Ep 26: The Teenage Achievement Trap

Brandilyn Tebo, bestselling author of The Achievement Trap and a retreat leader and life coach, says it's important for parents to help teens develop a practice of unconditional self love. This episode is full of word-for-word scripts you can use to make it happen with your own teenager.

Full show notes

A fear of shame can be pretty darn motivating. We can place our teens’ worth in their accomplishments, like a carrot in front of a bunny rabbit, and get some impressive results from them. However, if they stumble and mess up, our teens will experience shame.

If our teenager’s sense of self-worth tied directly to their achievements, they might feel unworthy of love after falling short. When teens feel this shame, they can sometimes try to cope with dangerously self-destructive behavior. But if we don’t motivate our teens with an innate fear of shame, how can we be sure they’re inspired enough to achieve success on their own? Are there ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth that will inspire them to be successful?

I’m here with the amazing transformational coach, Brandilyn Tebo, to provide the answer!

I was definitely eager to hear if she knew some ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth. Brandilyn is the author of The Achievement Trap: The Overachiever, People-Pleaser, and Perfectionist’s Guide to Freedom and True Success. She believes everything we do should be a joyful form of self-expression, and not a fearful form of self-justification. She travels the world teaching empowerment workshops to high schools, prisons, colleges, and Fortune 500 companies. Her website features a blog, and a podcast, and all of her knowledge is backed by research!

The Achievement Trap

The idea that you’re only good enough by virtue of your accomplishments is what Brandilyn calls The Achievement Trap.

The Achievement Trap tells us that being worthy of love is not our birthright. It’s a belief that Brandilyn finds highly objectionable, because as social creatures, humans need to feel loved. She wants all of us, especially teens, to learn that we are worthy of love regardless of our level of success.

When pursuing ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth, parents need to identify their own self-esteem issues that’ve been passed on to their offspring. Brandilyn explains that the Achievement Trap is an inherited belief system that parents pass on to future generations, mainly out of love! This is because parents believe that if they ignore the value of success when pressuring their children, then their kids will fail to make anything with their lives. She understands this parental fear, that kids will be unhappy and unfulfilled if they are not motivated to be successful.

It’s so easy to believe that the best ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth are through pressure tactics. If your teen isn’t pressured to get straight-As, doesn’t that mean they will be less likely to have success and happiness? This isn’t what Brandilyn believes. A perfect report card is not the best predictor of success, and it’s a terrible predictor of happiness.

Choosing Who You Want to Be

Yes, there are worthy benefits to having academic success. However, Brandilyn is confident that straight-As can be a byproduct of a healthier goal, and not the goal itself. There are ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth free from the fear of failure.

Brandilyn believes that in order to find ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth, we need to teach them to choose who they want to be in every moment. Teens need to know that they don’t have to get straight-As to prove they value their education. They can choose to be a curious learner regardless of the results.

One of the most effective ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth is to teach them that results don’t actually matter. Results are irrelevant to how teens perceive themselves. In fact, Brandilyn points out that if you are being who you want to be “in the moment,” then the results will show up. If a teen chooses to be a curious learner, they will probably learn and get a good grade.

This might sound like wishful thinking, but this alternative idea to The Achievement Trap is what Brandilyn’s research and teaching is all about!

The “Secret to Happiness”

Brandilyn swears that ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth begin with a simple idea. She says the idea of being committed to something and simultaneously unattached to the results is the “secret to happiness.” But how do you learn to be unattached to the results of something you’re committed to?

There’s nuance between being committed to your teen get straight-As, and ensuring your teen values learning. When your commitment is to a perfect report card, both you and your teen will feel ashamed when they come home with a B. When the commitment is to the learning itself, though, you will both have the freedom to address the sub-perfect report card free of shame!

Among the most valuable ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth is refraining from placing too much importance on grades. If you criticize your teen for getting a B, they might be more motivated to get an A, but that is different from being more motivated to learn. If your teen is afraid of the shame of a B, what’s to stop them from cheating to get the A? If your commitment is instead to the value of learning, then the B means something totally different! Instead of the grade being a failure, it becomes an opportunity to grow. You can say:

“Hey, nice work. I can see you’re learning. What might you do differently to learn more next semester? What is hard to learn about this subject?”

This detaches the grade from the child’s sense of self-worth. It still emphasizes that learning is important, but it does so without attacking your teen as a bad learner. If you are unattached from the idea of a perfect report card, you have the freedom to be curious about what your teen is struggling with. You can inspire your teen to overcome obstacles by reinforcing their identity as a good, curious learner.

To free ourselves up to have these conversations and find ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth, Brandilyn notes an important step that parents ought to consider…

Sourcing the Fear

Brandilyn explains that we’ve all been programmed to motivate ourselves through fear and shame. We are taught them as supposedly proven ways to help teens build a sense of self-worth. She believes that as a parent, though, the best thing you can do is look within yourself. In what ways are you still holding onto beliefs about The Achievement Trap?

Your kids are going to be affected by your behavior around this belief system. It’s important to look out for ways they’re picking up leftover beliefs about The Achievement Trap, and addressing them. The best question you can ask, according to Brandilyn, is:

“Who are you afraid of losing love from?”

For example, if your child comes home crying because he or she got a C on their report card, ask that question. Often, it does have to do with the parents. Your child might be a...