The crippling ‘success paradox’ that makes even winners fear failure

Despite considering themselves successful, most Americans also feel like they’re lagging on at least one major milestone. But experts warn that dwelling on it could put them further behind.

In a recent survey conducted by daily development app Headway, 77% of respondents said they consider themselves successful. At the same time—in what researchers label the “success paradox”—81% said they’re falling behind their peers in at least one major personal or professional domain.

Roughly one-third said they feel behind others their age financially, 11% feel they’re behind in life experiences, 10% feel they’re lagging in their career progress, and another 10% said the same about their relationships.

“It’s very easy to get caught in the trap of, I’m not good enough,” says Cindy Cavoto, a certified productivity coach for Headway and one of the study’s coauthors. “People put these expectations on themselves, and I think as a society we don’t give ourselves enough slack.”

Though many are facing economic challenges and career stagnation in the current job market, Cavoto says those setbacks can feel even bigger in the age of social media comparison. “People are only posting their best lives,” she says.

Rather than focusing on others, Cavoto encourages folks to compare their progress against their own individual benchmarks, which most survey respondents felt positively about.

“Are you in a better place than you were last year? Are you feeling better about where you’re going this year?” Cavoto asks. “Stop looking around and just compare yourself to yourself. That’s your best measure, because we’re all on our own journey.”

The Fog of Work

Part of the frustration many workers express is driven by feelings of persistent economic insecurity and career doubt, despite making personal sacrifices to further their professional ambitions.

According to the Headway survey, 44% of respondents have forfeited free time, 37% have sacrificed sleep and mental health, and 30% have compromised relationships in pursuit of their goals.

Despite those sacrifices, 66% of American workers feel like their career has stalled, according to a recent survey from online résumé builder MyPerfectResume. Furthermore, 45% said they want to leave their jobs but feel they can’t in this market, and 70% have questioned or reconsidered their entire career path in the past year.

“That’s pretty astronomical,” says career expert Jasmine Escalera of MyPerfectResume. “There are a lot of employees out there who are dissatisfied with their day-to-day work.”

Of those who said they’ve reconsidered their career path, 21% feel like it’s too late to make a change, 19% believe they should be further along than they are, and 17% admit to just going through the motions. This state of uncertainty, in which workers struggle to see what’s ahead, is what MyPerfectResume refers to as “career fog.”

“There are a lot of employees out there who are feeling like they’re not having the upward mobility that they want, they’re not developing the skills that they want, they don’t have the career progression that they want,” Escalera says. “There are also a lot of employees who feel like they’re not getting paid what they should.”

According to a MyPerfectResume survey conducted last fall, 78% of workers have been assigned new duties without a raise or promotion, and more than half were promised promotions or opportunities that never materialized. In an analysis of U.S. wage growth between 2020 and 2024, MyPerfectResume found that despite an 18% increase in real wages during that period, spending power declined by 2.6% due to inflation.

“Our recent reports show that a lot of people are struggling financially,” Escalera says. “The question is, are people also not feeling like they’re moving in the right direction because they’re not being paid enough to afford basic necessities?”

In another recent MyPerfectResume survey, 74% of respondents cited high expectations, peer comparisons, or personal perfectionism as a driver of self-doubt, and 58% said self-doubt is negatively affecting their career growth. In other words, those negative feelings are further driving negative outcomes.

Focus on what you can control

Lots of workers feel like they’ve lost control of their careers, their personal finances, or their mental health, and for good reason. Economic instability, job market stagnation, layoffs, and AI fears have many workers questioning whether they’re on the right path—and that self-doubt can put a damper on their motivation. 

How they approach these challenges can play a significant role in the outcome, according to former Stanford lecturer and behavioral design expert Nir Eyal. In his new book, Beyond Belief, Eyal explains that our perception is driven by a set of beliefs that are neither pure fact nor fiction, making them uniquely malleable. “Beliefs are tools, not truths,” he says. “You can change how you see reality based on your beliefs.”

Adopting what Eyal labels “limiting beliefs” anchored in self-doubt—such as I’m not where I should be, despite my best efforts—saps our motivation and increases suffering. Rather than looking for opportunities to improve our situation, Eyal’s research suggests those who maintain limiting beliefs wire their brains to look for evidence of their victimhood.

“How hard am I going to work if I’m thinking, I’ve been working this hard, and look, I still am not where I should be? To me, it’s pretty demotivating,” he says. “We must reconcile that limiting belief to push beyond it, and we do that by adopting a ‘liberating belief’ that serves us better.”

Turning a limiting belief into a liberating belief, according to Eyal, starts with questioning the truth behind the limiting belief, and considering how outcomes might improve if we reversed it.  

“With this inquiry-based stress reduction, we learned that the belief that we think is a fact may not be a fact, and there might be an alternative explanation,” he says. “We learned that holding on to the belief doesn’t necessarily serve us, doesn’t make us better off, and that actually not holding on to that belief might be much better for us, all in a matter of seconds.”

In other words, the more workers believe they’re falling behind their peers, the more likely that sentiment is to become reality. Those who instead focus on their own success and potential are more likely to reduce the weight of their personal and professional challenges, and their negative feelings toward them.

“We can actually use the science behind belief to help us increase our motivation to do what we need to do to decrease our suffering around that situation, so that we can reconcile it,” Eyal says. “Who do you become when you believe I’m exactly where I should be and I’m still learning? You’ll feel so much more motivated to go learn and keep working at it.”

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