‘Everything we were taught about success is wrong’: how to find true fulfilment in your life and career

Made good life choices yet still feel dissatisfied? A life coach suggests an alternative way to look at our goals and aspirations to find more positive outcomes

Author Annie Dillard wrote that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”. So, how was it that I spent a large portion of my 20s terrified of the big, long life I had before me? After Stanford University, I’d moved to New York to work at Google but I was depressed, anxious.

When I realised that many brilliant and accomplished people were also secretly miserable, just trying to make it through the day, I looked for terminology to describe this, but there was none. So I came up with my own: the underfulfilled overachiever, or UFOA. This describes a constant striver who is living a great‑on‑paper life, yet feels disconnected from their work, life and self. UFOAs see success as the organising principle of our lives. We call it by a catchy name: hustle culture. We brag about our intense busyness. Side hustles are a badge of honour. Going “above and beyond” in our jobs is routine. Our primary purpose, unabashedly, is achievement.