The Over-Motivated Underachiever

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Over-Motivated Underachievers lack results

Unfortunately, when someone is an over-motivated underachiever they put all of their efforts into research and learning and that is it. They spend their time trying to get more knowledge instead of applying what they already know.

In the words of Darren Hardy, these folks are the ones that:

• read the books,

• subscribe to the magazines, blogs, and podcasts,

• go to all the seminars

The Over-Motivated Underachievers learn it all but apply none of it and thus get no results.

While it is easy to say, “that’s not me, look at all I have achieved.” The reality is sometimes we may be the take-action person, but other times we procrastinate with “getting motivated” and spend all our time learning more instead of just getting started and taking action.

I know this because I often go through this rollercoaster.

Writing this very article required me to convince myself to do actual work instead of watching another Youtube video that I might “learn” something from.

Why is it so hard to take action?

Imposter Syndrome, Procrastination, Writers Block, or whatever you would like to call it all comes from the same place.

They are tricks our brain tells us to help protect us from our fears. We fear our tribe won’t accept us and will be kicked out.

As a protection mechanism, we tell ourselves that we aren’t good enough and need to get better before we are accepted.

But this leads to telling ourselves stories like:

“I should read another book before creating my new marketing campaign.”

“I need to watch another video on job interviews before I apply.”

“I need to take another training course on writing before I show anyone my work.”

Why do we need to take action?

 While learning increases our potential, which is a massive benefit, it still is only potential until that knowledge is applied.

The benefits from our work do not come from only learning what to do, they come from taking action and applying our knowledge.

I challenge you to take action on whatever project you have been gaining motivation to do but so far are underachieving.

As Nike says, “Just Do It.”