373: Why Many High Achievers Struggle With Follow-Through

373: Why Many High Achievers Struggle With Follow-Through

===

[00:00:00] Today's episode is for any individual who is quietly struggling with follow-through, especially for high achievers and individuals navigating burnout, chronic stress, or overwhelming responsibilities. Today, we're talking about follow-through, specifically why so many highly capable, intelligent, hardworking people struggle with consistent follow-through, even when they are so committed to their goals.

Trust me, been there, done that. Maybe you've started projects with excitement, and then you lost momentum later. Maybe you spent months trying to finish a dissertation chapter or submitting an application, or maybe you're trying to maintain a writing routine or launch a project, but you're still struggling to keep going.

Maybe you're consistently feeling behind despite working really hard, or maybe a part of you has started questioning [00:01:00] yourself because you know that you're capable, yet sustaining progress feels impossible sometimes. If this resonates with you, please keep listening, because in today's episode, I'm gonna talk about follow-through and how it's much more complex than thinking all you need is a bit more motivation or discipline, or that maybe it's not happening because you don't want it badly enough.

Welcome to the award-winning Grad School Femtoring Podcast, the place where first-generation BIPOC students and professionals can listen in on inclusive grad school stories and gain practical tools for sustainable success. This is Doctora Yvette Martinez-Vu, a certified coach, consultant, author, and speaker.

I will be serving as your femtor, [00:02:00] providing you with insider knowledge to help you thrive in grad school and beyond.

Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette. In today's episode, I'm gonna be unpacking why follow-through is trickier than you may realize. I'm gonna talk about hidden barriers that high achievers experience, how burnout and executive functioning issues may be affecting your consistency, and what strategies you can apply today to support your long-term progress without pushing you into burnout or worse.

So let's talk about follow-through. And I'm gonna start by saying that follow-through is not just about discipline. Oof, I have a love-hate relationship with the word discipline. I have all these [00:03:00] associations with that word. But I wanna say that the biggest misconception about follow-through that comes up in my work is this idea that successful people simply have more discipline.

And it's one of those sayings that really annoys me. Why? Because in reality, follow-through, or the ability to carry a plan through to completion, it relies on a wide range of executive functioning skills and environmental conditions, including planning, prioritization, emotional regulation, task initiation, working memory, focus, organization, and energy management.

If you wanna learn more about executive functioning skills, I am going to link two episodes where I did a deep dive on different types of executive functioning skills so you can learn more about them. But this episode, I'm not gonna go in detail on each of the [00:04:00] executive functioning skills. I'm just gonna talk about executive functioning skills as they relate to follow-through.

And so executive functioning and the skills that help you to execute to get things done is central to goal-directed behavior, and differences in these skills can affect your follow-through, even if you're someone who's really smart or really motivated. You can be a high achiever who learned to succeed in environments that rewarded urgency, pressure, perfectionism, and even overextension, and that means that you're probably really skilled at surviving deadlines, responding to crises, and pushing through past your exhaustion.

But survival mode is not the same thing as sustainable follow-through. They're two completely different things. I wanna make that clear. And you don't have to follow through in survival mode if it's no longer working [00:05:00] for you. The other thing that comes up is that educational and professional spaces often reward performance outcomes without necessarily teaching students and professionals how to build more sustainable systems that promote you reaching your long-term goals in a way that promotes your well-being.

So for many first-generation and historically excluded students, you've got the pressure of wanting to do well while recognizing that you've been taught to do well under survival mode, and then you have an added layer of pressure tied to a sense of opportunity scarcity, and also institutional expectations that you're learning and trying to meet.

And so it doesn't help when so many spaces that you're part of may be privileging hyper-independence and being able to understand the hidden rules. So all of this makes it harder to know which opportunity to [00:06:00] accept and follow through on, and which one to say no to. This pressure may mean that you might be carrying a mindset where saying yes feels necessary all of the time.

You have no idea how many times I'm in a coaching session where I'm having them reconsider and reframe this idea of, "I have to do everything, and I have to say yes to everything," and instead, what would it look like if you said no? What would it look like if you did less?

So again, you may be feeling the pressure right now in this moment to maximize every opportunity, to prove yourself all of the time, to avoid disappointing others. Maybe you also have to financially support your family. Maybe you feel a strong sense of having to achieve this level of achievement to make it worthwhile for your family and those that come after you, especially when [00:07:00] achievement is something that you associate with your sense of safety and stability.

I'm sharing all of these things because when people say something like, "Oh, you just need to focus," or, "Oh, you just need to be more disciplined," they are minimizing all of the challenges and conditions that make it so hard for you to follow through. You might be dealing with cognitive, emotional, financial, systemic pressures, and they might not be the same for you as everyone else around you.

So we cannot really compare ourselves to those around us because we never really know what other people have going on. All we know is what's true for us. And another thing I wanna say is that if you're a high achiever, a lot of times you might be trying to complete workloads that exceed your cognitive and physical energy.

And this is also something that I see all of the time in my work, is that some [00:08:00] folks will assume that they're being lazy or that they're not disciplined enough or that they have time management issues or that they are inconsistent when really they are overloaded, and they are cognitively overloaded to be specific.

They're burnt out, they're exhausted, they're overwhelmed, and their body is finally starting to show signs of the chronic stress that they've put themselves through. And then if we add another layer, let's say you're neurodivergent, there's an additional set of challenges tied to your executive functioning skills that may make follow-through more difficult for you.

And this is even worse if you are in an environment that does not promote accessibility. So this might mean that you might have more challenges around transitioning between tasks, difficulty starting tasks, perfectionism, challenges [00:09:00] with time awareness, and estimating how long things take. A lot of people call this time blindness, although I don't like that term because I find it ableist.

You might also struggle with sensory overload, decision fatigue, or you might be someone who simply needs more recovery time after completing a cognitively demanding task. And so what I wanna emphasize here, please remember this, is that intelligence and executive functioning skills are not the same thing.

You can be brilliant, creative, insightful, so incredibly knowledgeable on specific topics, while still struggling with task initiation, consistency, organization, or follow-through. Those things can coexist. And then another major barrier to following through, especially among my high [00:10:00] achievers, is perfectionism.

There's so much we can say about perfectionism, what it is, why it happens, how it manifests, how it's tied to white supremacy culture. But I also wanna remind you that perfectionism is tied to a fear; a fear of failure or judgment or making the wrong decision or visibility or disappointing others.

And perfectionism often sounds productive on the outside, and it likely at some point helped you get to where you are today. But too much of it can create a sense of overwhelm that makes it difficult to get started. That's why for me, I consider myself a recovering perfectionist in that I no longer view perfectionism as something to pride myself on.

Instead, I do have high standards, [00:11:00] and there's a certain level of quality to my work that I expect, right? So when I prepare my notes for my podcast episodes, I wanna make sure that I double-check, that I fact-check, that it's a good quality. But if I mess up on a word or two, or if I say one too many ums, that's okay.

It doesn't have to be perfect, right? And going back to how it applies to students and professionals, I see this happen all the time where perfectionism kicks in and they delay their writing because they feel like every single sentence that they write has to sound brilliant or has to sound academic or has to follow a specific type of jargon in their field.

I've also seen individuals who struggle to get started on projects because they feel like they need to know every single detail before they can even start. Or another thing that I see so often, and I'm sighing here [00:12:00] because it can be incredibly frustrating, is when I witness individuals who spend so much time planning that they never feel ready enough to begin.

So they'll end up planning their entire dissertations for weeks or months at a time without ever writing a single word on the page.

If you're craving focused time to make meaningful progress on an important project you've been putting to the side, I wanna invite you to my Compassionate Accountability Retreat. This is a two-day virtual retreat designed for graduate students, academics, and other professionals who want a supportive space to work, reflect, and move forward on their goals.

During the retreat, we combine structured work sessions with coaching prompts, reflection exercises, and community support. Participants often use this time to make progress on dissertations, writing projects, grant proposals, and career planning. It's a calming and focused environment that [00:13:00] centers sustainable productivity and compassionate accountability.

Upcoming retreat dates are May twenty-ninth through thirtieth, August twenty-eighth through twenty-ninth, and December eleventh through twelfth. If you'd like dedicated time to move an important project forward, you can learn more and register at gradschoolfemtoring.com/retreats.

So what do you do if you're like, "Me, me, me. You're talking about me. I'm struggling with follow-through. I'm also a high achiever. Please help me." What can we do? Here are a few strategies.

I always mention this as a caveat. When I share strategies, it's meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive. What I mean by that is I want you to test them out, to iterate, and see what works for you. Take what works, leave the rest. So the first strategy I'm gonna share is please, please, please reduce your cognitive load.

[00:14:00] Your brain should not have to be holding all of the things all of the time for you to function. Please externalize whatever you can as much as possible. Externalize your tasks, your workload, the things you need to remember. Use checklists or use a project management tool or write down the next steps clearly.

You know how many times I tell clients that when they are working on a project that involves three or more steps and that they have to do it three or more times to write down those steps? Why? Because I want them to reduce their cognitive load so that the next time they have to do it, they don't have to remember everything from scratch. Write down your next steps clearly.

Reduce any unnecessary decisions wherever you can. And for this, I wanna remind you that there's a reason why so many CEOs, as annoying as these people may be, they wear the same things every day, they eat the same things all of the time. Why? Because they are reducing their [00:15:00] cognitive load. They have fewer decisions to make because they know what they're gonna eat, what they're gonna wear every single day.

I'm not telling you to do that yourself, but I am telling you to reduce your cognitive load in some way, shape, or form, including reducing the number of decisions you have to make all of the time. Also, get specific with your tasks. What do I mean by that? Instead of writing, "Oh, I'm gonna work on my dissertation on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays," instead say, "Okay, Thursday, I'm going to revise three pages of a very specific section within my second chapter."

Or, "On Saturday, I'm gonna organize my citations for this section, and I'm gonna also draft the introduction paragraph for the next section." You see what I mean? You want specificity because that'll reduce your overwhelm, and it'll also lower your cognitive load. Next, I want you to match your goals to your current capacity.

A lot of people plan based [00:16:00] on this idealized set of conditions that may or may not ever happen instead of planning according to their current capacity. Your current capacity can include things like your health, your caregiving commitments, your commuting time, your emotional labor, your financial stress, recovery needs, or fluctuating energy levels.

Guess what? Right now, I have a sick kid. I've had a sick kid for the last couple of weeks, and turns out this is something that's gonna take a while to recover from. It's gonna involve surgery. My life has been lifing y'all, so I know my caregiving has gone up. My emotional labor has gone up. My financial stress from bills and healthcare expenses has gone up.

And so that means that I am going to need to account for that when I'm doing my work. And you can do that too, because you've gotta get sometimes [00:17:00] brutally honest about your current season of life and what that season of life can hold for you. And sometimes that means reducing expectations temporarily so that you can still work on the goals that matter most to you And if you're someone like me who also has a chronic illness or an energy-limiting condition, this point is especially important for you because I know how hard it is to face this reality, specifically the reality that your energy envelope or your available energy in any given day is limited and precious.

And so please treat your energy and time that way and set your goals according to that. Don't try to say yes and do all of the things. Instead, honestly face your energy and your capacity and your circumstances and ask yourself, "What can I actually [00:18:00] make space for right now? What can I actually get done right now in light of all of this?"

Next, I don't want you doing this alone. Seek or build compassionate supports. And by this, I mean that many people think, "Okay, I need support, so I need accountability." And then they go and meet with their advisors regularly, or they meet with someone who pressures them or shames them. But effective accountability and support systems don't need to look that way.

It can also look like having access to structure, reflection, and community. This can include therapy. Yes, I'm always gonna recommend therapy. I'm always gonna recommend seeking help from a licensed clinician, a licensed professional. Why? Because it's hard to finish big projects. It's hard to follow through.

And the current world we live in requires a lot of additional professional support. So it might be therapy, it [00:19:00] might be support groups. It might also be coaching, preferably from someone who is a certified coach, or someone who is very transparent about their coaching style and what you can get from their coaching.

It can look like writing groups that either are facilitated by an external professional from your university or a writing group that you organize. It can look like co-working sessions, peer check-ins, body doubling. The body doubling, again, can be with a friend, or it can be you paying for a space where they pair you with a stranger to body double with.

Why do all of these things work? Because isolation increases shame and avoidance, and we don't want that for you. Community support is gonna help you to normalize your challenges and make your goals feel more manageable. You're gonna have folks who can cheer you on, who can support you, who can offer insights, suggestions, [00:20:00] or ideas that maybe you hadn't considered.

And self-compassion also matters here because it can help you to build more emotional resilience. It can help you to reduce that negative voice, the harsh self-criticism that a lot of us have that keep us stuck. And this is also why I also facilitate supportive spaces for first-gen students and professionals and historically excluded individuals too.

I do this through coaching and workshops because I know how valuable it can be. I know it's valuable for me, and I know it's valuable for the people that work with me, and we do deserve environments where we can be honest about our circumstances and our capacity and our challenges and the supports that we need without having people judge us or shaming us.

So to close this episode, I wanna leave you with a few questions to reflect on. The first is, what patterns tend to interrupt your [00:21:00] follow-through most often? Also, what expectations are you holding onto that are no longer sustainable for you?

And what would compassionate supports or conditions look like in this season of your life? And I actually think I need to rethink that last question for myself as well. I really encourage you to sit down and spend some time writing and reflecting on these questions so that you keep achieving your goals in ways that still honor your humanity.

Because I want you to remember that needing support doesn't mean you're failing, needing rest doesn't mean that you're lazy, needing structure doesn't mean you're incapable. You are doing some pretty incredible things under some pretty impossible conditions. You're a human, and you have specific needs, and those needs also [00:22:00] deserve to be met, so go out and seek that support that you need.

If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend or with anyone who you know may need this reminder. And of course, if you're looking for support around these areas of sustainable productivity, executive functioning, dissertation, or long-term project completion, you can learn more about my coaching services at the link in my show notes.

Thanks again for listening, and as always, I'll talk to you all next time.

Thanks so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, here are three ways you can support the show. The first is to make sure you're subscribed and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. The second way is to get your copy of my free resource kit linked in my show notes. This kit includes tools, worksheets, and curated podcast playlists to guide you through applying to and navigating grad school.

The third way to support my [00:23:00] show is by joining my email newsletter, where I share key takeaways and additional resources. Thanks again for listening, and until next time.