Episode 38: How to De-center Success From a High-Achieving Therapist Identity with Bisi Gbadamosi

Welcome back to Your Clinical Supervisor’s Couch podcast. And I’m your host, Kayla Das.

In today’s episode, Bisi Gbadamosi, licensed mental health counselor will share how to decenter success from a high achieving therapist identity.

Hi Bisi, welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Yes. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Bisi. Before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your practice and supervision journey.

Sure. I am Bisi Gbadamosi. I am a licensed mental health counselor in Florida. I work with high achieving women who secretly struggle with self-doubt, and within that I specialize in women of color, Christian women, racial trauma, and religious trauma.

So when we’re defining like a high achieving therapist, what does this mean and why do you think that many therapists identify with this label in particular?

A high achiever is someone who is very determined and focused on their goals and their accomplishment to the point where it gets tied into who they are as a person and is core to their identity.

It’s less about perfection and more about just an internal drive to continue doing well and showing up. Perfection can creep in when it’s an unhealthy high achiever, but that’s not the core of being a high achiever.

I think this fits so many therapists because a lot of us are in the field because they want to help others and we just want to do the best we can with supporting people. And oftentimes this shows up from even childhood in some way.

Like you may not have known you wanted to be a therapist when you were a child, but for a lot of my clients, when they look back into their childhood or like teen years, you could see that they were really striving, not even necessarily academically, but they were just really goal oriented and it felt true to them to have something that they were often aiming for.

What are some signs that a therapist may have tied their self-worth very closely to their success or accomplishments?

That’s where kind of that perfectionist piece can come in an unhealthy, high achiever. So things like being overly critical of yourself, not having a very high tolerance for human mistakes. Those high self expectations because you feel like you should be able to do better than what you’re doing in the moment. Even if it’s not realistic, they might struggle with saying no or take on too many projects for themselves.

And so it’s just an err of really overextension with the therapist who are too closely intermingled with their success.

So what are some practical ways therapists can set start separating their worth from their productivity or accomplishments?

I would start with really even assessing to see if it’s realistic what you want for yourself, because you might say, oh, I want to accomplish this and that. But when you’re in those things, do you feel at peace? Do you even like the way you are moving through life? If not, we really need to get honest with ourself and start at least having realistic goals, including stress reducing practices. So something that is maybe not even something you’re good at, but something you just enjoy doing so that there’s not that accomplishment piece to it.

And really just letting yourself do things for the fun of doing it. If you find yourself gamifying it or making a checklist out of it. We’re kind of off track and we need to get back to a place where we can slow down and ask for help and let ourself rest without feeling that kind of guilt that nags at us when we’re slowing down a little bit.

Absolutely. And so how can therapists begin to build a sense of identity that exists outside of their professional success?

I would say community is a huge piece with this. Being a high achiever does demand a lot out of you, and sometimes our relationships go on the back burner or get placed to the side. And so we really need to make sure that we are connecting with people who are not going to place more expectations on ourselves, but letting us just exist. And so whether that looks like a hobby or trusted friend and family really leaning into that, especially when you’re starting to feel like you’re lacking that peace.

Actively search out the things that have previously brought peace to you and see if maybe that can be a good place for you to start reincorporating some things.

As you’re speaking it makes me think of burnout. And this goes perfectly into my next question, which is, what does a healthier and more balanced therapist identity look like in practice, especially as it relates to maybe burnout in practice.

Yeah, burnout. Unfortunately, it does go hand in hand with a high achiever who is struggling. Not to say every high achiever is, but often we are. And so when we do take the time to be healthier within ourselves and be more balanced, we’ll see that. Yeah, we might be tired after a day of working, but we’re still gonna feel energized. We’re not drained and dragging ourselves to the next piece of our day. We’re able to engage better with our clients. And even outside of that, just the people around us.

And I often see creativity to come back in. Like you get to work on things because you want to and not out of habit or expectation. And that’s one of my most favorite things when I see someone who’s getting more balance is there’s like hope and joy back in them.

I love that. Bisi you offer therapy services. Can you tell us about your services and who might be a good fit to work with you?

Absolutely. So currently I’m licensed in the state of Florida, hoping to add in some other seats to that. Typically, I work with high achievers, and so that doesn’t necessarily need to be work related. It might be showing up in other ways, but if you know that you’ve always just had this driven personality about you, and maybe you’re just in a place where everything looks good on paper, but you feel like something’s still wrong and that’s leading to you to question your decisions or feel as though you’re not on the right path or you can’t do anything. Those are typically the people who are drawn to me.

A lot of times there’s some underlying things going on, maybe some childhood stuff or cultural beliefs, religious beliefs, mixing into it, which is where some of my trauma informed practices come into play too.

But typically, if you’re looking at yourself and you’re like, I don’t understand what’s wrong. I’m doing everything the right way, those are usually the people who are the best fit for me.

Perfect. So to connect with Bisi, head to mindful-blooms-counseling.com,

Or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on the link.

Bisi Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss how to decenter success from a high achieving therapist identity.

Thank you for having me. It’s been so fun.

And thank you everyone for tuning into today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on your Clinical Supervisors coach podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.