Getting Unstuck From the Success Trap

In this episode of The Choice Space, Dr Lee David speaks with Nic Malcomson, integrative psychotherapist, about the success trap – the pattern where strengths that once helped us thrive can gradually become rigid and exhausting.

The conversation explores how early success, positive feedback and high standards can shape identity over time. When life becomes more demanding or circumstances change, the same qualities that once worked well can begin to create pressure, self-doubt and a fear of slipping.

Lee and Nic discuss how this can show up in different ways – from ongoing over-striving and perfectionism to a deeper sense of feeling stuck after a setback. They reflect on the link between performance and self-worth, and how difficult it can be when identity becomes tied to always coping, achieving or getting things right.

The episode also explores Nic’s idea of fallible flourishing – a more compassionate and realistic way of thinking about growth, motivation and thriving. Together, they consider the value of naming the pattern, recognising the role of environment and finding space for being human rather than endlessly performing.

This is a thoughtful conversation about pressure, identity and self-worth, offering a kinder and more sustainable way to think about success.

Key moments

00:00 Why naming it matters
00:29 Introducing the success trap
01:30 Nic’s own experience
04:27 How identity develops
06:37 Burnout and breakdown
07:03 Chronic, acute and stuck patterns
11:01 Why setbacks can help
13:37 Ideal lived self and feared self
19:08 The importance of normalising
26:54 Under, over and optimal motivation
31:49 Fallibility and connection
33:18 Environment and supportive change

About the guest

Nic Malcomson is an integrative psychotherapist who has delivered more than 5,000 therapy sessions for doctors through NHS Practitioner Health and in his private practice, Eudemedics: Well-being for Doctors. He developed the Fallible Flourishing Model, which explores how early experiences of success can later create psychological traps around performance, identity and self-worth, and how these patterns can shift towards more sustainable flourishing. 

You can connect with Nic on LinkedIn or through his website: www.eudemedics.com 

About the host

Dr Lee David is a GP, CBT therapist and author specialising in mental health and wellbeing. Lee has written many books on CBT, mindfulness and teen wellbeing, and speaks regularly at conferences and in the media. Away from work she enjoys running, hiking, singing in a choir and spending time outdoors with her family. You can find Lee through her website and on Instagram, TikTok (@dr.lee.david), Facebook and LinkedIn.  You can find more about her books, wellbeing courses and therapy here:  https://linktr.ee/dr.lee.david 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of the first things they often say is, I just thought it was me, and it's so nice to know that this is sort of a thing. Because what's really interesting about this success trap is very invisible. It doesn't really have a name. We can talk about anxiety, we can talk about depression, but to put it together, that people often don't have a vocabulary for it and don't aware this is a thing that happens for other people. So normalizing it is often really, really important.

Dr Lee David 0:28

Welcome to the Choice Space Podcast. I'm Dr. Lee David, GP CBT therapist and author. Many people find themselves under ongoing pressure in their daily lives. Life may look okay on the outside, but inside we may worry about falling behind or not doing enough. This is sometimes described as the success trap, where patterns that once worked start to become fixed, making it harder to step back, let go or make different choices. Talking about this and understanding it can help us to open up more space and flexibility in how we approach life. I'm delighted to be joined today by Nick Malcolmson, an integrative psychotherapist who works with many professionals around pressure, performance, and identity. Welcome Nick. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and what drew you to work in this area?

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Hi Lee, it's a pleasure to be here. So the success trap is really something I guess I saw in my own life, my own upbringing. I had an early strong identity of being very willful, being someone who would never back down. And that worked really well for the beginning of my life, but got me into terrible trouble fairly, fairly quickly. But also having worked for the last seven, eight years, mainly with healthcare professionals, with lots of doctors, psychologists, both at NHS Practitioner Health and in my own private practice, Eudomedics Wellbeing for Doctors, I've sort of noticed this pattern that many people have a history of success which works really well for an extended period, but at some point they begin to get unstuck and then get in terrible difficulty. And it's a real pleasure to found ways to both help myself but to help others to move through that.

Dr Lee David 2:14

So that's so interesting. And it sounds like it comes often from areas that are real strengths, from some real positives that enable people to achieve success in lots of different areas of life. And it's not just around objective success in our job or career, is it? It's it's much wider version of what success might look like.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Absolutely. And I I I have a master's in positive psychology, which is about studying people's strengths. And I guess, you know, we all have a whole range of strengths, but but each of us may develop a handful of ways of working, ways of performing or being in life that can work really well for us, whether it's grit and determination, whether it's been good academically, could even be about beauty and aesthetics. And often we develop those in particular environments as we grow up or in our in our training, and those environments support those strengths and things go well, but slowly people's identity forms around those strengths, and we begin to think that this is who I am, and this is how I should continue to perform in any possible environment.

Dr Lee David 3:14

So it sounds like these can be strengths at points in our life and in certain circumstances, but in at other points in our life, perhaps as we grow or age or move to a different area or have extra pressures, then they might no longer work as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, I I think it's to be very empathetic. I call this initial phase innocent flourishing, in that it's very natural that we're born, you know, we have various characteristics, we're encouraged in various ways, we're discouraged in various things by our environment. But then we develop these ways of doing things. So a classic transition problem that I encountered is someone training to be a GP who's done very well in their academic life, and they've been encouraged, you know, by doing well academically, by keeping other people happy, understanding what's the curriculum and how do I get things right. Um and they form a particular mindset and particular identity. But then place that person in the consulting room when they're finally qualifying, you withdraw all those validating structures and all that stuff that orientates somebody and lots of ambiguous diagnoses, unhappy patients, you know, lack of resources. It's very hard for them to live up to their expectations of themselves, however hard they apply those strengths.

Dr Lee David 4:22

Share with us what you mean about identity, Nick. What does that refer to?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, the mind needs generalizations to get started. So I think as we're growing up, as we're getting kind of positive feedback, the mind is and we're developing these strengths, the mind is then going, okay, you know, I'm I'm the person who, I'm the person who keeps other people happy, I'm the person who has grit, I'm the person who never backs down, you know, whatever it is. And by making that generalization, it's beginning to abstract it away from the context in which those performances occurred. And then what I see sneaks in is that there's this expectation that I should be able to do that in any environment, because this this is who I am and this is how I define myself. So performance gets mixed up with one sense of self.

Dr Lee David 5:03

So what I'm hearing there is that there may well be real strengths that people can appreciate and value in themselves, but it becomes a problem if we start to expect ourselves to sharp always. So it's when it becomes quite rigid and there's a should involved I should always be able to do that, no matter the circumstances. And I suspect in life that's that's pretty tough, isn't it? Because there will be times that we will be more tired, or there may be environments that just where it's harder to use that particular skill. And then do people then become quite tough on themselves when they're not able to live up to that expectation.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah, and and I think, you know, um this isn't conscious. It's a bit like this stuff is so invisible because it's who one is, it's the sort of water in which the fish is swimming, so to speak. I notice two things happening. One is there's an ongoing threat, it's becoming more and more difficult, the environment I'm in to meet my standards. We go back to the GP environment. It might be if I work really hard, I can keep all my patients happy. And if I work really hard, I can double check everything and make sure I don't make any mistakes. So we can get a development of a kind of chronic anxiety where the person is trying to fend off these threats to their sense of self. And again, we've been very empathetic to lots of negative reinforcers from the outside if they don't get this stuff right as well. Or there's a there's an acute episode that may be a complaint, there may be some major failing against one's own expectation of oneself when the whole kind of sense of self comes kind of crumbling down.

Dr Lee David 6:26

Right. So it's it's at times then that it just becomes really hard because our sense of self, our sense of identity is being threatened by the event or the environment that we're in.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Yeah, so again, there's two versions of it. One, there's a burnout track, keep on trying to fend off the threat, but it can get really exhausting and it could show up as a kind of perfectionism or an overworking and a a lack of sleep and that kind of stuff. Or else there's this major breakdown when there's just something you can't fend off anymore, and something terrible has happened, and all the assumptions about who you are and how you operate come crumbling down, which is about shame that goes with that.

Dr Lee David 7:03

Which is a really difficult emotion for people. When we talked previously, Nick, you've talked about some different forms of the success trap and and we discussed the chronic form, the acute form, and the stuck form. Can you talk a bit more about what those are and how they might show up differently?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Sure. So we talked a bit about the sort of chronic anxious overstriving, send off the threat. And what often goes with that is a perhaps a sense of being an imposter, a lot of self-doubt, a lot of sort of double-guessing oneself, often comparison to others, everyone else seems to be perfectly calm and cool. You know, what's what's wrong with me? And the other is the acute, and I guess the acute uh I often see in in consultants, but it's often people can go for years or even decades where their strengths can work really well. But then there's some kind of atypical event which is linked to their sense of self. And so there's that sense of horrible sense of guilt that can really bring the person down. But often it can also happen when the environment shifts. So uh an example I often give is of an A consultant who was a clinical lead who led his team, and then the management changed when there were much less resources, and there were kind of patients in an ambulances in the car park, and he campaigned to do his best for his patients and his team, and that's something he'd always done, but it didn't work. And he began to become depressed, and also he didn't go to work, and then the secondary chain of I'm the person, well, we're the guys who are the last people standing, and now I have, you know, I failed my team, I've failed my patients, and so I am failing.

Dr Lee David 8:32

And what's the stuck type?

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah, so the stuck type is comes from the acute, there may be an acute breakdown or failure at some point, but the person somehow either doesn't get help or they don't find a way to recover, and they sort of stay there. So an example I worked with recently, and all the ones, examples I'm sharing, I had consent to share them in an anonymized uh form, is someone who had failed a final psychiatry exam multiple times. Yeah, she felt like she just couldn't progress in life, and and the first errors of failure significantly dented her sense of self. But then she was in this sort of low, low mood, low self-esteem state. She was still motivated that I must maintain my standards, I must succeed. But particular exam was a kind of a an interactive clinical exam where you need to demonstrate confidence. And so the low mood and low self-esteem was really getting in the way of moving forward. So there's a little prolonged period.

Dr Lee David 9:21

So it sounds like there's quite a lot of different ways that it can show up, and often under the surface for quite a long period of time, and people may outwardly appear very successful, which fits with sometimes the imposter feelings where people have that pressure to maintain their performance. But underneath it feels like there's a whole lot of effort and energy expenditure and growing fatigue sometimes and internal pressure that you can't let it slip. You you can't let things go because otherwise I'll be very vulnerable and I won't live up to those expectations that I hold of myself. Do you think people also perceive that others have that expectation of them as well? Is it ever around the success trap? Maybe wanting others to see what think well of us?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

No, absolutely. And I think if one goes back to think about those formative experiences, that you know, one's developing these strengths, they're working well, one's getting a lot of positive affirmation. And there's often a lot of belonging that will happen, whether it's in a school environment, a family environment, there's strength like a vehicle for belonging and recognition and validation. And people's minds sort of do the reverse. They feel, well, if I can't live up to these things, then then I'm gonna be excluded. You know, then I'm not worthy of being part of the winning team. And so people often won't speak up, and that shame really closes people down. And yes, there's this push to maintain those standards and that real fear that if I don't do it, then I'm gonna be sort of excluded and outsider by an outcast. And yeah, I mean, I've worked with with surgeons who have worked, you know, have a perfect track record, but the longer that goes on for, the the greater the pressure to keep maintaining it, which can have a huge, a huge toll.

Dr Lee David 11:00

Yeah, so that really highlights how actually sometimes things going wrong are quite helpful in that if we cope and get through it and we're not socially isolated or rejected by our peers, but actually offered support and people are understanding, and um hopefully often that is the case. I mean, I know it's not always the case, but but often people are quite supportive. And so I I I'm wondering if actually it is quite important in life for things not to always go our way. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

No, absolutely. I'm thinking about Carol Dweck, who's uh very famous for fixed and growth mindset. And it she she does a rather old school comparison between naughty boys and good girls. So apologies for the that we can redefine that. But but what she says is that you know naughty boys bump into people, aggravate people, get in trouble a lot. But it means that they're it's sort of like exposure therapy. They know that they're going to be breathing, that the world will be as was the next day. Whereas people who haven't been exposed to it feel that feel that it may be the worst thing. It's partly the unknown can be so defrighting.

Dr Lee David 12:03

Yeah, exactly. And so if we've always perhaps been good academically, we've passed all our exams, then the thought of failing one is much more terrifying. And I'm aware that sometimes people who have had struggles academically, maybe somebody new or divergent, perhaps someone with ADHD, where they've really had to work, that that can also bring very significant challenges. So it feels like there's a sort of seesaw where if it if the if there are very hidden, significant challenges that make it that much harder, that will take a toll. But at the other end of the spectrum, if it's always very straightforward and we always get really high grades and actually we have that expectation we should maintain that always, that's also a problem. So I'm sort of coming to the idea that maybe that middle ground, and we sometimes talk about the messy middle where things hopefully go well quite a bit of the time, but sometimes they don't, and we find our way through them. I wonder if that's quite a helpful, moderate, realistic approach to life.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yes, and there's lots of strands that we should go down here. In this innocent flourishing period that I've this early flourishing, I feel people can be very resilient in that, you know, they meet a problem and they look at it, they don't go, and they the way their mind will explain the nature of the problem is, you know, here's some specific, you know, I don't do well in the exam. Well, what do I need to change? What tweak do I need to make? You know, what do I need to do with my study method? They see it so like as the process problem and their mind goes to work on it. When they don't live up to something associated with a core sense of self, it turns into a non-resilient response in the I fail to be me, I'll personally look to my own standards, therefore I'm the problem.

Dr Lee David 13:36

So I think that's really interesting. And you've mentioned the ideal lived self and the feared self. So how do they, what are they, and how do they apply to what we've been talking about so far?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So, well, yeah, we talked about this period of innocent flourishing and the development of these strengths. So these positive characteristics for me get associated with a sense of self and this positive sense of self I call the ideal lived self. It's something I've experienced many times, but it's also the person I like being and want to continue being. I visualize it sometimes as a circle, and I often, when I'm working with clients, we do a kind of a circle for that and we write down the key strengths next to it. From the fear itself, the feared self is who I feel I'll become if I don't live up to the standards of my ideal lived self. There's an idea that I want to be this positive version of myself, and I want to stay the hell away from this negative version of myself. Um and the slightly kind of dichotomous thinking is with black and white. The mind again, the mind likes generalizations. It's just the default wiring of the mind that we think in simplifications because it helps us think. So this sort of, I'm either this positive version, or I can fall into this other one, which creates an awful lot of tension.

Dr Lee David 14:42

Right. So it sounds like that seeing ourselves either as I'm doing really well and I'm really positive, and that this is the bit of me that I like, and I just want that bit, and I don't want all the other bits, and so it's trying to push away the self that might be feared, maybe characteristics that we don't like about ourselves potentially, and so there's this separation. And in your experience, is it about bringing those two together, almost making friends with all the set the selves, or is it about building up the sense of the ideal self and and making it more inclusive? How how would you start to work with that?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Well, part of you know, my what I notice is that most of us are in flight from failure. So, you know, we're having these positive experiences like being this person who succeeds, that's that's all good and well. A bit like it's a good scientific theory. So my theory is the sun's gonna come up every day, every day the sun comes up, that's great. One day the sun doesn't come up, bang, my theory that the sun's gonna come up every day is clearly, clearly disproved. So, equally, if my mind is making a generalization that I'm a kind, loving person or that I have grit, I never back down, whatever it is, if that's a generalized theory of myself, then under threat, the one moment of disproof can blow this general theory of myself. And therefore, moments of failure can become a big threat to the sense of self as a whole, which creates lots of problems. Hence the the the chronic anxious versions of defend myself from those threats and make sure they don't happen. Or if they do actually happen, they enter in huge kind of rumination cycles because yes, something's terrible's happened, which is totally counter to their sense of self, but they also can't really accept it because it would mean accepting I'm a failure, at least in the way their minds wide it up. So I guess part of this work is being able to face into moments of failure, but not have that define who I am.

Dr Lee David 16:29

So it's separating my identity and my my sense of worth and value from purely performance in some way, so that it's maybe making room for maybe the ideal live self doesn't have to always get it right, because that feels like a tough gig for any ideal lived self to do. I know that mine can't manage that. So I'm guessing I'm hoping that that's true for other people as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Well, I guess part of it seeing that you know the the the ideal live self is a delusion. It's you know, there'll be moments of doing well, but those moments have occurred in environments that supported doing well. There's no other case that I was going to be the person that always has grip, or there's no environment in which I will I won't back down. So part of the way I work with my clients is we want to undo some of those generalizations so we're not living in this dichotomous kind of universe of some percent.

Dr Lee David 17:20

I really like that idea, and I think it's really powerful. And it's it's always so interesting to hear different theoretical approaches and how they can really work well in different ways with slightly different language and slightly different approaches, but actually it feels like there's there's an awful lot of crossover. And as you're talking there, it's really making me think about some of the different ways that this ideal live self might show up for different individuals. I work with a lot of people pleasers who really their ideal live self is someone who makes everybody happy all the time and nobody ever gets upset with them, and they've always said exactly the right thing at the right time, and they're always seen as completely reliable, and they will perhaps ignore their own needs often, which can then make people get exhausted and might get life burnout because they're pressurising themselves to show up for others and excluding themselves. And it feels like that might fit with an ideal live self who is this version of this amazing person who's always so wonderful to others, which feels very hard to live up to. And and also people have a lot of responsibility, so they they feel a lot of guilt and they take on responsibility for things that perhaps outside their control and that sense of, but I should be able to make sure everyone else is okay. And and I might see that in parents who are very loving for their children, but actually become quite perfectionist and again have quite a rigid live self about how I'm supposed to be a parent. I'm supposed to always get it right, I can't make any mistakes, I need to make sure my kids have everything exactly as they need. And if I don't, then it's that catastrophic idea, that feared self of I'm I'm I'm failing, I'm failing as a parent, which which can feel really painful. So, firstly, do you recognize those? And then how might you start to work with them, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 19:08

So yes, I think the space of possible ideal themselves and this and the strengths, you know, is very broad. So yes, so people pleaser is definitely one. Yeah, they can be around like physical prowess, that people are being great sports people or footballers or derive their sense of self from karate, and then they get a horrible knee injury, or just the aging process. These can be really big challenges to one's to one's sense of self. Or equally it can be about around beauty. So yeah, you're absolutely right, there is a very broad space um applicable, you know, to pretty much all of us. So, how would I go working about like how would I work work with this? So the first thing is building a really good sort of therapeutic relationship, unconditional positive regard, uh, that sense of that for them to feel safe to begin to talk about their experience, beginning to normalize and perhaps talk about this model with them. And one of the first things they often say is, I just thought it was me, and it's so nice to know that this is sort of a thing. Because what's really interesting about this success trap is very invisible, it doesn't really have a name. We can talk about anxiety, we can talk about depression, but to put it together, that people often don't have a vocabulary for it and don't aware this is a thing that happens for other for other people. So normalizing it is is often really, really important.

Dr Lee David 20:17

This is the choice pause, a short tool you'll hear in every episode, drawn from my books and therapy practice, each time with something different to help you pause, notice and choose your next step. Today's pause is for when you're left with a sense of not enough. Take a slow breath in and a longer breath out. Let your shoulders ease a little, let go of any tension in your face or jaw. At the end of a task or at the end of the day, we may sometimes notice a sense of not enough. You might be finishing work, looking back over your day, or noticing that things haven't gone quite as planned. When this happens, our attention often gets pulled towards what's missing or what could have been done differently. See if you can pause here for a moment. Notice your feet on the floor, the support beneath you, the rhythm of your breathing. You might say to yourself, okay, this is where my mind has gone. This doesn't define me. I can be kind to myself and meet this moment just as it is. For this moment, allow things to be as they are without needing to resolve them. And then take one more slow breath and ask yourself what might be one small, workable next step. Perhaps that's choosing one thing to do and letting go of the Rest. Or deciding to stop for now, even if the mind keeps going. Or doing something simple that helps you reset and rebalance your emotions and energy. Maybe a drink, a short walk, or a change of pace. As you continue with your day, notice if that sense of not enough reappears. And gently pause with kindness, take a breath, and then bring your attention back to what is most important in the here and now.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

And often that's very quite sort of rejuvenating for people to touch base again with that self, with that person they really enjoy being. But it's also part of beginning to put this narrative together where we can begin to understand how they've got to where they are. And ultimately, further down the track, it's really confronting that those generalizations create this godlike demand on the self that sneaks in, but it doesn't allow much space for being fallible, which is generally the kind of problem that we're confronting, that the mind has an expectation that I should be able to pull these things off. But alas, as a squidgy little human being, I'm going to have real trouble doing that in all possible environments.

Dr Lee David 23:17

Right. So the first thing is then naming it and giving people the language to understand. And I totally agree, Nick, it just having a language for this is the experience that I have and I can give it a name and it's not just me. It's a thing that other people experience, and it's not a sign that I'm somehow failing as much as just a sign of being a human who's developed a pattern of thinking that actually has really worked for me in lots of situations, but maybe it's just got a little bit out of hand, or maybe it's got a little bit too rigid. So we just need to kind of tweak it rather than necessarily eject it, perhaps. And that feels quite powerful, that naming in a safe space. So I'm sure that has a really big impact.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Yeah, I guess two things into response to that. So one idea is, you know, it's not that I'm failing. So I guess part of this method is slightly to make a strong distinction between being a failure and failing. Because often, yeah, as I said, people are in flight from fail failure. But I do explicitly talk about moments of failure. And let's not sugarcoat that, but let's find a way that we can be without without generalizing it further, it meaning that they are a failure. So there's something about learning acceptance that there are moments of failure, at least against my aspiration for myself. But we don't necessarily have to run from that so much.

Dr Lee David 24:31

Right. So that sounds like that ties back into what you're talking about with um Carol Dweck and then the mindset approach, which is starting to recognize that naming when things don't go right and recognizing them and labeling them, but quite non-judgmentally and just using it as data. So that didn't work. Okay. So what do I need to do with that? Is actually how we grow and develop. And rather than thinking of it as an identity, I am a failure as a human being, versus I've discovered that something didn't quite work. How do I then approach that? And and it feels like that's a really important distinction, as you say, to separate out my personal identity. You know, how I view myself is not dependent on things never going wrong, actually. And I can see myself as someone who grows and learns, and actually that can be a really uh a strength, can't it, as much as a problem.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yes, absolutely. And it is also to be able to experience all those negative emotions with that moment of failure. If something's happened and it might be embarrassing or it might be difficult, but it's to be able to be with that, but not to catastrophise it or do anything more with it than than that's needed.

Dr Lee David 25:39

I'm hearing there about sitting with it, and it's almost like a mindful acceptance at that moment, this is really distressing. Maybe taking a moment to pause and regulate and and not rush into having to do anything for a moment. I wonder if that also makes a difference. And then maybe being a bit do you think being a bit kinder to ourselves when when there is a moment of failure, when something hasn't gone our way, do you think that's important?

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I think there's something really important about the recognition of it. Because sometimes the mind is so quick to want to run from a moment of failure that the the reaction may not be particularly help particularly helpful. So if we can recognise, oh, I'm experiencing a moment of failure or threat of failure, then I can choose to sort of sit with it and be with it. It gives me more control on being able to be with those moments.

Dr Lee David 26:26

Right. So it's sitting with the moment of this is a tough moment and it's not quite going right. But it doesn't mean I need to jump on the slide that takes me right down to my whole identity is at stake here. But actually, this is just a moment that I need to think about what to do, and and there may be action to take, but it but it isn't the action isn't related to my own value as a human being, it's related to this event. So we kind of need to separate the two out.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr Lee David 26:53

And we've also talked a little bit about motivation and how sometimes there might be under motivation, there might be over motivation, and then we can move towards optimal motivation, which definitely sounds like something we might be aiming for. Can can you talk a little bit about those?

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Yeah, sure. So people sometimes go, well, if I was to give up my standards to get things absolutely right or really be kind, then then I'd be a bit laissez-faire, let things slip. And you know, I don't want to do that. And I call that under motivation. So I want something, I'm not doing enough. It's not gonna happen. Well, I probably weren't very happy. There's then over motivation, which is I'm so motivated to make something happen that the motivation itself is getting in the way, which kind of links to this kind of chronic anxious, over-driven process. Classic example of that is something like exam anxiety, where you know, I must do well in the exam. Unfortunately, I can't control all the questions, I can't know the whole knowledge space, but I must do well, and the person becomes more and more anxious, they can't sleep, they can't focus very well, and they don't perform very well on the day. So the motivation itself got in the way. So we don't we don't want that over-motivation, but we want this kind of optimal motivation, which is I am highly motivated, but I recognize my limits, but I am kind of fallible. So I'm gonna do my best, but in a way that's sustainable. I'll navigate round obstacles, I'll accept those moments of failure, but I'm st I'm still highly motivated and I'm still gonna do my best. So none of this is about that low motivation, none of this is about capitulating and always about dropping standards in an unhealthy way.

Dr Lee David 28:20

I certainly see that too. And maybe when people are feeling low and they're struggling a bit with their mood, then motivation can be a problem and it can be hard to get started, or there may be procrastination and it can be difficult. And I and I think there's a lack of then a sense of achievement. We're not doing enough, so we don't get that positive feedback when we've done something which gives us a bit of a lift, maybe a dopamine hit that makes us feel a bit more uplifted and positive. And I think we definitely do need some of that, but it also sounds like at the other end, if we're pushing so hard, and and I would certainly see this myself in maybe people who become quite perfectionist or they set really unrealistic standards that I have to do so well that the pressure to perform, as you say, it distracts you. You get so stressed and you're busy thinking about am I going to do well enough that actually you're not really concentrating on doing the thing in the first place. And so it actually worsens our performance to have that excessive pressure. So it feels like that optimal is back to the middle ground where we don't let go of motivation, we don't stop doing the things that matter. Um, and sometimes that is about finding motivation when we're not feeling it, but yet we know it's important, but not driving ourselves to into the ground or exhausting ourselves in the process. What do you think, Nick?

SPEAKER_01 29:40

No, absolutely. And and I guess you know, if one's sort of treating low mood, then that sort of behavioral activation, getting someone out of that destructive cycle of I'm not really motivated, I'm not doing much, I'm feeling worse, I feel like doing less, and then we want to begin to tend to go the other, go the other way. But often I'm using those three levels of motivation because often there's an objection. It's like it would be detrimental to me if I changed my mindset. And so I want to explain the world as an alternative mindset that might give you more than you've currently got. But those three levels of motivation is usually a way for someone to get their mind around, well, I can actually give up that bit of that, say that perfectionism if that's the ideal itself, but it may actually give me more without the success traps that we've been talking about.

Dr Lee David 30:18

Right. So it sounds like it's sort of encouraging people with the idea that I might do more if I let go of the that success trap. Then actually I might be able to achieve more because there's less pressure, and in fact, it will allow me to focus on the things that really matter.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yes, that's what I'm going to refer to as fallible flourishing. Flourishing while acknowledging that I'm fallible, which allows me to pause when I need to pause, allows me to regroup, it allows me to recognise my limits, um, allows me to sit with the egg on my face when when that's kind of what's happening, and when there's an opportunity to wipe it off and go forward, so then I will. Again, links to the sort of optimal innovation and a sort of sustainable performance, sustainable flourishing.

Dr Lee David 30:55

I really like that idea. It's all around we don't have to let go of the idea of wanting to thrive in life and wanting to find success in whatever version that means. We we can have success perhaps without the trap, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 31:09

I mean, for sure. You know, I see a lot of the clients that I work with do go back to work if they've had an acute episode and they're falling out of the workplace. Or people find a much more sustainable way of working, get rid of that chronic anxiety when they have a kind of greater flexibility.

Dr Lee David 31:23

Yeah, so people can let go of the word success if they want to, or you can broaden it maybe to think of it as being a bigger thing than just I do it right every time. To I like the idea of fallible flourishing. So I'm allowing myself to be fallible, to be human, to be a real person, and I can also and flourish and see myself positively at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Absolutely. And and contribute and you know live a full life without that huge cost to the self.

Dr Lee David 31:48

Do you think it's important for people when they're navigating the success trap to work on connection with others? Because I'm wondering if there's a tendency when people are caught in the trap to isolate themselves somewhat, to try and perhaps hide some of their potential what they perceive at the time as being flaws from other people.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

So yes, well, as as we said earlier on, that when in that period of innocent flourishing, there's a lot of positive feedback for those strengths, but it's also a way of connecting and of feeling a part of a community, and then the inverse occurs. If people feel that they're they're failing or threatened with failure, they feel it should be a grounds for exclusion. And some of the work that I do is often sort of this idea that palliability can be a basis for connection. The rationale for that is that ultimately is what we all have in common. You know, however well we're doing, there is always a possible environment for a human being where they can't live up to their own expectations of themselves. And so that failure or those moments of failure and that palliability can actually be a really universal basis for connection. These can be powerful ways to connect, but having them work on actually their fallibility can connect them to their patients. You know, what who would their patient rather talk to? And actually talking to a fallible human being who's had a lot of adversity can actually be a real ground for connection.

Dr Lee David 33:05

Is there anything else that you feel is really helpful for us to know about some tools that could help people with starting to work on their relationship with the success trap? Perhaps it's recognition you've mentioned at the beginning. Is there anything else you can build on that?

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Um, I would say the big one is really about noticing the environment. And so somehow becoming aware of when did my sense of self where and how did my sense of self develop? And where am I now? Often people have been to very supportive schools and had supportive training experiences and now they're in a much more challenging environment. But the mind doesn't automatically begin to think of that. It it's a sense of failure of the self rather than hang on. So noticing any mismatches between historical environments and present environments might be might be something to think about.

Dr Lee David 33:54

And do you think it helps for people to actually actively start to make choices that lean into choosing environments that are more supportive of creating a more balanced self, the flourishing version, the fallible flourishing self? Do you think choosing environments plays a role in that as well?

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah, so usually with my clients, I say that we can make change in one or three places. So we can make change within the self. Um a lot of what we've talked about so far is very much within the self, how am I relating to the changes with my environment? We can then also think about how am I relating to my environment, so sort of interpersonal skills, do I need to become more assertive? Uh, do I need to negotiate differently? And thirdly, there's choosing a new environment. Some of neither of those two first ones have worked, then there's always you know looking to make concrete changes in the external environment. Yeah. So I think I'm gonna use a combination of those of those as well.

Dr Lee David 34:45

So Nick, we we always finish with the choice space takeaway. So what's one small step someone could try if they notice that they might be starting to fall into the success trap?

SPEAKER_01 34:57

One thing that someone could try if they feel that they're falling into the success trap is to really know that they're not alone. If they've heard this podcast, it's to really get a sense that this is a very natural process that happens for many, many human beings. It's almost like a rite of passage that many of us go through this process of innocent flourishing, and we then meet these environments where we get really challenged, we feel very alone with it. But to know, this is a very natural process and the form of life on the other side and not feel alone in this.

Dr Lee David 35:24

I love that. And I think I would definitely agree with that. And I think for me, the first step there is about mutually recognising that this is something that might be impacting me without getting into too much judgment about should it or shouldn't it, but just noticing actually this is something that's here and actually, as you said, um there was a period of life when it really was very supportive, and and it's okay that I've developed it, it's completely understandable, and that by being kinder to ourselves and recognising it, that then helps us to think about what is it that I need to do? Is it that I need to get some support from someone like yourself? Is it that I just I need to do something in my environment that would support me? Are there any boundaries I could put in place that would just protect me a little bit from some of the pressures that might be enough? As you say, there are different layers, aren't there? And I think for people it's just that recognition might help them to know at what point the first step might be.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, so I think I think it's really powerful for people to know there is to have a language. You know what we're inscribing today is to give a language for this like domain that before is sitting inside somebody, they feel they're alone, they haven't got words for it, and they can't begin to have a conversation with people. So hopefully giving people language is giving people the opportunity to then begin to discuss and normalise their experience.

Dr Lee David 36:45

And I think another important point to highlight is that this is common and lots of people experience it, and that there are lots of things people can do that are really effective to work through it. And one of those things may be seeking support from a therapist, and that there are really helpful models that can help people to navigate through the success trap if it applies to them.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Yeah, so there are a number of different therapeutic approaches to this kind of problem. For myself, I work a brief psychotherapy model. So usually I work 12 sessions with people through this as a structured process to come through this halo to the individual. So that's how I do it. And obviously, different therapists will work in different ways.

Dr Lee David 37:23

Brilliant. Thank you so much for joining me today, Nick. And how can people get in touch with you if they want to?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah, well, I guess to doctors and healthcare professionals in England and Scotland, if they feel they're in this kind of place, they could refer themselves to NHS Practitioner Health. They won't necessarily see me directly, but they'll see a team of experts who are very experienced with working with these kind of problems. If you'd like to work specifically, you know, on this methodology and this approach that I have shared, I would suggest coming to my website wwudamedics.com, which is e-udemedics.com.

Dr Lee David 37:58

Thanks for listening to the Choice Space podcast. I hope this conversation has offered a little more room to pause, breathe, and find your next step. We've linked all the ways you can connect with Nick in the show notes, including his website. And if today's episode has been helpful, please download, follow, and share with someone else who might value the conversation as well. And if you have a moment, please consider leaving a rating or a review on whatever podcast platform you listen on. It really does make a difference in helping people to find us. This episode was edited by L. Dixon.