Why Trying to Outperform Your Feelings Doesn’t Work

If you're a high achiever or a perfectionist, chances are you've gotten really good at performing. Performing under pressure, performing for approval (I'm looking at you, fellow people-pleasers), performing to avoid conflict, chaos, or—God forbid—failure. You’ve probably also gotten really good at pushing through hard things, “powering through” discomfort, and telling yourself that feelings can be pushed down and are something to deal with later.

Here’s the problem: feelings don’t wait. And trying to outperform them only works for so long.

Let’s break down why high performers try to outrun their feelings, how it works—until it doesn’t—and what’s underneath this emotional avoidance that eventually leads to burnout, resentment, and emotional disconnection.

High Achievers Are Masters at Avoiding Emotion

High achievers are often praised for their ability to "keep it together"—to be efficient, focused, and results-driven even in stressful circumstances. What no one sees is what’s happening internally: the constant calculating of how to be okay without having to feel things that are uncomfortable. You probably learned early that performing well earned you safety, connection, or at least some distance from emotional chaos. Maybe you had a parent who flew off the handle or another who collapsed under stress. So you became the fixer, the responsible one, the “good” kid. The one who takes care of others. The "old soul". Over time, this becomes your identity: the one who can hold it all together. You’ve built your life, and probably a good deal of success, on that ability. So it makes sense that you’d try to apply that same strategy to your emotional life. You think, if I can just do better, achieve more, or control more, I won’t have to feel this. And it actually works... for a little while.

Outperforming Your Emotions is a Short-Term Strategy with Long-Term Costs

When you're in “just get through it” mode, suppressing your emotions can feel productive. Maybe you throw yourself into work when you’re anxious. Maybe you overfunction in relationships to avoid feeling unwanted or disconnected. Maybe you self-improve your way out of feeling insecure. The dopamine hit from checking something off the list or crushing a deadline gives the illusion of emotional resolution. But underneath, the feelings are just getting stockpiled. They don’t disappear; they collect interest. And they come back when you least expect (or want) them to. Eventually, the system breaks down: You become irritable, snapping or lashing out at loved ones, or shut down for reasons you can’t explain. You feel increasingly exhausted, like you’re running on fumes but can’t stop. You lose touch with what you actually want, not just what you’re supposed to do. You feel successful but unfulfilled. Productive but resentful. What once worked to keep you afloat now weighs you down.

Why You Learned to Avoid Emotional Discomfort

If no one ever taught you how to safely feel things, you probably subconsciously came to the conclusion that emotions were either dangerous or useless. Maybe your parents didn’t ask how you felt because they didn’t know how to handle their own emotions. Maybe they expected you to be “fine” all the time, praised you for being “mature” at age 9, and minimized or quickly dismissed anything that looked like vulnerability. So now you minimize your own emotions. Or maybe no one noticed your emotions because you were too busy taking care of everyone else. You were the helper, the peacekeeper, the achiever. When no one teaches you that emotions matter, you assume they’re a liability - or worse, you begin to believe your emotions aren't important or valid. 

Here are a few core reasons high achievers avoid emotional discomfort:

• You equate emotions with weakness or vulnerability. Especially if you were praised for your strength and composure growing up.

• You fear losing control. If your emotional world feels unfamiliar or chaotic, you’d rather not go there at all.

• You’ve been emotionally neglected. This doesn’t mean your parents were bad people—but they likely lacked the skills to model emotional attunement and regulation.

• You use busyness to numb your feelings. Productivity numbs it just enough to avoid sitting still with yourself.

Here’s the hard truth: not all “success” is healthy. Sometimes it’s actually just a trauma response hiding behind a tailored suit. Working harder, achieving more, taking care of everyone else—these aren’t just habits. They’re defenses. High functioning, socially acceptable defenses, but defenses nonetheless. They keep you from feeling grief you never processed, anger you were never allowed to express, loneliness and resentment under all the people-pleasing, shame for not being “enough,” no matter how much you achieve. And here’s the thing: because these patterns look good from the outside, no one calls you out on them. You’re respected, relied on, and often envied. But inside, you’re anxious, disconnected, and wondering, is it always going to be this way?

The Real Cost of Emotional Avoidance

Trying to outrun your feelings eventually shows up in all the places you don’t want it to. Your relationships suffer because you don’t know how to express your needs—or even identify them, so distance and resentment builds between you others. Your partner starts to feel like a roommate, your friendships feel superficial because while others come to you with problems, you never go to them to talk about your struggles. Your body suffers because living with chronic stress wears down your immune system and interferes with sleep. You feel like you're never good enough because your sense of self-worth is tied to your productivity, so when you feel you're missing the mark (even if no one else has said so) - you question your worth and value. You may find yourself overfunctioning in every role—parent, partner, friend, leader—while quietly resenting everyone who doesn’t notice how much you’re carrying. 

You can’t think your way out of your emotional life. You can’t schedule it into submission. You can't perform your way out of it. The part of you that wants to optimize, fix, or hack your way through discomfort is actually terrified of slowing down enough to feel. But that’s where healing happens. In order to break the cycle of outrunning and outperforming your feelings, you need to learn how to sit with hard feelings without immediately trying to fix it. You need to learn to identify how you are feeling instead of just dismissing it. You need to learn how to express your emotions in ways that are helpful and allow you to get your needs met. And finally, as scary as it is - you have to work on letting go of the identity that says you are only valuable because of what you can do for others. This isn’t easy work. But it’s necessary if you want to have fulfilling and connected relationships, and a career that isn't just defined by how quickly you can climb to the top.

Here's The Good News: You Can Have A Fulfilling Life

...without sacrificing yourself, your career, or your relationships. A lot of high achievers secretly believe that slowing down emotionally will make them lose their edge. That if they stop outperforming their feelings, they’ll unravel or become less effective or worse, that their feelings will be so overwhelming they will never stop crying, never stop being angry, lonely, etc. 

But the truth is, the more emotionally honest and self-regulated you are, the more sustainable your success becomes. You also become more present in your relationships, more attuned to what you actually want, and less reactive to the world around you. You don’t need to abandon your ambition. You need to pair it with emotional fluency. That’s what makes high performance sustainable.

Ready to Stop Performing and Start Feeling?

If this hit a little too close to home, you’re not alone—and you’re not broken. You’ve just been running a strategy that worked until it didn’t. It’s time to build a new one.

If you're ready to stop trying to outperform your feelings and start building a fulfilling life, I invite you to work with me. I specialize in helping high achievers break the cycle of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and anxiety.

We’ll go beyond surface-level coping tools and get to the root of why you feel stuck—even when everything looks “fine”, because you deserve to feel something better than fine. Schedule a consultation here (CO residents only).

DISCLAIMER: This blog is for educational and entertainment purposes only; it is not therapy and is not a replacement for therapy. Reading this website does not constitute a provider-client relationship. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency, call 911 or 988. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. See website disclaimer for more information.