Compensatory Vs Integrated High Performance

I had a fascinating conversation with a new friend last week, Max Stephens, who was introducing me to some findings from the research he’s conducted about high performance. 

If you follow my work or are interested in this topic, it’s probably because you identify as a high performer… Or aspire to create the levels of productivity, consistency, and discipline required to live a high-performing life. What Max calls into question is the motivation behind that:

Max has discovered something he calls ‘Compensatory High Performance’. This is when you’ve found that high performance is a vehicle of creating feelings of significance and used to overcome wounds. While it’s healthier than most, high performance serves as a coping mechanism used to soothe yourself.

The truth of it is, I imagine most people who identify as high performers are doing it to compensate for the insecurities or psychological pain that comes from our past. It lives unconsciously as a way of addressing an underlying need to be liked, loved, respected, taken care of, or belong.

That’s not to say all high performance comes from this place. The alternative source that Max proposes is ‘Integrated High Performance’. It motivates you to be highly ambitious, disciplined, and achievement-oriented all the same, but this time with a different goal. It’s not to make you feel better, but to make the world better. It’s driven by mission and purpose rather than pain.

I think this is the best way to articulate the difference, and to complete a quick audit on which version might be more true for you: Is your ambition an effort to run away from something you don’t want to admit might be true… Or is your ambition fueled by a desire to run toward the person you want to become, making the greater impact you’re capable of making?

You might find evidence to suggest both are true. I encourage you to be honest with yourself and see what the ratio is between the two. Awareness if the first step to positive change, and that includes healing!

‍