Hey, hey, hey, everybody. Wanda Thibodeaux here, your host, and you’re listening to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast for Christian professionals where every dancer cha-chas to get your faith and work aligned. If you’ve been feeling the pressure to fill a case with trophies or other kinds of awards, I’m telling you today — you ain’t gotta be doin’ all that. You’re gonna get clarity on why achievement is way different than accomplishment to keep your work focused and fulfilling. It all starts…now.

When I was way back in, I think it was the fourth grade, the teacher I had — his name was Mr. Lang. And Mr. Lang just so happened to oversee the spelling bee that our school had. And he’d told us about the spelling bee and was trying to get the kids interested in trying it. And I remember there was this day when he brought this big box into the classroom, and he started to take out all these trophies. And he wasn’t, like, trying to get our hopes of winning the whole spelling be up too high, because it was usually a kid in the older grades who won. But he pointed out to us, you know, if you’re the last one standing from your grade, here’s the trophy you can win. And maybe this just shows how much of a geek or nerd I am, but right then I was like, yes, I’m in. I gotta win that.

But I tell this story to start the show for two reasons. And first, it was really, I think, the first really memorable time when I remember an adult in my life so blatantly promoting this idea of do something to get something. And it was really framed as this totally positive thing, where the teachers really went out of their way to show kids they could essentially level up. You know, maybe as a fourth grader, I just get the small trophy. But the better I do each year, that trophy is gonna get bigger and bigger. And at the time, as a kid, I didn’t know any better, and so as soon as I figured out that there was all of this positive attention around achievement, I totally latched onto it. And all of a sudden, there I was, trying to excel in everything. And it all got really perfectionistic, and even now, here I am in my 40s, and I’m still having to self-correct and tell myself it’s OK to slow down and breathe and not be so defined by everything I do. So, it’s an example that these influences really can influence your whole life. They’re not just this passing thing when it comes to your decisions or work-life balance or any of that stuff. But the second reason I tell that story is because I want to point out that most of us are conditioned at a pretty early age to accept that achieving is one of the ways we can stand out and get a sense that we’re solid or secure. And that is super important, because it means that when we get into the workplace, we are already in the mentality that we should be working really hard to achieve and get the awards, whether those awards are, you know, a promotion, maybe a kudos in a team meeting, whatever it is. And we’re taught that it’s not OK to just be at the level we’re at. We always have to be advancing and trying to compete, even if we’re only competing with ourselves.

Now, to that point, a couple of months ago, I came across this article by Martin Moran. He’s the lead designer at Bennett Day School. And he was very clear that the school system is set up for all this conditioning and how it’s actually really disengaging, because it sets people up to try just because they think the tangibles might help them someday. But what really struck me was how clearly he differentiated between achievement — or, you know, getting the award or trophy — and accomplishment. He said, and I quote, “While achievements are typically associated with tangible outcomes and external validation, accomplishments embody personal growth, resilience, and the fulfillment of one’s intrinsic goals.” But this is where it gets really interesting, OK? So, there was another article in The Atlantic by Olga Khazan. And she was noting how the coaching industry has ballooned. And she made two big observations, the first being that, to this achievement idea, people are looking to coaches to transcend normal. Being normal isn’t even seen as acceptable anymore, so people are hiring all these people hoping to be better and achieve the maximum they can, more than anybody else. But her second observation was that, as our social connections have gotten weaker, coaches essentially have taken on the role friends used to have, where people are paying the coaches thinking they’ll get better advice, and the friends are pushed to the back burner where interactions are more superficial.

So what I want you to take from all of this is that people have a real desperate need to connect. And they’re using coaches to do this, but they’re looking to achievement to essentially substitute for the real affirmation they would have if they were able to form more intimate relationships. If you’re familiar with the idea of the looking glass self from sociologist Charles Cooley, that’s the idea that we naturally are gonna look to each other to get feedback and gain a sense of who we are. But doing that well takes time. And today, you know, nobody has the time for real intimacy. So, rather than just connect based on authenticity, based on who they really are, people look to other people and say, “Let me find what they approve of. Let me do whatever they like and achieve according to their preferences so then they’ll like me.” Dr. Carl Nassar, he went into depth about this in an article for Psychology Today.

But why is this all so dangerous from the Christian perspective? Because when you are focused on external validation through achievement, you can stop thinking about making a real difference based on the spiritual gifts God gave you. You don’t think about the grand purpose He has for you, because you’re too busy just trying to get approval, trying to get the next hit of affirmation that makes you feel like you’re safe and OK. So, when we talk about passion and being willing to suffer for the glory of God, the tolerance just isn’t there anymore the way it should be, because you don’t have this concept that what you’re doing is connected to this grand picture of eternity. You’re focused on the goal of feeling good in the moment, not the goal of communing with God and saving other people by telling them who He is. You’re looking to people to give you a sense of security when you should be looking to God. It’s security but in the completely wrong place. And everything is so centered around your own ego that you can’t be humble and really love your neighbor, because everything is always about being first and leveling up. You can’t open yourself to letting God take the wheel, and you’re not open to the change that God wants to make happen in you. And let me tell you, I’ve still got a long ways to go in my career, but I’ve seen what happens when people become validation addicts. They break every rule God has. They will lie and cheat and throw people under the bus, or they’ll work, you know, an astronomical number of hours a week and become total strangers to their families and the friends they had. That last one, oh my goodness, was that my vice.

So, if you think about achievement, that’s all pragmatic. It’s all about doing, about leveling up and getting recognized. But if you think about accomplishment, that’s all visionary. It’s all about purpose and service and making a difference. And when you put that in the Christian context, every one of us should be asking ourselves how we can bring greater meaning into the world, how we can be satisfied not just for the moment, but for the long term. What are we delivering to the world that’s going to make people have hope and peace, to make them want to be a little kinder to each other or, like Daniel proclaimed, that there is, in fact, a God? If you want to get a little everyday with this, maybe some of you have seen that Mel Gibson film, Braveheart. But one of the greatest and most quoted lines out of that film is that every man dies, but not every man truly lives. What are you doing to really at the end of your life say, “My days on this planet were not wasted”? That you don’t have regret? Accomplishment is all the stuff that, when God looks at you, He can say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” It’s not the stuff you can put on a shelf or on your resume. And we have to be extra careful and vigilant to ensure that we are guarding our hearts about this. Because the world is so good at convincing us that achievement is going to solve all of our problems, that it’s the road to acceptance and success and that it’s gonna protect us from everything we’re afraid of. And the minute that we believe that lie, the minute that we think we can achieve our way to safety and love and even salvation by our own merit, we’re not really trusting and looking to God anymore. You achieve to crow about and protect yourself, but you accomplish to give glory to the Lord knowing He’s already got you, and those two things could not be more different.

To tie all of this together, what I think you’ll find is that, the more you try to accomplish, the more you will naturally achieve without even really trying. You will naturally level up and get the awards because your character and integrity will build opportunities for you. You will stand out because the spiritual gifts and talents you have will be creating real change and influence around you.

Let’s go ahead and pray to close out the show.

Lord, you know that, for most of my life, achievement was my thing. And it was my thing because just like Khazan notes is true for so many people now, I didn’t know how to connect. I didn’t know I could just be. So, my prayer today is that you’ll shake people up and let them know just how unique and worthy and filled with purpose they really are. Put them on a collision course with each other and make sure they crash in the best way, because Your Word tells us we are stronger and less easily broken when we’re together. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

That’ll do it, everybody. Next episode, I’m gonna be taking a deep look at King David. Like a lot of leaders out there today, he screwed up in some pretty big ways. So, what was different about him that let him succeed despite all his blunders? That’ll drop in two weeks. Until then, as always, be blessed.