes people get
so adjusted and so used to being dissatisfied every time
they do try that they just stop trying, Like they
(24:48):
just realize that they're never going to be this extraordinary person,
so they don't even try to be ordinary. In a way,
when they were testing this theory on humans, Selgaman, who
was one of the researchers, he would subject participants to
really loud, unpleasant noises using a lever that would not
(25:10):
stop the sound. So basically there was a lever they
were told I can't remember exactly, but essentially they were
told that the lever would stop the sound. And they
were sitting in this room and the sound was really annoying,
really frustrating. In the first round that people were pulling, pulling,
pulling the lever, it wasn't working. In the second round,
(25:32):
the lever was working. But by this stage they just
kind of learned to adjust to the circumstances and they'd
stop believing that they could do anything to change it.
So none of them pulled the leather, or like a
very few of them did, even though like if they
had tried again it would it would have worked and
the sound would have gone away. They just learnt and
(25:53):
really leaned in, learned in to the sense of helplessness
that like, nothing is going to change for me. The
biggest result of this is a chronic state of apathy.
When we experience prolonged exposure to not meaning our expectations
to uncomfortable situations that we feel like we can't avoid,
(26:14):
we can't alleviate, We're never going to be what we
want to be. We effectively learn to accept the situation
we are in as a given. We become stuck. We
become convinced that because we can't be the most exceptional,
we are doomed to mean nothing at all. It is
a very black and white form of thinking. It can
(26:34):
also mean that when we do get opportunities or we
are put in luxe path, all the expectation about what
that could mean for us makes us choke. This is
classic performance anxiety that I think is directly derived from
the pressure to be extraordinary, whereby pressure gets to a
(26:55):
point where it's no longer motivating, it is debilitating, and
it means that even when you have all the opportunities
you could ask for, you cannot act on them because
you are so nervous about screwing the moment. This has
traditionally been observed obviously in athletes who are like the
final moment, they are doing something that they have done
(27:15):
since they were children. They choke, for example, There is
evidence of this happening time and time again. Research has
shown that in the last thirty seconds of type basketball games.
NBA players sorry are I think five point eight percent
less likely to score from a free throw line than
(27:39):
at any other time in the game or during their history.
They're also more likely to perform worse in front of
a big home crowd. We are at risk of doing
the same. Yes, we may not be playing basketball, but
in job interviews, exams, during big meetings for big opportunities,
when we start gaining momentum with something we're really passionate about,
(27:59):
we get I'm so anxious about not doing it correctly
or about the possibility that something's going to go wrong,
that we just we do nothing and we feel incapable.
The best way we can actually counteract this is to
bring back the fun to it. Basically, when you say
to yourself, like this is meant to be fun, This
(28:21):
isn't meant to be that serious. I'm just here to
enjoy myself. I'm here to learn, I'm here to play.
This is actually one of the best things you can
do for this kind of pressure and this performance anxiety,
because you actually trigger your nervous system to calm down
and to stop viewing your current situation as a threat. Genuinely.
They have done studies on this. People who counteract pressure
(28:43):
by asking themselves, how can I enjoy this more? How
can I play around with this more? How can I
make a game out of this? Do better? They do better.
A playful mindset is like magic because it lets you
loosen your grip a little bit. And that's really what's
killing a lot of this ambition and dreams is that
we're so stressed, we're clinging on to it so tightly
(29:08):
that we're like choking it. We need to be able
to let things naturally move and flow. With that in mind,
I think it is time that we talk about some
other important mindset shifts that can lessen the pressure to
be extraordinary and let you start flourishing without the need
to be the greatest. And that The first one is
(29:29):
the mindset of like, how can I have fun here?
Another is this mantra of being like, even the ordinary
can be extraordinary if I do it with care, if
I do it with authenticity, if I do it with focus.
Being on Forbes thirty one to thirty, being a CEO,
being famous, getting headlines all great, But you can be
(29:53):
the best at anything you like that is completely small
and minute. You can be the best cook in your
friendship group. You can be the best at hosting your
games nights. You can be the best at making Campa
graphics in your workplace. You can be the best at
finding I don't know, like remarkable Facebook marketplace deals. I
have a friend like that. I genuinely think she could
(30:14):
win a world championship. You also don't have to be
the best at anything to be extraordinary. This is again
like where we need to remake our definition of extraordinary altogether,
Like we need to revise that being extraordinary to this
current world looks one certain way, and I don't know
(30:36):
about you, but it gets rather boring, Like it's kind
of boring. Being extraordinary to you, though, might be very interesting.
It might look like collecting a vast number of experiences,
meeting lots of people, taking time off when you know
you need it, the ability to travel whenever you want to,
hopping off the so called career ladder, doing something that
(30:59):
you're passionate about, taking care of yourself, and maybe having
a lot of interesting side quests. It maybe being the
person who can always connect others, gaining experiences in every
single way possible, not just the career way, like, there
are so many other versions of extraordinary that I think
are more extraordinary than what our current definition is, Like
(31:22):
the current definition of like what makes extraordinary Again, it's
kind of plain like making a lot of money, being
very successful in a traditional way. I think at this
point it's kind of like, well, I don't know that
everybody can do it, but so many people are there,
and they don't seem particularly happy. Some of them don't
(31:44):
seem like particularly fulfilled or nice people, and they don't
seem like they have very fulfilling lives. The version of
extraordinary that we're kind of willing to explore, just like objectively,
looks more interesting and probably will lead you to experience
reads a lot more that is like quite nourishing. I
also think like our careers, speaking specifically of careers you know,
(32:06):
are not They're a journey, not a race, and they're
especially not worth being a race if you hate what
you're doing the entire time. And again, what people won't
tell you is that people who are stereotypically exceptional, especially
early on, like that in itself can be its own
version of golden handcuffs, and not just in like the
(32:29):
gifted child being pigeonholed way, but in a really complex way.
People who find success early on it's not all that
it's cracked up to be. They often speak about this
lack of flexibility they now have. They speak about the
curse of a reputation, even a good reputation. They will
always be the youngest lawyer. They will always be the
(32:51):
teenage CEO. They will always be the athlete, the star
from that one show that they made when they were
twenty five, the person who did that one thing once
when they were young, and because they were young it
was significant. That means that people question them more when
they go to try new things. They see them more
or they see them only as what they used to be,
(33:13):
and that makes it hard for them to kind of
challenge assumptions. It also gives them less room to experiment.
Experimentation in itself is extraordinary and I think actually gives
you more choice down the line because you've explored the
what ifs, You've had more diverse experiences and more opportunities
(33:35):
for learning than someone who found success in the first
thing they ever did. Probably they probably don't have that.
Not to bag on them obviously, like they're very impressive people.
I personally know people who are like Forbes thirty onunder thirty.
I think they're fantastic and they're very nice. But you
actually do have a freedom they don't have. You have
(33:55):
reputational freedom to be whatever you want to be when
you want to be it, not just when you're twenty,
and not just at something that's going to follow you
around for the rest of your life. Again, being extraordinary
may be aspirational, it is no guarantee of happiness. And
there's a lot of people, I mean a lot of
people who are probably on your vision boards or who
(34:17):
come to my mind and would come to your mind
when we are asked to describe an exceptional or extraordinary
person who are deeply, deeply miserable and who cannot have fun,
cannot fail, cannot explore the way that you can as
a novice. I also think there's a lot more that
matters for our happiness and health than being the best.
(34:40):
Let's talk about it some more after this short break.
There's a lot more that matters for our happiness and
health than being the best. And the biggest one that
comes to my mind is our relationships. They never get this,
but light that professional success does that same psychotherapist who
(35:04):
talked about learned helplessness, Martin Sielgman. He also invented the
field of positive psychology. If you want another fun fact,
he has conducted extensive research that shows that the strength
of our relationships, whether that is with friends, family, a partner,
that is the single most reliable measure of wellbeing, more
(35:29):
so than fame, for sure, more so than money, for sure,
more so than achievement, more so than accomplishment. All these
things that we think are hallmarks and will determine a
good life, none of it, all of it pales in
comparison to close relationships. Close relationships, more than money, more
than fame, are what keep people fulfilled and happy throughout
their lives. Again, sometimes we need this grounding reminder. If
(35:53):
you're solely focused on being impressive or being seen in
a certain way, that it means you don't spend time
with your friends, you don't focus on being somebody who
can love and be loved like those things are going
to carry you so much further in the people who
sacrifice that do miss out in a way that you
(36:13):
may not be. The final reminder, the final mindset shift
I have for you today is to remember fulfillment and
your dreams and executing your purpose has no deadline. There
is no expiration date. This is the curse I think
a lot of us struggle with in our twenties. If
I am not all that I want to be by
(36:34):
a certain age, well it's never going to happen. I
simply don't believe that's true, and I don't see any
evidence for that being true either. I can give you,
like a very cliche list you guys have probably seen
of all those people Oprah, Harrison Ford, Vera Wang like
Morgan Freeman who have become successes at forty fifty sixty.
(36:56):
But I just think in everyday life, there are so
many stories if you start looking for them, of people
who have found success at ages that are never highlighted,
or that we would never expect success to come to
us at. I'm going to give you an example, and
it's a really weird one. But I was in Amsterdam
(37:16):
the other day and I went to this strange museum
called the Mouse Mansion, and whilst we were there, I'm
going to be real, it's a children's museum. But my
friend Rosie was like, you have to go, it's really endearing.
We go we do a tour, we like paint these
little doors for the mice. And this woman shout out
(37:38):
to Eleanor. The host was telling us the story of
this museum is like one now one of the most
famous museums in Amsterdam. And I was like, who made
this museum? Like who where did this come from? And
she was like it was this woman in her like
forties or fifties who had had her kids, had a
Korea and she he just like was having this vision
(38:02):
of these mice stories and she wanted she wanted to
make children's books about mice, and she wanted to make
this mice mouse mansion and she did it and she
found this like level of success and like fame, and
she's created all this joy for other people, Like at
(38:25):
an age that like, I don't think society wants you
to find particularly extraordinary like finding success in our forties
and fifties like this woman did, like the mouse Mansion
creator did, is not highlighted as much. But I genuinely
think that, like it is impressive at any age, and
(38:45):
it's probably sweeter at that age because you've had all
this time for self exploration. You've had all this time
to explore and to make relationships and make memories that
maybe you wouldn't have gotten if you were visibly successful,
and that all comes back to you in dividends later on.
So I think that that's kind of what I want
(39:05):
to end the episode on. The pressure to be extraordinary
is immense. All of us have felt in some form
or another, whether that is when you were at university,
whether you were at high school and it was to
perform academically or to find internships, whether it is now
to be somebody who is considering viral fame, somebody who posts,
somebody who starts a business, somebody who starts an AI
(39:27):
tech company. It's like never ending, it's aggressively in our faces.
It's not all that it's cracked up to be. The
pressure to be extraordinary actually sucks the joy out of life,
and I think finding ways to counteract it and to
be like, actually, my objective is to have fun. My
(39:51):
objective is to have experiences. My objective is to have
great relationships. Is probably going to make you happier then.
And the people we see highlighted as these exceptional people
who at forty fifty sixty and now having the realizations
of like, who the frick am I that you were
(40:11):
able to have at twenty because you didn't have mega
success and you hadn't found yourself before you even knew yourself.
So I don't know. That's been what I've been thinking
about a lot recently, and I think it's a real
sign that we need to reinvestigate what is successful and
what is extraordinary in our society, because I think our
current version of it isn't all that it's cracked up
(40:35):
to be and doesn't seem to be particularly enjoyable for
the people who find it. So that's where I'm gonna
leave the episode. If you have made it this far,
and if you are listening on Spotify, what is something
in your life right now that you think you should
be having more fun doing rather than stressing out as
(40:57):
much as you probably are about Korea relationship? What is
something that you think that you and that you want
to focus on enjoying more than you are performing at.
Mine is my hobbies. That's an easy one. I feel
such a like I constantly feel like I need to
monetize or make public everything that I do because like,
(41:17):
being in my twenties and living as a twenty something
is like my my brand, and I'm really trying to
be better at just enjoying them for me and seeing
where they flow personally and for me, not where they
flow like for others and foreign audience. So that's my answer.
Leave yours below. As always, thank you to our researcher
Lucy Davidson. She helped us out with this episode. She
(41:39):
is great. We have full episodes, including this one video
episodes on Netflix that is correct, probably in your country
at this point, Australia and New Zealand, the UK, Canada,
the US. I don't know any of the others. On
Germany maybe I actually don't know. I think it's in Germany,
but yeah, go and check it. Yeah, if you're in
(42:00):
like if actually, if you were in Germany, that's your
that is actually your objective. Leave a comment because I
don't have German Netflix, so I don't know if it's there,
So you can do some research for us, Substack, Instagram.
All of those things are also in the episode description,
as well as some of our favorite resources if you
want to do a bit more investigating on the pressure
(42:20):
to be extraordinary yourself. But I do just hope you
enjoyed this episode. I hope it's made you feel better
about your own path, and until next time, be safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself. We will talk very
very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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