So, in the medical field, it’s well known that surgery subspecialities are very hard to get into–that is, you must do extremely well on standardized tests and have a broad and deep knowledge base to land a position.
And, I was discussing with a friend how most surgeons are also in absurdly good shape, like clearly hit the gym several times a week if not every day, and look like they eat well, whatever doing that requires.
Many of them, in their off time, are very avid athletes or outdoorsmen. Basically, they don’t spend their time off vegging around the house.
Finally, these residencies are known to have the most brutal training programs in terms of hours required–easily 80 hrs/week max, and more if there weren’t legislation prohibiting it.
I’m sort of in awe of people like this. Just doing daily activities and studying and barely exercising, etc, makes me exhausted. How do people have mental and physical energy to work hard and play hard?
Is their sleep more restful than average, so they need less of it? Are they more efficient with their time? Do they have higher amounts of seratonin, dopamine neurotransmitters than your average bear, meaning they get more chemically based energy (similar to if they were always on cocaine)? Do they run themselves down at an early age and collapse by 45?
Apparently, a lot of high achievers do need less sleep. My cousin - a jogging cardiologist - is really good at multitasking. He reads on the treadmill, for instance. He’s also fairly “naturally fit” and - to help with that - is a healthy eating vegetarian. And he does very little that doesn’t add significant value to his life - he works, he spends time with his family, he moderately engages in his hobbies. When he was single, his meals were quick and easy. In med school and residency, he didn’t go to movies, read for recreation, or see many friends. Before he married, he had a bed, a card table, a card chair and a recliner (for lounging) in a studio apartment. His few clothes (he wore scrubs 80 hours a week) were in milk crates and sent out to be laundered.
In other words, there was little extraneous in his life during those years. At the end of his residency he married, and then started adding on the extras - like kids and hobbies.
Every overachiever I’ve ever known has a single, overwhelming trait of ambition, to the point where they pretty much ignore anything the rest of us call personal relationships.
They may be married, but the success of the marriage comes from a spouse who accepts that she or he is always going to take a back seat to career and is willing to take care of things in return for wealth/status/reflected glory that comes from such an arrangement.
It’s drive more than any physical characteristic that the overachiever has. If they want something bad enough, they go for it, and damn everything else.
I see what you’re saying with regards to neglecting personal relationships, however, for the high achievers I know, it seems like at least they make it a point to take care of their health and appearance. So they at least make concessions for that.
Also, many of them do seem to spend what little free time they allot themselves w/ very fun, exciting pasttimes–either athletic/outdoors in nature or going out to status-y, high-end lounges and clubs, etc.
Sounds like you should become a dermatologist or a pediatrician; something not very hard.
From a family of a few surgeons, my mom being the closest one to me.
Is their sleep more restful? Um, dunno. They are wildly efficient with their time. My mom can barely sit still; I can’t tell you the last time she saw a whole movie from start to finish. Whether its her real estate business or operating, she’s always busy. One of my dad’s secretaries retired and she literally took over that woman’s work (a 30 hour a week job) without blinking an eye; it maybe takes her 8-10 hours/week. She operated the day she had me; her water broke shortly after she left the OR.
My mom drinks a shitload of coffee, but the best way to describe her is “high on life”. When she was diagnosed with a pretty slow thyroid, she was sleeping 8 hours a night. She rarely sleeps more than 6, when she was in her 40’s it was more like 5.
She is a born multitasker. Her memory is incredible. When I was young she easily worked 80+ hours/week and was still around at nights and on weekends. She’d head back to the hospital and do paper work/rounds at night.
4)She’s also a workout nut. Even after she hurt her back, she just switched from running/elliptical to yoga/pilates/resistance band exercises.
They are competitive about EVERYTHING. She never let us win at game as kids, though she was always gentle and kind about it. She’s competitive about Scrabble, ping pong, putting the groceries away, getting ready to go to dinner, you can’t even imagine.
When she was on bedrest while pregnant with my younger brother, she played video games all day while she called various friends of hers and relatives to talk all day. She completed somewhere north of 3 times her annual CME’s in a few weeks.
In short, they are superhumans. If you’ve got it, great. If you don’t, you simply don’t.
I will say that of my parents’ friends, lots of them are “healthy” crazy - they workout, garden meticulously, etc. Some are unhealthy crazy - blow through money, wives, and drink a lot. You’re probably only seeing the healthy crazy ones. There are plenty of unhealthy crazy ones, and yes, they do burnout or quiet down eventually. One of my parents close friends is on wife #4 and it might be his last. He hit on my mom while (ETA: knowing) she was married and while his own wife was pregnant.
You gotta have balls the size of Texas to do that shit.
That’s because you’re soft. And your daily activities probably consist of chores, studying crap you don’t really like and you probably not in particularly good shape.
The “overachiever” types you describe derive energy from the activities they are involved in - career, fitness, relationships and so on. Sitting around watching TV or playing videogames feels like a waste of time for them.
Think of all the people on this board who complain about crappy jobs or crappy relationships and otherwise crappy lives. Overachievers don’t want to live like that. They know what they want out of life and are willing to work hard to achieve it.
I wonder how one “becomes” like this if one isn’t inherently like this, or if that is even possible. I do think you’ve described something about these people, the “rush” that most of us get from a good lay or a new record time for a mile or losing 20 lbs is something these people get from every damn thing they do.
I wonder if it is a difference in neurotransmitters. I remember when I was on ritalin (dop/norep reuptake inhibitor) I was fucking love with EVERYTHING in life. Like, could not wait to get my day started.
I am in medical school, so I don’t think I’m super lazy, and while I used to run 45 miles/week, now I’ve cut it down to about 20, so yeah, not great shape. But I sooo want to be like these peeps.
It’s kind of odd that you would say that, considering derm. is the hardest residency to get into by far, much more so than most surgical specialties, and is actually intellectually extremely challenging. Every single nevus and mole and macule and plaque looks the same histologically, and some look very similar grossly, and some are life-threatening and others are benign.
The rest of the info you posted was useful though, so thanks for that.
My advisor is one of these people, as is another professor I’ve been working with. I’d say the one thing that they have in common–and about the only thing, in my experience–is that a) they love what they do and thus don’t get burned out at it and b) are fortunate enough that what they love to do is something that people will pay good money for.
In my case, I love discussing and playing video games. If, in some magical fantasyland where someone would pay me money to to that, I could easily “work” 80 hour weeks, no problem.
One of the aforementioned professors that I’m working with told me once, “You know, people say I have no life. Well, this [academics/research] is my life.” I think many highly successful surgeons/investors/professors/lawyers/nurses, etc., might feel similarly. The rest of us try to find jobs that we find rewarding, but not to the point of defining our lives by them.
I had the potential to be an overachiever, but I lacked strong focus.
I think a real successful overachiever has this strong focus AND a love of what they are doing. A 24/7 hour love of it.
When I was an IT manager, I NEVER touched a computer after work. It was too much of an overload. When I was an accoutning manager, I stopped balancing my checkbook.
It was too much. I like doing things well, but I like doing different things. My interests vary from day to day and from time to time.
I think it’s the FOCUS and the love of what they’re doing that makes the difference.
I have a friend like this. He keeps a log of what he does each day in fifteen-minute increments, and if he sees wasted time, he feels guilty. I think he’s just wired differently.
I suspect a lot of it is “flow”. This is the concept that we are most happy, and most energized, when doing tasks that challenge us but are ultimately within our ability. I suspect that the overachievers have found roles that put them in that sweet spot a lot of the time, such that it doesn’t even feel like work.
And if you love your job, working hard and playing hard is a snap, because they’re both fun.
Finally, if you’ve achieved things in the past it’s easier for you to focus on goals in the future. Whereas for people like me, who have a history of stumbling before the finish line, it becomes harder to imagine one’s efforts will be rewarded…
I know a hospital head of thoracic surgery. He’s always been athletic - climbed Mt. Everest when he was in his 40s. I’m not sure he’s great at interpersonal relationships though.
Having just been accepted into medical school, a few days ago, this discussion makes me scared. My thoughts reading this was:
“Oh, that’s not me, that won’t ever be me, nuh-uh…I’ll make an HUGE EFFORT to be laid back, and chilled, and non-intense at stuff…wait, that’s a bit counter-productive and oxymoronic…” And I begin to have doubts about the person I may become, because now that I think about it, I think I was an over-achiever. What if I end up alone, in an apartment, with just a cat who hates me to keep me company; a cat who may eat my corpse when I die?’ ::breathes heavily::
Then I realise, my extrapolations are wrong(science/methodology/correlation-causation fail), I haven’t even started school yet, let alone given thought to specialisation. Furthermore, I’ll have more than one cat.
Selection bias. My father’s best friend was a classic overachiever. In addition to being general manager of a very large TV station, he wrote 14 books, fiction and non-fiction.
He worked 10-12 hour days, came home, locked himself in his room and wrote. Every night. He did not have fun exciting pastimes, he only went out to business functions. He took care of his appearance because as an executive, he had to. His two passions were writing and making money. He attacked both of them with passion and was good at both of them, but not much else.
Oh, the residency is the hardest to get. But like you said, it is intellectually challenging. The day to day of being a dermatologist is absurdly easy; so it appears and so I’ve been told. Or, as one put it to me, “You can put your kids on the bus, go to the office, check out a few moles and do botox (get your PA to do anything acne-related) and get home to get the kids off the bus!”
The day to day of a surgeon is not just intellectually challenging; you have to make snap decisions and you have to have great physical stamina. You have to be an athlete to go without food, water, standing on your feet for 8 hours. Many of my parents’ colleagues were college athletes, my mom included.
So, it’s an easy gig once you get it. Just like radiology.
Sorry if my post was harsh, but you either have it or you don’t. It’s not a crime. I never wanted a life like that; that’s why I wanna do ortho. I have the “always on” personality my mom does but not the passion for purely working.
I wouldn’t waste time trying to be more like them, either. You can still make money, be a specialist, be fulfilled, and have a personal life. If you really are that cerebral, go onto research and never be in a hospital. I understand why you want to be like them - surgeons are the rock stars of the profession. But that doesn’t mean you should envy them.
ETA: I also disagree with the selection bias of kunilou. My parents have a great relationship; my mom was an involved mother. You sacrifice personal time but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Some people can and do “have it all”.
And your daily activities probably consist of chores, studying crap you don’t really like and you probably not in particularly good shape.