Zeb took a serious interest in the Jr Ranger Program offered through our National Parks while we were in Indiana. Our first park and his first badge has come from Lincoln National Park in Southern Indiana. According to his age, he was required to finish five pages of the program and a list of tasks that included hikes, visiting the living memorials of Lincoln’s Boy Hood Memorial and watching a short film.
We were excited to see him so eagerly embrace and accomplish something that not long ago would have caused him to panic, bringing up negative memories of school papers and the pressure to perform. He was gung-ho passionate and an unstoppable answer-figuring machine.
That’s likely why I was taken aback when the ranger called him an “overachiever” because of his finishing more pages than necessary for his age group.
The term “overachiever” has such a negative connotation to it. Despite knowing it was only a playful conversation on the ranger’s part and in no means meant offensively, it set my thoughts swirling anyway. Because let’s face it, overachiever is not much of a compliment. And here was my son, excitedly devouring something of interest to him and being labeled for it.
The True Definition of an Overachiever
According to Dictionary.com, the definition of “overachiever” is a simple one: to perform better than expected.
At first glance it doesn’t seem negative (I won’t even broach my feelings on the word “perform”). But its implications and the manner in which is it generally used certainly does:
- First, the definition itself implies someone didn’t really expect much from you. This likely means they don’t see you possessing any number of positive qualities: intelligence, motivation, or persistence to see something through, to name a few. This is sometimes a general statement (i.e. many adults don’t really expect much of teens) or it could be related to subject matter (perhaps the material seemed above your capability level). Either way it doesn’t say much for you, if you are the person in question.
- It can imply the subject matter may not have been interesting in the first place. We simply don’t expect much from a person who is doing something we ourselves think is boring or pointless. And when they do, we’re not going to believe it had to do with passion; we’re going to blame it on pretention. Which leads me to my next point….
- It smacks of a personal attack. Let’s get real: When the term “overachiever” is used, it’s commonly a way to call a person a brownnoser, a kiss-up, a teacher’s pet or say they are a pretentious show-off or a know-it-all. We tend to put these types of people in the same category as tattle-tales, whiners or liars. Why? Because a passionate pursuit of anything feels really alarming, even threatening, especially when we lack our own passionate pursuit. Which is why….
- It’s too easily used to vilify a person or their passions. Every person I’ve heard called an overachiever was simply a truly interested person. They loved the information they were acquiring and they ate up anything they could find on the matter. They went above and beyond what they were required to do because unlike others, they actually loved what they were doing. This is why overachievers are seen as threatening. Passion sets a pretty high bar and for someone uninterested, who the hell wants to rise to a challenge they dislike? Who wants to do more of something that bores them, or that they downright hate? And who wants to be reminded of the fact they are doing it in the first place?
Vilifying Interests
We, as a culture, tend to vilify interests. We tell bookworms to get their nose out of a book and jocks to pick one up. We tell nerds to get off the computer and dinosaurs to get with the times.
We label energetic kids as ADD but don’t allow them to focus on the video game that is holding their attention. We call interested kids overachievers then get upset when they aren’t achieving the goals we set for them.
We pull them away from their games, their friends, their activities, and their interests because we feel they’ve had enough, done too much or need to do something else.
We don’t allow them to specialize; we only allow for superficial dabbling. Not too much of anything, just a little bit of everything. A sampling, a smattering, but let’s not get greedy over any one thing.
The honest truth: We don’t like passion. It scares us. Plain and simple.
Passion is a threat to our carefully contrived societies that rely on the mindless droning on of things we loathe. We insist on insisting that life is meant to be hard. That we were meant to work, not play; dread, not enjoy.
And as adults we keep ourselves stuck there, feeling guilty when we have wild, hilarious fun doing what we love.
It’s a Suffer vs Laughter mentality and it’s a lie.
We know a passionate person will continue to seek passion. But we’ve been told passion leads to self-absorption, laziness, pride, selfishness, and that doing what you love means neglecting all else. And things like that lead to murder, rape, theft…a complete breakdown of our social fabric.
Do you get it? We’re told to disregard our passions, even dislike life, for the betterment of society.
We’re told to be miserable so that we can all be happy.
But passions don’t break us down; they fill us up. They fill us with joy and when our hearts are full our cup overflows with generosity.
We simply cannot give what we do not have. Without a true passion of our own, we can’t support the passion (or heartache) of others. We can’t give freely of ourselves when we have nothing worth giving. We can’t convince the depressed there is reason to live without first seeing it ourselves.
Without a fulfilling passion, we can’t create a social fabric free from the fear of torn edges. Without the passionate pursuit of life, we simply can’t justify its purpose.
Owning the Overachiever
Oh, yes I’ve been called an overachiever. I’ve even owned a little shirt with a gold star on the front that proudly proclaimed Overachiever across my chest. And I couldn’t be more pleased that my son is seen as an overachiever as well.
Why am I so happy over what I clearly just spelled out as being not only defined as but implying a negative?
Because I propose a radical new approach to the term overachiever.
I propose we own it. Take it back. Redefine it.
Overachiever: A person who loves something more than you do.
You can’t get much more simple than that. But it also can’t be more exact. There will always be someone who loves something more than we do. And in no way, shape or form does that mean we should vilify them or their passion.
- Zeb overachieves on Jr. Ranger programs, Age of Mythology and fart noises made with his knee. He loves it more than some kids do.
- I overachieve at photography, making people cry happy tears and drawing analogies between crazy experiences. I love it more than some of you do.
- Justin overachieves at motorcycles, making things with his hands and rolling his boxers up into a thong. He loves it more than most of us do.
The world is made up of a diverse and vastly unique spectrum of people. We’re not meant to all be the same and there is room enough for us all to be different.
It’s time to embrace our pretentious, self-absorbed passions for overachieving in our own area of expertise. It’s time to one-up each other in our radical displays of showing-off.
And when we’re filled up, lit up, seeping with passion and aching from laughter, we’ll have no choice but to pour that overachieving love back into the world.
I'm Tara Wagner, life coach and creator of the Digging Deep process, where I coach women out of survival mode to recreate their lives and families.
I have to say, I have never looked at overachieving negatively before. I love being called it. It doesn’t happen often, so I enjoy it when I find something I care about enough to go the extra mile for.
Once again, I am right with you on your thoughts. We send so many mixed messages in our society. Thank you!
I wonder if this is a family-of-origin thing, or a matter of conditioning, one’s reaction to the term “overachiever”? In my family it was always celebrated – passion was encouraged and nurtured. I’ve happily owned the term and been proud of it as long as I can remember. As an adult, I seek out the passion in other people, what they care about, what they strive to overachieve in; I’ve discovered that listening to anyone talk about what he or she is passionate about, makes that subject interesting to me, too.
My chosen areas of overachievement (what I love more than some – I like that definition): writing, cooking, crafting, parenting, knowing and being curious. I feel like that last one is, actually, the key to everything else!
I’m passionate about photographer….not good at it….but definitely passionate. You never see me with one, two, or three cameras and I’m constantly clicking away.
“Overachiever: A person who loves something more than you do.”
Absolutely brilliant! Thank you!
I’ll be bookmarking this post to come back to again and again. I especially enjoy the “vilifying interests” part.
“Overachiever” has a negative connotation for me also. I love the idea of claiming this word as something positive.
I’m not sure in which areas I’m an overachiever? List-making? Reading and reading some more? Asking questions?
Like Merie above, listening to people passionately talk about a subject makes it interesting to me to. (This leads to more questions and more reading, of course.)
What amazing insights! I just recently discovered your blog and have already been so blessed and inspired by your writing. Thank you!!!!!!
YES I AM!!
I am an overachiever when it comes to parenting and not just because I have 5 children. I love everything about being a parent and getting to see and know my children as they grow is my greatest joy. It is a passion that is often frowned upon for some reason. I love your blog and good on Jeb for overachieving on something that sounds superfun!
I love everything to do with old houses, old house architecture, the history of American architecture and technologies related to residential architecture. I love photographing structures, more than I love photographing my own children. I wrote my thesis on old house history, and got My MA easily and with joy simply because I love it sooooo much. I worked as a consultant for the state I live in, served on a local zoning board as an expert at age 25, and just love love love old houses. I have a 6th sense for them as well, as in I can find the hidden changes or original floorplans ect.
Plus, I can still be a good farmer and a great mom and teach onlline classes for income.
love this post! We are a family of overachievers in everything from reading (me), knowing how all kinds of mechanical thing work (David), video games and Pokemon (Ben), Spore and Studio Ghibli (Arthur), Toontown and pretend games of all kinds (Ethan). We do fear passion in this society and people who pursue their dreams can be perceived as very threatening. thanks for writing
What a great post–thank you! I am an overachiever when it comes to spelling, loading the dishwasher (you know, getting every last dish in even if it means re-arranging several times over), and knitting. Oh, and I also like to overachieve when it comes to using coupons.
Oh, I LOVE your new definition of overachiever! (I’m not sure I needed to know about your hubby’s boxer thong, though. LOL.)
Oh I love this post. You should print it and give it as handouts to random people.
This really struck a chord with me. As a child I was an over achiever, I could read at age 2 and when I went to school I was above and beyond the other children. All it takes is one person to knock it all out of you and that was one of my teachers when I was 10 years old. I was separated from my class and made to sit alone doing workbooks quietly all day with no interaction from this teacher or the other kids. I was told I wasn’t allowed a new reading book until I’d been reading the same one for 2 weeks. I wasn’t allowed to answer any questions in class, I was mocked if I tried to ask a question because i was “such a know-it-all” that I should have known the answer.
I can’t blame my parents for sending me there, they did the best they could with what they had. I think that perhaps the only thing that saved me was my love of books and frequent trips to the library.
I love your thoughts on this kind of stuff. Thanks for this post ^_^
fabulous thoughts.
although i’m not sure that it’s a negative term for everyone. or that when applied to someone that it always implies the negatives. at the very least, it could imply concern – that the child is pushed/pressurised to achieve.
for me, the term was generally positive – a person who was passionate, driven, determined.
but i’m totally with you on the passion thing – that in general people are afraid of those that follow their passions. yes, many do feel you’re to devote yourself to hardship. or at least hard work. play is an indulgence we ought to be ashamed of.
we like mdoeration, mainstream, nobody moving out of the AVERAGE zone.
I don’t think the term overachiever has a negative connotation at all! If I was that park ranger, I’d be pleased that someone that young took such and interest in my line of work, and so enthusiastically. The ranger has probably seen, many times before, other parents pushing their kids into doing the program to fill in time during the non-school season, or simply for the accomplishment; the achievement. But to see a child enthusiastically complete more than necessary, I don’t think another word fits. Enthusiasm might fit, but it doesn’t highlight the fact that he ACHIEVED something, and at a higher level than just “passing” the requirements for achievement. You use the term passion, but passion denotes a longer term enthusiasm. As for vilifying interests as a culture, that depends in the culture you mean, because we have many cultures. Sure, some may make fun of people with passion, but those are the adult versions of the kids that didn’t have passion, and so, didn’t understand passion, saw enthusiasm as an easy target for teasing (quite possibly because their parents/elders were doing the same to them), and, I personally believe, were jealous of the fact that others had, or were allowed to have, passion. So who cares what those sad sacks think? Misery loves company. And in many cultures try to train passion, in that the children are expected to enter one career or another based on their parents wishes (doctor, lawyer, and less so, police officer, member of the armed forced, for example). Perhaps some of those pressured children grow up to hate passion and want their children to try everything, as a rebellion against forced passion. But the few children that I know well are encouraged and supported in following their passions. I know I will should I have the great fortune to parent someone someday.
I loved this post so much it almost brought me to tears. It reminded me of a lot of unnecessary pain in my life and the life of my husband, not to mention my kids.
One of the biggest examples was when I was directing theatre at the high school level. We had just done a really great (in my opinion) rendition of Anything Goes. The kids were SO proud of themselves, and they deserved it.
So the day after closing I’m calling into the principal’s office and he says “You know, you can’t forget this is just high school.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it doesn’t have to be that good. I mean, that was really good but these are just kids, this is just high school. It’s okay to look like it.”
“So you’re telling me that you want me to be mediocre.”
“Well…you don’t have to be half-assed about it. I don’t want any of my teachers to be half-assed about anything.”
I left then. I felt dismissed.
It blew my mind. I still think about it sometimes. To ASK his employee to do less than her best… Why would someone do this?
Because it was threatening. I might look better than another teacher. Our stuff might be better than another high school. And then he would hear it for being pretentious. For taking advantage. Whatever.
Our society upholds mediocrity as the grand standard. It’s WRONG.
I need to do better at this with my own children. But not just that. I need to do better at this with my SELF.
All my life my passions have been put down as “wastes of time”. Thank you again for this much-needed wake-up call.
You have got to be kidding! I know you are not though. That is sad. I have heard the same thing said in schools and families-crazy! Congrats to you for giving your all and then some and showing your students how to do the same!
wonderful post!!
I remember ‘overachiever’ as being a negative term when i was growing up. i was one of those kids who had passion for things..for learning…for absorbing information and it simply wasn’t ‘cool’ – and so i spent a lot of time dumbing myself down.
I really love your thoughts on how we (as in society) insist on making children only dabble, instead of specialize – criticizing short attention spans and yet encourage that by yanking them away from things that interest them.
my son is 5 and really focuses on his interests — which is apparently socially unusual for a child his age — and that’s why he has trouble with organized children’s programs. We were going to go to a “Pond Creatures” program at the botanical gardens but when I saw what they were scheduling for the hour I knew it wouldn’t work — he doesn’t want to flit from thing to thing — he likes to absorb each element until he exhausts it and THEN move on to the next. Most children’s programs are set up to zip them from one activity to the next and not all children are like that. So we just went to the Gardens on our own and investigated the pond our own way….;)
I am proud to be an overachiever….i would love a t-shirt like that too!!
That is so true. I avoid certain programs too for just that reason.
Thanks for this awesome post. It’s a little insidious that term overachiever. I know exactly what you are talking about. I have seen children (including myself) kind of crumple inside when they were called that. Luckily I had a family who supported my tendency to “overachieve”. Thank goodness! Thanks again for sharing! Peace, Angela
hi!
I am a bookworm. I overachieve in that aspect, I will read anything. I love it.
Thanks for this post, I will pay more attention to allow my own kids more than sampling a bit around, maybe they will find their own passion!
I don’t think the term is necessarily negative, but it very much depends on the context and the manner in which it is said – if it’s in a wow – you’re amazing, inspiring kind of way, then I don’t have any issue with it, but if there’s a hint of snark to the tone, in a kind of “you swotty, little know-all” or if there’s an element of judgement to it (can’t believe you achieved it, having made assumptions based on age/appearance or whatever, then I think it’s possibly one of the most crushing, spiteful and hateful things possible to say.
I am all for taking it back and being proud of being passionate. The most interesting people I know are passionate about their particular thing – I might not be particularly interested in their subject, but when I hear someone speak with true passion and enthusiasm, I find the subject interesting, no matter what. I love the idea that we should all follow our own passions and in doing so enable us to give more of ourselves to others, and be less selfish.
My areas of overachievement: reading , for one, list making and organising (just ask any member of my family), listening to music and discovering new artists. All these things delight me, and in being delighted I become a better wife, mother, daughter, friend. I *love* overacheiving!
Hmmm. I would say that I am an underachiever or a just-get-by-achiever. I’ll have to think about overachieving in something. Maybe in writing? Maybe? Hmmm.
First of all, congrats to Zeb. It’s wonderful that he found something he’s so passionate about.
Secondly, thank you for this post. It really resonated with me. I’m a big study nerd. When I was in grad school two years ago, I was tickled doing my homework. I always loved doing homework, reading (and highlighting) textbooks, taking notes, and answering questions in class.
I used to come to class every week with my notes typed, color-coded, and organized into table templates. One day, one of my classmates caught sight of this and said, “Oh my god! You’re making the rest of us look bad – I just scribbled my notes on notepaper. Wow, you’re really an overachiever, aren’t you?”
I tried to take it as a compliment, but I could tell she meant it as a judgment. All though the program, she always referred to me as “The Overachiever,” and I just HATED it. I started to feel like my school performance was overcompensation for my social insecurities (which is often true). At some point, I started believing in her vision – that she had every right to disdain me because I wasn’t being genuine and I was “trying too hard.”
Now, upon reading this, I’m having totally different thoughts. I still think some of my overachieving is definitely a way for me to cover up a lack of confidence in some areas, but I realized that I don’t overachieve in EVERYTHING – just things I truly love. Just the way you described. That made me realize that I WASN’T being disingenuous in grad school – I just loved it more than my classmate did. And I cannot believe that I let myself take on her perception of me as truth.
I mean, seriously – this post has me sitting here having rolling revelations, lol, about all the times someone called me an overachiever or a perfectionist, and how I automatically took on the negatives from that. There are definitely parts of those behaviors that don’t serve me, but in many cases, it is simply a result of my passion taking over. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Thanks for this insight!
Hi, I’m a Dutch unschooling mama of overarchievers, and follow and love your blog for a long time. And I own to being an overarchiever myself. I love logical puzzles and finished my exams in information analizing with a 100% in university. I was proud and ashamed at the same time, to get everything right was not the way to be. It’s the most important reason for us to not have our children at school, so they can archieve everything they want, without shame. I love your definition of an overarchiever, because for the person it just has to do with loving what you’re doing.
how i love you, let me count the ways. this was beautiful in every way. mwah.
I am still lol picturing Justin in a boxer thong
“We tell bookworms to get their nose out of a book and jocks to pick one up. We tell nerds to get off the computer and dinosaurs to get with the times.”
I feel like you really are an overachiever Tara. I mean–could you have nailed this post any better? You make the rest of us bloggers seem so….well, adequate ;p
All kidding aside, I really, really think you nailed it. Such important things to think about. I am only an overachiever when I’m interested in what I’m doing and although I did pretty good in school I never really applied myself, because there was nothing that really lit my fire.
Now that I’m interacting with amazing parents and entrepreneurs and using social media to rock my world, change laws and start new businesses….well, I sort of feel what overachieving might feel like. It feels great!
Thanks for being so awesome.
Adore this post, and the ways it makes me reconsider my having been a classic overachiever throughout life, particularly in school…
Today, I’m a reading overachiever (though I enjoy the reading more than discussing it later with others), and a fierce puppy-petting overachiever. The more dogs I can sneak love to during the average walk around town, the better!
We should all rock little Overachiever badges in assorted shades and styles…though the boxer thong run might be limited to just one person?
Hugs!
Congratulations to your son on his great achievements! Also, best wishes to him as he has discovered a new passion.
I love this, it’s awesome. I am an over achiever about making people feel powerful and amazing, seeing the glass as half full no matter what, and chasing dreams with wild abandon!!
yes. pretty much everything I set my mind to do. doesn’t mean I’m the smartest or the best at it but I work hard at it and it means I’m VERY good at what I set my mind to and that seems to piss people off. I have a great work ethic. I think people should buck up and take responsibility and so few do this. I have a hard time turning off the caring about how lame other people are – e.g., right now I’m teaching at a local college – hate it. people have so many excuses for why they can’t do things and as long as they are paying money, no one cares. give em an A. I actually had a dream today about working at a place and they were all “you WILL do whatever we tell you, no matter WHAT it is” and I feel that in so many of my positions in life. and I wanted to say UM NO I won’t. get someone else to do it, I’m done working against what I know is right inside.
you’re right – we do put people down in whatever their life situation is.
why is that? because we feel badly about ourselves? or don’t want them to feel good about themselves?
thanks for the thoughtful post.
I’m an overachiever in trying to learn Love. Like big, big love. Trying to figure it all out, how we are human, how we are life, how we can really love each other.
It sounds so lovey-dovey (ha!), but I am really realizing that a lot of my life has been leading me in a certain direction, things are coming together and I can see my path (past and future) more clearly. It’s cool.
I claim the word overachiever for this because there is a big part of me that says all this emotional/pyschological stuff is baloney. But I persist anyway.
Very well said – inspiring & food for thought. One question: how does the knee fart noise technique work?
@Arp, it’s like the armpit fart you can do with your hand, but behind the knee instead.
Tara – this post is wonderful!
I’m not sure where I personally picked up that being an overachiever is a negative thing, but I definitely have felt that way since I was young. And, once that kind of feeling sets in, it can be really difficult to overcome, especially if you place it on yourself.
This post, however, truly is wonderful and shows how easily that kind of feeling an be set aside.
i’ve never thought “overachiever” had a negative connotation (i am one!
) .. i just think of it as someone who goes over and beyond. i just asked my 13yo, “overachiever – good thing or bad thing?” and he said “good thing!” ;^)
but of course someone can put a negative verbal spin on it with an implied insult… and there’s the classic accusation that the overachiever is “making the rest of us look bad!”
re: passion & the nerds/jocks/dinosaurs .. this is something that always fascinates me. this idea of the perfectly-balanced kid, and we’re always pushing everyone toward that vision, away from who they are toward an ideal that can’t even be.
Oh yeah, I’m an ‘overachiever’ in everything I do. Because if I do it, I’m doing it because I want to. Always have been like that, always will be. It is a good thing when it is conscious and passion driven!
“Every civilization is, among other things, an arrangement for domesticating the passions and setting them to do useful work.” ~Aldous Huxley
Oh gosh, this post is brilliant. You have said a lot of things I’ve been thinking about lately.
My mother condemns my ADD brother for being interested in a video game and not wanting to be outside with her. She has given up on him, given up trying to connect and as much as I tried to explain exactly what you are saying in this post, she wouldn’t listen.
I think I need to get her to read this.
Thank you.
lol…I love your new definition of overachiever. I’ve been called that once or twice, as well as lazy and not living up to my potential. So I happen to be good at/more interested in some things and not others. What’s the big deal?
I think that parents and teachers get scared when their children are interested in things they don’t understand. For example, I can’t fathom why my son is so obsessed with plugs. It’s been over a year and he still plays with them like he’s an electrician or something. But I guess that’s just his thing.
I’ve been told many times that I should give up on music (I’m a music major at Cal State Longe Beach) because music is not a real job and even if I make money at it, you’re not supposed to enjoy your work, anyway. I work really hard at making my dream come true. Screw those that try to tear me down.
I love your definition of overachiever. I am an introverted overachiever. Two good words with negative connotations. I love History, much more than many people do, and I like to be alone.
I may never be a great speaker, public figure, or accountant, but I will be an awesome librarian.