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Welcome to adult-underachiever-hood.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      6 comments      link this post     


I am an underachiever. An adult one. Just look at my resume. It lacks continuity and steady achievement and inherent discipline. My finances lack actual finance.

How do I know I am an adult underachiever?

I took a test. Those in red I answered yes to.

Have you developed the habit of being an adult underachiever?

  1. Taking shortcuts and doing the minimum possible even with important matters.
  2. Spending more time getting ready to work, getting out of work, or getting others to do it, than working.
  3. Inconsistent, insufficient effort.
  4. A lack of real engagement even in your most important life activities and relationships.
  5. Ambivalence in making decisions.
  6. Planning, scheming, and talking about things but not following through on them.
  7. Difficulties organizing work and organizing your life in general.
  8. Difficulties reaching distant goals due to a lack of appropriate planning and persistence.
  9. Repeated initial excitement for new ventures, followed by disappointment when the new wears off.
  10. False starts and frequent changes in direction and goals due to boredom, and a preference to start something new.
  11. Failure to complete important projects, whether pleasant or unpleasant.
  12. A tendency to quit things just as you begin to achieve success doing them.
  13. Procrastination.
  14. A history of being involved with relationships, jobs, or other situations that demand less than your true capabilities and therefore provide less than full satisfaction.
  15. Gravitating toward non-traditional occupations in order to avoid traditional structured work schedules or the demands of bosses or supervisors.
  16. A history of being stuck in situations that you thought would be temporary.
  17. Self-doubt and low or varying self-esteem.
  18. Fears that you will not be able to live up to your own expectations or those of others.
  19. Recurrent fears of that you are faking it or are a fraud and about to be found out.
  20. A paralyzing fear of striving for what you really want because you do not want to be disappointed or fail.
  21. Unrealistic notions of what is actually required for success.
  22. A history of keeping your options open by postponing serious commitments.
  23. Difficulties in appropriately balancing risks and opportunities with an habitual tendency to take unnecessary risks, or to play it too safe, or to alternate between the two strategies.
  24. Blaming failures on "bad luck" or other people instead of accepting personal responsibility for them.
  25. A feeling that you are socially inadequate and younger than your age and that you have fallen behind your peers in reaching important milestones.
  26. A feeling that time is running out and you haven't gotten started.
  27. Periods of depression
I am a failure. I'm an introverted, contorted, creative struggling, trying my best, hater of bosses and traditional structured life, not interested in achieving typical definitions of financial and professional success...failure.

Good to know.

Of course, this little test doesn't account for:
  1. People who define success very, very differently than in a traditional sense.
  2. People who are not interested in traditional "achievement" and find purpose in other ways.
  3. People who do not like standard structure and hierarchy, and are out of the loop in a structured and rigid culture.
  4. Many introverted and creative people who function outside of what are seen to be personal and professional "norms" because it is necessary in order to keep from imploding creatively and emotionally.
  5. People not interested in being told what's wrong and how they've failed based on 26 questions made by some guy they don't see the need to listen to. These people are already aware of their failings and know them very well.
  6. People who struggle with trying to live the life God seems to be leading them in despite the fact that it seems to be a failure to everyone else.
  7. People who admit to feeling fear and failure and being fake and still get out and do it anyway, making the statement true that you can't have courage unless you know what it is to be afraid.
  8. People who are so acutely aware of how they don't fit in with typical standards that such a reminder of their failings isn't a "helpful kick in the pants" but another beating on the head which requires more effort to stand up and begin again.
  9. People who enjoy their life anyway, despite all the red in the above list.
Frankly, in this Western culture of busy work, acquisition, and measured success and listings of what consists of such success, I'm not the least bit ashamed of my "resume" and the fact that it doesn't fit in much at all. It's one of sampling lots of areas of life, learning all kinds of things, going places, and doing. Sometimes I think we confuse the things that are important in our culture as being "godly" when, in fact, they aren't necessarily. The Bible is filled with failures and underachievers. God seems to favor them, in fact.

Well, off to mow the lawn. I'm very good at it. You might even say I'm an overachiever at lawn mowing.

Concentric circles. Level-mower-bed fanaticism. Tight edging.

Success.

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UPDATE: Here's an interesting take on this topic: Adult Underachievers and Why That's Stupid.

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Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger      6/26/2007 10:51:00 AM      (6) comments      Links to this post    
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6 Comments:

Yeah, I've got some of those characteristics. But who doesn't?

In this world, if you have money, power (and therefore social status) you are considered successful. My question is always: How did you earn all that money? Then we can talk. Do a little digging, and you'll find things are not as rosy as they appear to be.

My first few days of college really brought this home to me. My roommate wanted to know the quailty of the following: my clothes, shoes, luggage, razor, hair brush, did I have a car, and what my Dad did for a living. Among many other things. It was all competition, one-upmanship, and envy. Come to think of it, much of college was like that and I never really adapted to it (all biological organisms must adapt to survive, I was told).

I never thought girls would judge me by the kind of shoes I wore. But they did.

By Anonymous deniro, at 26/6/07 18:10  

Your resume has some typos.

Sorry.

By Anonymous deniro, at 26/6/07 18:26  

Those aren't typos. Those are "keepin' it real."

By Blogger Julie, at 26/6/07 18:44  

This was not targeted toward you. There are many people who live in constant frustration of never getting things done and failing forward.

This is much worse when it happens to men or women in late middle age.

I don't question your sincere acceptance of your personality. That's a healthy thing.

Not all people are that settled. This was targeted toward a nephew of mine, 18 years old who reads my blog faithfully. I made certain he read it after I wrote it. He ordered Dr Christian's book. I pray it will help him. He has a whole life in front of him and it would be a crime for him to go thru it bumbling along as he has been because of a failure pattern. HE scored pretty much 27 yes's out of 27.

Having been a faithful reader of your blog for several years (anything over 2 qualifies as several technically) I think you may be harder on yourself and more critical of your own behavior. I don't see you that way and I'll bet those who actually know you don't either.

There are a lot of folks who find themselves tormented by never making life work. My friend Jim was one such. He has taken back his life. Even at 60 years old.

You are fully able to make all the decisions you need to make on how you want to live your life. If you are satisfied with how it's going so far, make no changes and nothing will change.

I was hoping that the "Kick in the Pants" would be for those who are NOT satisfied. I'm hoping it will take.

By Blogger Gene Redlin, at 26/6/07 18:47  

(But Gene...17 out of 27. I failed the test whether it was targeted toward me or not!)

Don't worry. I don't go around reading every blog and think that they are all targeted toward me since that would be a really huge arrogance.

I only think 97 percent are targeted towards me.

By Blogger Julie, at 26/6/07 19:07  

Very good and insightful stuff. And a very interesting test as well.

Just one disagreement. The western definition of what constitutes "success" is far more liberal and open than most non-western cultures.

You may recall the story of a Korean teenager who masqueraded as a Stanford student. What university you find yourself attending at age 18 pretty much determines your destiny, and anything less than a degree from a top notch university makes you an abject failure.

The definition of "success" is extremely narrow and quite suffocating. The concept of "to each their own" simply does not exist.

(I see how the traditional fundamentalist environment wouldn't sit well with you).

By Blogger David Cho, at 27/6/07 00:07  

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