The 5 Achiever Types. What’s Your Lifestyle like?

By John Allen Mollenhauer  "JAM", Performance Lifestyle® Coach
What Does Your "Achiever Type" Have to Do With Your Lifestyle—Your Energy, Your Overall Health, and Performance?  Everything!
Over many years, both personally and professionally, I have experienced first-hand how our lack of understanding of human performance has given way to an unhealthy relationship with work and achievement.  And then, often desperate attempts to overcome a poor sense of self, fatigue, weight gain, and mental and physical health complications that result from the excessive stress of a flawed approach. 

The way to change all that is to understand what your achiever type is by identifying the characteristics of each stage and phase, resolving, and evolving them, and ultimately optimizing your lifestyle to become a healthy, high-achieving person who thrives. 
I talk more about how I've navigated these issues, discovered the idea of living a performance lifestyle step by step over the past 20+ years, and started sharing the fundamentals with others here. 

​But for now, let me briefly describe The 5 Achiever Types, each of which can reveal your lifestyle.  
Remember that no one is exclusively one achiever type all the time, as you may have aspects of all types going on at various times due to changing circumstances and opportunities for development. The idea is to learn how to stay in the domain of the healthy high achiever who achieves their goals (no matter how small or big) and thrives. There is much to say about each achiever type, but here are some basic definitions. 

The Potentialite: No clear lifestyle or goals 

The Potentialite is the primary achiever type because everyone starts as a Potentialite and may revert to this mode at one time or another. You can also enter this stage later in life if you start over, enter a new career, make significant changes, and the like. Indeed, this is the stage we all go through from the beginning. Potentialites have "yet" to establish a lifestyle based on the fundamentals that will enable them to achieve clear goals they are living and working towards. Establish means to set up (an organization or system) on a firm or permanent basis. 

How does this apply to you? It means, regardless of where you are, you must learn the lifestyle mindset and skillsets—principles, practices, and strategies that keep your life force energy strong, your body healthy and free of lifestyle-induced diseases, so you can perform well to achieve goals that also need to be clarified. Are your goals clear? We all have Potentialite in us, but for some, this is their primary domain. 

The Grinder: Only aspects of your lifestyle are established, and no true goals beyond making a living.  

In this stage, you are industrious and diligent in carrying out tasks or duties; you're a hard worker who works at a specific occupation, even if it's hard or dull work. Everyone had to grind periodically, but this is the status quo for some of us, and we do it all day. You are contending with a lot during periods of grinding, as you don't have much control over your time, so you need to make sure you are up to the task and have the plan to mitigate excess stress, which means excessive energy expenditure. If you do, you can avoid wearing out prematurely.  
Many of us are grinders in the earlier stages of lifestyle transformation and optimization; we have bills to pay and a living to make, and we're just exploring the world. We're also proving ourselves and are more than excited to do so in something new we're engaged in. But staying here forever can mean many of your needs, dreams, and aspirations will be unmet. This situation can change when you understand the fundamentals of a Performance Lifestyle, fill in your gaps, and get busy living and working towards clear goals that elevate you.   

The Overachieving Underperformer: Your Lifestyle is more developed, but you've got too many goals, which compromises your capacity to achieve them. 

This achiever type is not a stage of lifestyle transformation and optimization, but a "phase" many of us go through, and it can last for a while. In this phase, you've been grinding for a time, the energy output is high, and you've got access to a lot of information and opportunity, but you are hitting a paradox. It's when you've got so much going on you are barely hanging on, and the busier you get, the less time you have to take care of yourself, your body, and your life. 
You've lost focus, have too many goals, or taken on too much, too fast. And given that "human performance" cannot be confused with getting things done or productivity, both of which are outcomes, chances are your performance is suffering. 

The High Achiever: Has an established lifestyle and clear goals (not too many), and they're achieving them, but they're ambivalent about many aspects of their lifestyle, and it's still costing them energy and compromising their health. 

High achievers are ambitious, goal-focused, self-disciplined individuals driven by a strong desire to accomplish meaningful, important goals. But the “high achiever's" mindset is often so focused on results that they can still compromise their energy, health, and performance despite being highly successful. 
 
High achievers have a mindset and skill sets that the other achiever types still need to develop, and they understand that you need a smart approach to achieve at higher levels. However, they are still ambivalent (on both sides of an issue) and are willing to risk burnout and engage in a pseudo-healthy approach to goal achievement. 
 
High achievers who have yet to make that next step up to living optimally often cost themselves their sustainability and longevity. Still, they are right there and can shift to becoming healthy high achievers who thrive with less effort than other achiever types. 
 
The Healthy High Achiever Who Thrives: Has alignment between life structure, a fully established lifestyle, and clear goals. They have Performance Lifestyles. 
​
A healthy, high-achieving person who thrives intentionally cultivates habits and behaviors supporting optimal physical and mental performance. They consciously prioritize habits and behaviors that enhance energy, focus, and productivity while promoting overall health and wellbeing. They incorporate a wide range of lifestyle practices, including regular exercise, a genuinely healthy diet, adequate sleep, stress management techniques, and other lifestyle strategies. 
 
According to psychologist Sarah Sarkis, they are also proactive around the number one, non-negotiable habit that sets successful people apart from everyone else. That is, they are proactive about recovery.  They develop a strong sense of purpose and meaning in their work and personal life and pursue activities and interests that provide a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. 

Healthy High Achievers live what is today called a Performance lifestyle which is especially important for individuals seeking to excel in their professional or athletic pursuits and those who want to optimize their daily performance and productivity.  By prioritizing habits and behaviors that support optimal performance, healthy high achievers can achieve greater success and satisfaction in all areas of life with an individualized approach based on their unique needs and circumstances.
​
So what's your achieve type right now; where do you see yourself on this spectrum? Know where you are and start there, intending to become a healthy high achiever who knows how to achieve even their most ambitious goals with their health and wellbeing intact and skip over a stage or phase you want to avoid getting caught up in. Doing so will immediately change how you achieve your goals and inspire you to develop a Performance Lifestyle you can call your own. You'll continue waking up to be successful. Only now you'll know that managing your energy like a pro in a lifestyle that promotes your health and elevates your performance will enable you to achieve those ambitious goals better than ever with a better quality of life.
 
Going from being "a grinder" to a healthy, high achiever is a transformation over time. The shift I hope you make as a takeaway from this article is moving away from the mindsets of all other achiever types to the philosophy around becoming a healthy high achiever who thrives. If that's what you want, check out the Performance Lifestyle® program.
 
About JAM
Performance Lifestyle Inc. is dedicated to training and coaching Men and leading women entrepreneurs, business owners, and professionals to go beyond being grinders, overachievers, and high achievers prone to tiring out, burning out, and feeling worn out become Healthy High Achievers Who Thrive. We help our clients live their true potential by regenerating, restoring their bodies, and learning to manage their energy like the pros do at the core of developing a Performance Lifestyle they can call their own.