Tag: personality

The Controller – (Over)achiever archetype 2

Motto: ‘If you want a thing done well, do it yourself’

Achievement by control is about keeping a close eye on everything and everyone around you. If you identify with the Controller archetype you probably know exactly what will happen on Tuesday in 3 weeks and love writing lists and plans.

You prefer to take care of most things yourself and delegation and collaboration could be a challenge for you. The Controller can have a hard time dealing with unexpected events.

Due to their challenge with collaboration and delegation, Controllers risk losing valuable input and inspiration from people around them. In extreme cases they could end up alienating colleagues and friends.

Drivers and Fears:
      • Fear of losing control
      • Fear of uncertainty
      • Will to succeed
How to overcome:
      1. Educate yourself about anxiety and control. Rather than falling back on control as a defense against uncertainty, learn all you can about the fear that is driving you to micromanage. Read books or see a therapist.

2. Ask yourself how effective controlling really is. For example, is asking your teenage son whether he’s brushed his teeth every morning an effective way to make him take responsibility for his dental care? If not, stop and rethink your approach.

3. Ban control-oriented language from your vocabulary. For example, unsolicited advice or criticizing someone’s perspective. Altering your language takes courage, and you must commend yourself for learning how to let go of control.

What advise would you give a Controller? If you identify as one, how do you overcome your need to control?

Next up: The worrying problem solver

Overachievement Archetypes. © 2021 Emma Vallin. All rights reserved.

Is your ambition putting you at risk for burn-out?

The stress-vulnerability model is often used to understand the causes of mental health issues and burn-out.

As you can guess, two dimensions are involved: “Vulnerability” refers to our basic sensitivities and is determined by our genetics as well as life experiences. “Stressors” refers to the situations or challenges faced in our lives.

Many employers are focusing more time and money on preventing negative stress instead of treating already burnt out co-workers. Great for the individual and the bottom line!

However stress prevention is often focused on the situational stressors, such as workload with very little attention given to understanding individual vulnerabilities.

A study from 2019 published in the Canadian Journal of Nursing Research found that ambition or “being passionate about doing well” is a strong vulnerability factor for burn-out. Key themes for situational stressors were “teamwork,” “manager,” and “work and personal circumstances.”

In summary the study shows that a discrepancy between individual vulnerability (ambition) and situational stressors can lead to burn-out. Therefore, burnout prevention needs to target the individual’s vulnerabilities as well.

Through my own Achievement Detox and coaching of high performers, I have learnt a couple of things when it comes to ambition and burn-out:

    1. Like any overused strengths your ambition or achievement superpower can damage your health, relationships and even your results.
    2. Learning to control your need to achieve does not mean turning your ambition off, you’re simply using it in a smarter way
    3. By taking your achiever hat off once in a while and letting other unique personality traits such as your creativity or kindness shine, you become a more interesting and productive person.

Do you or your team want to work smarter to prevent burn-out? Book a webinar, workshop, or coaching session with me.

Source: Vulnerability and Stressors for Burnout, September 2019. The Canadian journal of nursing research 

Be normal or be yourself

As we constantly project a polished, normal and successful life and are exposed to others’ equally amazing lives in our feeds, we risk forgetting who we really are.

Does the courage to be different come with age? Does the confidence to be original develop over time, with different experiences? Or do we need self-esteem to be ourselves?

As we constantly compare ourselves with others, do we risk diluting our beautifully weird and amazing personalities?

The world is more boring, less creative and dare to say; a worse place, the more normal we try to be.