Ep. 25: Stop Chasing Success: Redefining Your Worth at Work
Ever been praised for being amazing at your job… while secretly drowning inside? This episode is your permission slip to stop chasing success for the wrong reasons and finally redefine who you are at work.
In today’s episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on a pattern so many high-achievers quietly carry: the constant pressure to perform, produce, impress, and keep doing more—even when your manager says, “Take the afternoon off.”
This conversation is a deep dive into why overworking has become normalized, why it’s applauded, and why so many of us wear “hard worker” like it’s a personality trait instead of an overextension. I share the moments I ignored my own exhaustion, the times I collected major awards without feeling anything, and how I ended up burned out—crying on the floor, questioning everything.
What I didn’t know back then was that burnout wasn’t just about workload. It was about identity. I had tied my worth to being a high performer, and the moment I stopped working at that level, I felt lazy, guilty, and “less valuable.” This episode breaks down how I dismantled that identity, how I rebuilt a healthier relationship with work, and the exact frameworks you can use to reconnect with your real motivation—not the pressure to prove yourself.
✔️Why high-performers struggle to accept praise and rest
✔️How “hard worker” became a socially accepted form of self-neglect
✔️The hidden emotional cost of never celebrating your wins
✔️The Why–What–How Framework to show up aligned instead of overwhelmed
✔️Why being an “aligned worker” is more sustainable than being a “hard worker”
“Stop chasing success for the sake of success. Chase alignment, chase joy, chase what makes you feel alive.”
If this episode called you out (with love), share it with a friend who needs this reminder today.
And if you’re navigating burnout or redefining who you are at work, grab the Heart-Aligned Career Transition Starter at https://www.leadintact.com/freebies/heart-aligned-career or book a free 20-minute call at https://leadintactwithlaura.as.me/free-consultation
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You are listening to the pivot point where we unpack the defining moments that shift careers and lives. I'm your host, Laura Dionicio, a founder of Lead Intacct, and my mission is to spotlight the raw real stories behind career pivots, the fears, the hopes. The messy middles and the bold decisions that follow if you're feeling stuck or quietly wondering what's next?
I hope these stories help you see yourself a little more clearly and inspire you to start moving toward your own dream life. Let's begin.
Have you ever gotten kudos from your manager or from your team? Lead on a job well done and everybody's like clapping and congratulating you and you're smiling on the outside, but on the inside you're like, I still have 10,000 things I need to get done. Hi, I'm Laura Dionisio and I can a hundred percent relate.
You know, where it just seems like there's no time to pause. There's no time even when this has happened to me, even when my boss at the time has said, why don't you take the rest of the afternoon off like you deserve it. I'm like, you know what? No, I don't. I don't deserve it. Like I have so much other things I need to get done, and this is normalized.
And not only that, when I've said those things back to my boss. Yeah, they've just said, oh, okay, that's a choice. And you know, that's admirable. Okay. You go, I understand you. Go do what you have to do. You know, so that you don't feel so behind.
Oh my God, can we stop that? And here's the thing, it's so normalized that we have to keep chasing success that not only though we keep have to chase, but like it's applauded.
Like, oh my God, this person's a hard worker. Can we. Just strike that from our vocabulary as if that's like a compliment. Now, don't get me wrong, like I just feel like there needs to be like an asterisk next to hard worker because I'm at a point now where I'm like, I don't wanna be a hard worker for the sake of being a hard worker.
Like I want to be an aligned worker. Can we just shift to something like that?
So here's why like this topic really came to me, especially the time of year that this is coming out, which is like December, right end of the year. The end of the year for me, used to look like looking, especially because in corporate, this is the time where you reflect on the past year and do like your performance review.
And inevitably, I would think to, I would write down all the things I'd gotten done. And rather than be celebratory like, oh my God, look what I've gotten done. I will look at the things I've gotten done and then immediately look at the things that I hadn't gotten done and had planned to do and immediately find myself lacking.
Is this you? Let me tell you something. That is not a helpful trait. I used to think that it was, I used to think it, that it was because it made me perform better, but you know what it actually made me do? It made me not have that much confidence in myself. It made me, by the time that the performance review that would happen with my manager.
I wouldn't necessarily advocate for myself. I'd be like, yeah, okay. Like a mediocre performance reviews. Like I, I accept. Because I was so intent on looking at the gap of the things that I hadn't gotten done versus the game, the things that I had gotten done that I, I didn't advocate myself.
And worse of all, it led me to burning out and over and over again. So if you are someone who is identifying themselves as someone who chases success for the purpose of chasing success. I beg you, please reconsider, because I have gone down that road and that road leads to burnout. And let me also tell you, like from the beginning of my career have been very high performer and like success driven to the point where.
It didn't matter how well I had done, it was never good enough. And this is the other reason why chasing success is not the best metric of if you're doing a good job or not. If you were chasing success, then like me, probably you never take the time to celebrate yourself. Not only that, but you set a goal like you have goalposts.
And then you meet the goalpost and maybe you celebrate for like two seconds, but then you keep moving. It's like an ever moving goalpost. Now I was aware of this my whole life basically, and I thought that was a good thing 'cause I thought that made me better. But the truth of the matter is it just makes you tired and burnt out.
And if you proceed the in this way of continuing to just chase success, you are gonna wake up at some point and be like. What the fuck was all this for?
Okay, so let me like, give some examples of like times where I chased success and I, I got the accolades and award and like nothing happened basically.
So I remember two years, just two years out of college. So my first job outta college, I ended up with a promotion, a lead position, a bonus, an award, and an award from both the company that I was working for. And our customer, this is really uncommon, right? And I remember there was like a employee lunch, like an appreciation lunch, and I wasn't even gonna go.
I was like, oh, whatever. No big deal. The admin assistant who was putting it together was like, Laura, I strongly suggest that ego 'cause you know, you've done so well this year. But I was like, oh, but there's so much stuff to get done. I, I don't have time. 'cause it was like a Friday noon or something.
Like, I can't leave the office like. Are you serious? But this was me. And how young was I at the time? I was 23 at the time. And I remember I got presented this award and like, it wasn't just my boss, it was like my boss's boss and that person's boss came up to me, shook my hand and said, you have done really well.
You caught the eye of the customer for your great job. And you are really like representing the company really well. And I shook everyone's hand and whatever, but I just did not. Take the time to appreciate that. Like, wow, that is quite an accomplishment. Instead, I took that reward, looked at it and thought to myself, ah, great.
That means that they're gonna expect more out of me. Like literally, that was my response is that you can you relate to that? And then the next time I got like a pretty hefty award like that, that wasn't really common for the company was like maybe. Maybe like 10 years later or so, maybe a little bit more.
And again, like I had posted about it on social media because it was a team award. Because it was a team award, I felt more comfortable in like sharing. I'm like, look, my team got this amazing award I'm so proud of to be a part of this team. And then my aunt had commented like, Hey, congratulations Laura.
You did amazing. You have always been a hard worker. I'm not surprised you got this. And my response back was something along the lines of like. Oh, thank you. But you know, I'm just part of the team. You know, it's, it was a team effort I couldn't have done it without the team. And my aunt was like, it's your name on that award.
And I was like, huh. And again, I was just kind of nonchalant about the award. In fact, now the awards are on my wall, but they used to just be collecting dust in the basement somewhere, you know? Because as a very success driven person, I'm like, I don't have time for this.
I have shit to do. Like, honestly, that was just my thought. I, and anytime I got any sort of accolade, I just thought as a sign to work harder. To push harder.
And eventually what ended happening was I got burnt out one too many times and I remember I had to make a pretty difficult decision at the time where I was just like, I really.
Like this job a lot. I'm passionate about the cause. I really enjoy those I work with, I enjoy my team lead, my team, my teammates and all that. And I, I just, I'm fried, my nervous system is fried. I found myself sitting on the floor crying seemingly outta nowhere. And I'm like, I can't, I can't do this anymore.
So mind you again. I hadn't really done much introspection at the time in terms of the identity of who I was, but I just knew that I was a very success driven person and I also knew that I kind of, again, the point that I was saying about earlier, I looked around me and I'm like, what am I doing this for?
I'm not even enjoying any of it, not enjoying any of it. I'm working long hours. I am stressed, I am pissed off, and yes, I'm like happy and , feeling gratitude for being in the project that I'm on and grateful for the coworkers I have. But it's just like, what was all this for when I'm sitting on the floor crying 'cause of this, like it is just, this is not life.
And I ended up taking a job that had less hours, less responsibilities, and I really thought that was gonna make me feel better. I thought, this is gonna give me a chance to recalibrate. I thought, oh, you know what? I have this side business. It'll give me more time to work on my side business. And instead, what happened was because my nervous system was fried, I was mentally just like done.
I basically was coasting at this other job, still performing pretty well because you know, when you're a high performer, your coasting is still pretty fucking good. And I felt like shit. I felt like shit I didn't understand at the time. It wasn't until much later, I honestly fell into a little bit of a depression.
In all seriousness, had a hard time getting up. From the bed, didn't really feel much that like it was not good. And in retrospect, like I understand now that what happened was I, for so many years had this persona of being a successful high performer that when I took a job that didn't require as much of me.
And I was no longer overexerting myself. I was no longer getting phone calls, text messages, and IMS at the same time, and an inbox that didn't seem to end. And endless meetings, I felt like a failure. I started feeling like, oh my God, I am a lazy person, and I didn't understand at the time. Yes, I changed my job because I understood that staying in that kind of environment, and again, this is not, I'm not blaming anyone, but staying in that kind of environment where I'd allowed myself to be overwork like that would lead me to probably a lot more nervous breakdown.
Even though I knew that I hadn't made the identity shift yet, that my value as an employee, basically my value as a teammate came from being a high performer and super success driven person. And so I felt like because I wasn't pushing myself the way I used to, I was just like, do I mean nothing? Am I of less value?
And so at the time, I was like shaming myself and feeling guilty for not burning myself out. And I just, it was just like this fight inside me of like, I, a part of me was like, yo, it's time to rest. We never even celebrated like, this is why we took this job and so we could chill the fuck out.
And the other part's like, you are lazy as fuck and you suck. Like really it was just clashing. And so.
If you were relating to this, if you just left a toxic workplace, or maybe it wast a toxic workplace, but you were just like burnt out, you were like working so much and you are now transitioning into something that's like more chill.
Maybe you dropped down to part-time and you are feeling all kinds of way, you're feeling like, oh, am I kind of worthless? Am I lazy? Am I not worth anything at all? I'm just here to let you know that I totally understand and it's normal for somebody who has been so driven for so long, who has been chasing success and ambition for so long, who has wrapped their identity around being successful, ambitious, high performer, for so long to start to see themselves as that.
I'm not saying it. True. I am saying it's understandable and normal, and here's what I invite you to think about. Instead, let's talk through the who. Who are you as a professional person, right? Who are you as a coworker? Who are you as a teammate? Now, in my stories, before I had always seen myself as the high performer, someone who always has her shit together, and.
Ultra successful high achiever. Now, I am not saying that there's anything wrong with that. What I am inviting you to do instead is if you are relating to me and you see yourself as those things make room for more and here's why. Because if you just see yourself as those things, when you are no longer high performing the way that you used to, which by the way, probably your definition of high performing is like.
Doing whatever it takes to get the job done, probably, which is not always the most efficient. 'cause sometimes that requires overworking, not resting, when in fact maybe resting would've made you more efficient and would've taken less time to do the thing. Okay? If you only see yourself as a high performer, high achiever, like whatever, like success oriented, that kind of thing, then if you are not doing those things, then you start to see yourself as worthless, right?
That sounds harsh, but. On the inside. That's probably what's happening. That's what happened for me, because I was no longer doing any of those things. I'm like, well, that was my worth as a professional, then I guess I must mean nothing. So instead make ru for something else.
What else? Who are you aside from how you're performing or the success part of you? Okay, so for me, I thought about it and I was like, i'm actually a really inquisitive person. I love learning, and so, oh, have I been doing that? Actually, yeah, I have, because that's part of what makes me really good at my job is because I don't hesitate to go talk to like a subject matter expert and be like, Hey, can I , have 30 minutes of your time and talk about this one topic.
And then I also, part of my identity is I am great with teamwork. Like I'm a very team oriented person, so not only would I reach out to the subject matter expert. I, I ask my teammates, Hey, do you wanna join this thing? I just wanna learn about this. And so basically I started to think about other aspects of who I am and started seeing, okay, aside from working my ass off.
When it's needed. What are other ways that make me who I am? I'm like, oh, okay. Well, I love increasing my knowledge. I'm a team oriented person. I am highly organized and great with documentation. So I just started naming all these other things about me, aside from working my ass off.
So that from an identity perspective. I started to see my worth was not just tied to how many hours I worked and how hard I worked. Does that make sense? So like for you, if you are resonating with this and yes, you're like, I perform at all that, like, what else is there about you? The other thing about me, I was like, I like to have fun.
And so I would do this thing where I would sometimes randomly send gifs, uh, GIF gifs, I dunno how you actually pronounce that. To my coworkers outta nowhere or anytime I connected with a coworker, if I needed something like a report or data or something like that, I would make sure to engage in, in personal conversation just to be like, oh, hey, what'd you do this winter?
Oh my God, you love skiing? What are your favorite mountains to go to? You know, that kind of thing. Not small talk for the sake of small talk, but 'cause I'm like, oh, who I am is someone who connects and genuinely cares about like the human aspect of my coworkers. So I just started to build a more well-rounded person within me, like how I identified as a professional who is amazing at what they do.
That's step one is basically if you find that your pure motivation is to be successful, to hit all the marks, I just encourage you to expand beyond that. That way that is not your only metric for what makes you valuable as a working professional.
The other thing that I would encourage you to think about is my favorite framework.
The why, what, how. Now when I was not thinking about any of this, my why was like, I just need to be seen as a. Okay. A high performer and a hard worker. I didn't even know that at the time. Now, what happens if that is your motivation for showing up to work? That means I'm saying yes to assignments. Even though I'm overburdened, I'm saying yes to deadlines, even though I know that I have a lot more responsibilities and can't make them, I am taking on things that aren't necessarily mine, et cetera.
Do you see where I'm going? So it's like, let's pause for a moment and be very intentional about how we show up at work. So take a moment and think about your why. Why do you show up to work? And don't just say, I'm there to pay the bills. If you're listening to this podcast and have been listening, that tells me you're a little bit more of a deep thinker than that.
So what else? What else makes you get up and log onto your computer or whatever your job is? And for me, I realized when I really thought deeply about it yes, I am a high performer and I'm successful, but I don't show up to work to be like, I'm going to be successful today. No, actually it was really simple for me.
It was like, I love having the sense of joy and having fun at work. Okay. Seems weird. Especially 'cause my background's in engineering. But that's what it was. And how this helped me is that is how I started gauging whether my day was successful or not, whether my week was successful or not. Did I have fun?
Did I feel joy then? Yes, this was a successful week. I stopped using the external metrics of success of like, how much stuff could I get done? Now let's go to the what part of the why, what, how, because part of the things that brought me joy was actually meeting deadlines, was actually getting stuff done.
But now at least my motivation is the feeling of joy and having fun. Not necessarily the doing of the thing. And then the how piece of it is like how I end up showing up. What projects do I actually take on?
So instead of just mindlessly saying yes to everything I am taking time to think about, okay. Am I having fun? Is this a joyous experience? And sometimes look with work, sometimes doesn't always align, but instead of just randomly just saying yes to every single thing that my manager ask me, I would take the time to pause and be reflective and say, you know, these are the things that it's curly on my plate.
This is what I have anticipating. And you know what, yes, I would take that. And you know what? Given that I have also been a functional team lead in the past. When somebody includes me in on their process like that, I actually have a higher admiration for that person who lays out, these are the things on my plate, these are the deadlines for this thing and that thing.
And the thing you're asking me requires me to kind of. Push one aside like that. Actually, I have a lot more respect for that person because that tells me they're processing things. That tells me that they have like a bigger vision for all the other things that are happening, more than the person who just says yes to everything that I ask.
So keep that in mind.
Two things that I am sharing today. The identity piece, who are you from a professional standpoint beyond the person who's successful, beyond the person who chases being a high performer, right?
And then the second part is apply the why, what, how framework, what's your why for showing up to work? And what are some of the things that bring you, in my case, like joy and fun. What are some of the things that you like doing at work that you're good at? And then how can you show up given your why and what you know you like to do and are good at.
If this episode resonated with you, as always subscribe, share it with a friend, and if you would like more support in the identity piece in, maybe you're in the middle of like feeling really burnt out and you're not really sure what your next step is. Book a free 20 minute call with me, and I would love to support you and see how we can work together.
And with that, I will see you next time. And don't forget to proceed as if success is inevitable because it is. All right. Catch you next time.
All right, friend. That's it for today's drop. If this episode hits something deep, don't just sit with it, act on it. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it, and then head to www.leadinta.com to grab your free heart aligned career transition starter, or book a free 20 minute call with me. I'm here when you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start moving toward what you really want.
Catch you next time.