Chasing After Your Future Self: A High Achiever’s Trap

And how to avoid burning out on the road to your dreams.

I was recently working with a client who said,

“…I feel like I’m chasing towards my future self—like I’m constantly playing catchup.”

How many of us can relate?

Though the words may differ between people, this is something I often hear from most of the high-achieving professionals I work with. I know my own version of this voice well, I’ve spent most of my life learning to understand and work with it. At times it’s been an exhausting chase that has lead me to burnout instead of my goals. Here’s what I’ve learned.

The High Achiever’s Vision Problem

As high achievers, we tend to strongly identify with our future selves. We see where we want to go. Our ambitions, dreams, and goals shine like guiding lights—a beacon always on the edge of the horizon.

But no matter how fast we run towards our future selves, the beacon seems to keep moving further and further, towards a bigger and brighter future. We find ourselves tumbling toward a future version of ourselves that always stays just out of reach.

“The goalpost keeps moving! The future feels so close you can almost taste it, but somehow it’s always just out of reach.”

Until we learn to work smarter rather than harder, there’s often an urgency, an impatience that propels us forward. We believe so deeply in what’s possible, and we want it so badly that we compel ourselves to move faster, do more, push harder. But, that deep attachment to the future can become blinding. It can pull us out of the present, keep us from noticing that in our drive to move forward, we may have taken a wrong turn and are actually sprinting straight toward burnout.

Slowing Down to Speed Up

Sustainable success doesn’t come from relentless hustle—it comes from pacing, presence, and patience.

“In order to move quickly, we must take our time.”

This isn’t just poetic—it’s practical. I learned this lesson, quite literally, backstage during a rehearsal.

When I was a young dancer, I had a quick costume change in the wings between scenes. The jacket I had to put on had a mess of buttons and straps and the first time I tried the change in rehearsal, I panicked.

My hands fumbled over each other. I was sweating, nervous, rushed. There was too much to do, not enough time. The pressure of my next entrance grew with every second until my entrance music started playing. I was barely halfway done with the change and had missed my entrance.

The rehearsal stopped. The director came backstage.

He saw me—frustrated, frantic, half-dressed—and calmly he said:

“I know this is a complicated change, and I know you can do it. I need you to move fast—so be sure to take a breath, focus and take your time.”

Externally, I sheepishly smiled and nodded, while on the inside I thought, “How am I supposed to take my time when I had no time?!”

Well, clearly what I had been doing wasn’t working, so on the next run, I tried it. The next time I came running off stage and into my quick change, I took a breath, I steadied my hands. Rather than worrying about ALL the buttons and straps, fitting on how little time I had to complete my task, I focused on one button at a time—quickly and methodically I put each one into place. I finished with time to spare.

That moment left a lasting and visceral impression. When I’m feeling stressed or that there is too much to do and not enough time, I recall the lesson I learned that day in the wings. To achieve our goals, we must take our time.

Focus Beats Frenzy

As high achievers, we often get stuck between two traps:

1. We fixate on the big picture, racing toward it, we trip over ourselves and waste energy in the process. The solution: take your time and move incrementally.

2. We become paralyzed by the scale of our dreams, the mountain ahead can feel so daunting that our motivation drains from the top down; we procrastinate instead of starting. The solution: break things down into manageable steps.

“Presence gives us traction. Breath gives us power. Rest gives us fuel.”

Learning to pause—to breathe, to focus, to move intentionally—makes us more effective and resilient in the long run.

You're Not Alone on the Journey

When you feel like you can’t catch up to your future self, remind yourself to come back into the present. Celebrate your little wins instead of fixating on the big picture. As high achievers we have an insatiable appetite for big wins, so the little things slip under the radar, but I promise you, you are doing incredible things. Try focusing on those little things and give yourself a chance to breathe.

If you feel like you’re racing toward your goals in a way that isn’t sustainable, or struggling to come back after burnout, I’d love to support you.

Together, we can build tools and skills that help you achieve your biggest dreams without losing yourself along the way.

You’re not racing toward your future alone. You have support at your fingertips. All you have to do is reach out.