Why High-Achievers Feel Like Frauds—And What To Do About It

Ever felt like you’re on a treadmill at full speed, chasing a carrot that keeps moving the second you get close? Like no matter what you achieve, it’s never quite enough?

Yeah. Same.

And if you’ve ever been told you were “too sensitive,” “too ambitious,” “too intense,” or (my personal favourite) “too smart for that”... this is your sign that the problem was never you. TLDR;

Growing Up “Gifted” & Misunderstood

I think the first time I felt it, was in primary school. I was hard to miss. Towering over the other kids like the bloody Green Giant (cheers to the sea-sick green PE tracksuit and that annoying sweetcorn advert). I didn’t feel powerful. I felt huge and wrong and far too visible. And when you're that visible, you become an easy target. The dartboard. The punchline. The problem. No one wants to play with the geeky kid.

Because that was the other part, I was smart. My whole existence felt like an oxymoron. Excelling academically. Falling flat socially. The constant internal tug between "You're amazing!" and "You're not good enough!" meant that I was just one massively overwhelmed kid. I lashed out at others—not because I was mean, but because I didn’t have the right words to explain how I was really feeling. “Emotionally dysregulated” and “neurodivergent” weren’t exactly part of the Year 4 curriculum.

Then came secondary school—and with it, the Gifted and Talented programme. If you were a 90s or 00s kid, you might remember it: a well-meaning but wildly misguided attempt to single out “exceptional” students. I got top marks in English, loved to learn, and worked ridiculously hard. But that label—“gifted”—wasn’t a compliment. It was a contract. An unspoken agreement that your worth = your output.

You weren’t celebrated for being kind or creative or emotionally intelligent. You were rewarded for how well you performed.

And that kind of wiring? It doesn’t stop at the school gates. It follows you. Into your relationships. Into your work. Into your nervous system. This was something that built my foundations, foundations that followed me all the way into my mid 20's.

The Silent Shame of Being Different

Whether you're neurodivergent, deeply creative, or just wildly ambitious in a world that rewards conformity, being “different” doesn’t feel empowering—it feels like a problem to solve. You learnt to chameleon your way through friendships, workplaces, and expectations. To mask, mute, and shrink to avoid judgment. You've got used to pretending not to care, even when you deep down it cuts like a knife. But emotions are bad right? No one actually wants to hear the real answer when asked "You alright?" in a passing moment. So you internalise it.Pretend, Prentend. Pretend. All whilst teachers tell you "you can talk to us you know". Yeah like they'd get it. The mind of a confused teenager is like a tornado tearing across everything and leaving destruction in it's path. God I wish I knew about things like journaling back then. Funnily enough my mum once suggested I go to counselling and I looked at her like she was an alien. Didn't she know that was for weird people? Little did I know that 10 years down the line therapy and counselling would save my life.

Hindsight is a bitch.

What do you do in this situation. Well you cling onto the glimmers for dear life. What am I good at? What can I control? Where can I get praise? For many that means developing high achiever people pleasing syndrome and tying your worth to accolades and accomplishments. Hello, my names Steph and I got 4 a*s and 9 A's at GCSE. Haha that sounds like the introduction for a high achievers support group, like AA but for crippling self doubt and imposter syndrome. Maybe I'm onto something?

Why You’re Exhausted (And It’s Not Just Work)

So what's the result of pushing all of this down? Feeling like a fraud. Constantly. Let’s be honest: you’re not just surface level had a bad night sleep tired—you’re soul-tired. Like tired from carrying the weight. I know the feeling. I was terrified that someone would find me out to be a fake and that everything I had earnt would be taken away. Spoiler; it doesn't actually work like that. And if you're anything like I was then you might be following this pattern;

• You over plan to calm the chaos, then don’t follow through and beat yourself up.

• You try every productivity hack, but still feel behind.

• You go to bed buzzing with ideas, but wake up dreading the day ahead.

• You’re burning yourself out trying to meet standards you didn’t even set—and don’t actually want.

But here's the lightbulb moment. It does not need to be this way. Radical I know, but you get to choose your next step. You also get to choose if you hold onto things that have been weighing you down. So let's look at how we do that...

Reframing “Too Much” Into a Superpower

Okay this is the juicy bit. You can't just say "I'm not going to think bad things again" or "I'm no longer a people pleaser" or my favoruite "Imposter syndrome? Don't know her". Ha no doesn't work. It's like telling a smoker to go cold turkey, it's not fun and it's not going to last. What you actually need to do is reframe think of it as replacing not removing a belief. It's like seeing past scenarios with a new emotionally mature lense and thinking to yourself ah wow okay I get it now.

Here's a few examples;

• You weren’t strange—you were misunderstood.

• You weren't difficult - you were dysregulated.

• You weren’t broken—you were branded “too much” by systems that never understood you.

These can hurt sometimes that's normal. You can also feel a little sad for younger you and how she didn't get what she needed at the time. It's okay, by recognising it now you're paving the path for a brighter future.

Let’s be clear: everything they said made you “too much” is exactly what makes you powerful.

You’re deeply empathetic.

You see patterns and solutions others miss.

You can build entire systems in your head.

You care so deeply it hurts.

That’s not something to hide. That’s the edge you bring to everything.

Thoughts & Reflection

You can release the idea that you are only worth your output. This is permission to be you—loud, messy, brilliant, and wildly ambitious in your own way.

This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about finally understanding yourself.