How to Break the High-Achiever Cycle


Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

If you’re a high-achiever, it can be difficult to grow professionally. You have a successful image to preserve, so instead of embracing risk, you may lock yourself into a familiar routine.

Here are three ways to break that cycle:

1. Use your support network. High achievers are very independent. But, everyone needs help. Ask people around you what skills they think you need to reach the next level.

2. Be vulnerable. Open yourself up to new learning experiences that make you feel uncertain at best and incompetent at worst. Remember that those feelings are temporary and a prelude to greater professional ability.

3.Admit to small failures. Practice acknowledging uncertainty or confessing mistakes with people close to you.

Today’s Management Tip was adapted from “Managing Yourself: The Paradox of Excellence” by Thomas J. DeLong and Sara DeLong.

To read that article and join the discussion, please click here.


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