We All Want to Be Exceptional: Here's the Problem With That.

(3/10) This story forms the third part of a 10-part article series, exploring the messy intersection between pursuing happiness and how perfectionism holds us back. Subscribe to The Hard Truth to be notified of the next release.

To truly understand the concept of being happy, we first need to recognise one of the current challenges we face particularly in the modern workplace – the desire to be exceptional.

A by-product of the modern world is a glorification of being exceptional. Being the best, being special, being unique, leaving many of us feeling as though things aren’t worth it unless we can share our major achievements with others.

We get this told a narrative as children “you’re special”, which is true to our parents. We are special to them. After all, we likely gave our parents a huge sense of purpose in their own lives as they navigated getting older and what made them happy.

But what should be a humbling realisation though, as we grow old, is that we learn that we aren’t any more special than those around us.

However, the repetition of being told special is good, special is something to be celebrated, special is the goal, teaches us that we should be just that – exceptional – and when we realise that we are not, it can be a hard fall from grace.

This idea of wanting to be exceptional is echoed in the way we report news to each other, amplified by media stories. We make nods to the people who do more, share more, and are breaking limits of what can be done – the youngest person did this, the smarted person did that, this person defied all odds and they should be celebrated. This person was sleeping on a friends couch before they came up with their multi-million dollar idea. But, do we know how functional their personal lives are? Do we know what cost they paid for that?

When we read these things, as we develop and grow in our lives, we think gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to be exceptional at something, so much so that people want to celebrate my existence.

After all, who doesn’t want to be made to feel that you’re step above the rest…to be made to feel as though you’ve done something that others haven’t. We see this even more so when we reach the level of ‘adulting’ where we have to face the cyclical reality of having a job, paying the bills, making dinner. The Groundhog Day reality that our lives aren’t doing things to be celebrated every day. Nobody wants to see the piece of toast you made this morning.

For some of us, realising that life isn’t always about the big wins is a hard reality to face when we’ve been told our whole lives that the goal in life is to be exceptional.

My whole life, I always thought it was a common and innate goal of all people to want to be exceptional. To feel the yearning to be called out in school for winning sporting races, for beating records. To need both the front and the back of my school uniform filled out with achievement ribbons. To get into the top classes, to be praised by teachers. And it didn’t stop after school.

Between university, seeping into the workplace, many of us see the world as an aspiration to always be better.

Excel, achieve, succeed, be better than yesterday – because that is what we were taught and how our brains tell us these are the things we need to be truly happy.

Although there are some of us not living their lives consumed by this, it has become evident that many of us do, and especially in the modern world of work; in a world where we praise people being exceptional, fueling these unrelenting standards on what it means to be happy.

The world of social media has created the opportunity to see what everyone else is doing, and not just that, but to be able to see only filtered exposures to what everyone else is doing – seeing only the successes, the wins, the celebrations. We don’t hear about the Joes from high school who have worked in the same job for 15 years and doing it happily. We only hear from those around us only when they want us to hear from them.

The hard truth is that we have the curse of filtered information, which are filling our screens, so we only hear and see the good stuff - the stuff that gives the perception everyone around us are doing exceptional things.

When I think about the desire to be exceptional, it isn’t a specific moment in time or specific situations, but instead, a feeling that slowly creeps up on us, two feelings in fact.

The first being the elation when you reach a goal. It is the elevation of your soul when you are made to feel as though you can conquer the world. Every fibre of your bodies feels this deep sense of joy, pride, and sense of accomplishment. The sense that everything in the world feels right because you feel exceptional in that moment. You can tell your friends, tell the cashier at the grocery store, tell anyone who’ll listen.

But the opposite feeling can also be true. The fall from grace. The feeling of not being good enough after a setback. The feeling that we didn’t deserve what we were aiming for in the first place. The thoughts begin ‘you were never good enough’, ‘why did you even think otherwise?’’ – whether we consciously realise they are there or not. ?

Whether it is a mistake you made, an achievement not reached, a goal not fully met. The thoughts continue, with our self-worth tied so intricately with this desire to be exceptional.

As a result of these two emotions, dancing along in our lives, the feeling of achievement begins to get harder and harder to feel and the feeling that we aren’t good enough becomes easier, more torrent in our lives. The need for achievement, to be exceptional, becomes a continuous, unrelenting standard that you feel you can’t quite reach anymore.

All of a sudden, the wins don’t feel as good, and the need to keep doing more grows.

The desire to be exceptional becomes a burden on our shoulders, a weight that we no longer enjoy carrying.

Our lives become a vicious cycle of waiting for the next small bit of comfort from achieving something. As you get it, you feel uplifted for a moment, but it dissipates again. You are left feeling depleted again.

You celebrate, you move on faster…and just like that, inside your belly, you can feel the need again. I need to be more, do more. I need to be exceptional.

Suddenly, the cycle begins, and individuals can begin to feel a deep sense of dissatisfaction with themselves, their jobs, and their workplaces, leaving many of us looking for more, unsure why we don't feel good in what we have.

We can all end up investing so much time trying to be head above the rest that we forget to notice the ordinary moments that make us feel joy, which these moments, in themselves, are exceptional in their own right.

Being exceptional is sometimes right in front of us. Laughing with our colleagues. Being acknowledged at work for being a fair and respectful colleague. Celebrating our peers and focusing on team work. Setting boundaries and spending time with our families. Waking up in the morning, feeling good in ourselves.

Exceptional moments are all around us. We've just forgotten to pay attention to them.

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Follow Camille Davey as the founder of Grow Together Now, partnering with organisations on making mental health meaningful in the workplace.

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