Andy Malone The Achiever in Me
Strengthsfinder says that I am an Achiever. Achievers burn with an “internal fire” that drives them from goal to goal. The fire might dwindle after major accomplishments, but not for long. It soon flames up again, asking: What’s next? What more? Achievers must “learn to live with this whisper of discontent.” Ultimately, says Strengthsfinder, this whisper-fire is a gift. It keeps us moving, improving, and of course, achieving.
Strengthsfinder is far from alone in celebrating the Achiever. Countless texts examine what Achievers believe, how Achievers think, even how Achievers spend their mornings. In education, Achievers’ characteristics — belief, focus, discipline, drive — have garnered universal and uncomplicated acclaim. In the past decade, fervor around books like Angela Duckworth’s Grit and Paul Tough’s How Children Succeed have moved many schools to not only endorse Achiever traits, but also to instruct on and assess them. Mini-lessons and on goal-setting, obstacle prediction, and failure reflection abound.
This achievement orientation makes sense. We want our students to succeed. If we can discern the kinds of thoughts and actions that imbue goal achievement, why not share them? And why not teach them? It seems almost unethical not to. And so, increasingly, inculcating Achiever mindsets and habits seems a part of the educators’ job; and spreading the wealth of Achieverdom seems a core purpose of schooling.
But, in 2020, this may be changing. If my intuition is right, our profession is on the cusp of a deep interrogation of achievement and school. The burgeoning social-emotional learning movement makes a compelling demand that we reconsider our current vision for educational outcomes. It imagines graduates who are not only college and career ready, but also happy and healthy in their minds, bodies, and spirits. Moreover, the justice reckonings of 2020 are embarrassing the concept of meritocracy with overdue critique. Educators — especially white ones , including me— are beginning to see the problematic nature of teaching (and preaching) the virtue of Achiever mindsets and habits, pretending that “mastering” these “skills” will assure their students’ future success — when, in fact, systemic inequities will continue to play an outsized role in how true that it is, and for whom.
So, we face the question: Should we educate students to become Achievers?
I welcome the interrogation. As an educator, the question strikes me as important and pressing. But, as a Strengthsfinder-vetted Achiever, it also hits close to home. I have to start the interrogation from within.
***
I first met the Achiever-in-me at age 14. He had been around much longer than that, but I didn’t understand his power or his prominence until that summer before high school. Yes, I had been a hard-working student. I loved report card day, counting my As off thin paper that smelled of mimeograph. But I hardly seemed unique in that regard. Plenty of kids did all their homework and counted all their As.
Then, at 14, I began to count a lot more. Almost overnight, I started to count everything. Stairs. Tiles. Words. The counting soon morphed into bizarre but unshakeable routines: Blink three times at the Orange Juice before closing the fridge. Type the number 100 into your calculator before each quiz. Reread the last word of each paragraph before you turn the page.
I harbored these routines in private for months. My compulsions were so sudden and strange that I couldn’t find time to be bothered by them, let alone report them. I just lived with them. They were gentle, in a way. If I met their demands, they stepped aside, laying dormant until my next quiz or trip to the fridge.
I managed the routines until I began my summer reading homework. The blinking and the counting were slowing me down, big time. The Achiever-in-me began to protest. Already anticipating college applications, he was getting nervous. How was I ever going to make As in high school if I spent hours rereading paragraphs? Typing number strings into calculators? These senseless routines were putting my whole future at risk. Suddenly, their cost became way more apparent. I had to speak up and get help.
So I did. I described my routines to my mother and she ushered me to a cognitive-behavioral therapist. Dr. L was an intriguing woman with short, blonde-gray hair; layers upon layers of floral-print clothing; and loud socks in comfy black shoes. At our first session, Dr. L took a giant chocolate chip cookie from her desk, placed it on the Moroccan rug between us, and promptly crushed it with her right foot. She watched for my response. I was startled, but I feigned indifference.
Though this crushed cookie was a bizarre introduction to CBT, my weekly sessions with Dr. L proved a fantastic solve for my routines, which I learned to call compulsions. The formula seemed simple enough: I told her when, where, and how frequently my compulsions happened. Then, each week, we picked one compulsion to quit. The next week, I’d report back on how it went.
Through these homework assignments, I became much better acquainted with the Achiever-in-me. It was inconceivable to him that we would return to Dr. L with an unmet goal. So, following each session, he stepped up and thwarted the target routine. Immediately. He was fierce, surgical, and unapologetic. It was exhilarating to watch him work. In just a few weeks, the once-mighty compulsions became passing whispers, powerless and irrelevant.
A few months later, my Achiever was ready for his next challenge. It was a big one, quite literally: I was done being fat. I had been fat for a long time, since first grade. And for a long time, it had not really bothered me. I made use of it, actually: won plenty of friends by cracking fat jokes and telling fat stories, all at my own expense.
But one morning, the spring of Freshman year, something changed. It was first-period gym class. I was huffing and puffing my way through the infamous mile run, bringing up the rear as the rest of the class, long finished, hung by the side of the track. An upperclassman left his crew and began jogging beside me, in what I thought was an incredible display of altruism. But soon enough, he slapped my ass, oinked at me, and returned laughing to his friends.
The next day, I began a diet. The Achiever-in-me was back in action. He found a Weight Watchers book and studied its point system, devising a foolproof daily regiment. Breakfast: cheerios. Lunch: half a turkey sandwich. Snack: grapes, one cup. This left plenty of overage for whatever Mom cooked for dinner. If we were lucky, we could squeeze in a 2-point raspberry sorbet bar for dessert.
We ran this regimen hard. The Achiever-in-me batted temptations far away, right away. There were no exceptions. Contrary to everything I had heard and feared and expected, my Achiever made losing weight unbelievably easy. He took years of indulgent and convenient eating and made a mockery of them. Not a single craving, not a single hunger pang. Three months later, I was sixty-five pounds lighter. A stunning achievement. Just like the OCD.
That Freshman year had been a tremendous rookie season for the Achiever-in-me. Sure, he had been around, doing homework and smiling on report card days. But the OCD and the diet fully awoke him, then fed him, then grew him, both announcing and fortifying his power. These early victories were inspiring. I was grateful to him, for what he had done for me. He pumped me with blinding confidence, motivation, and discipline. He showed me that I could best both my mind and my body.
What’s more, he filled me with excitement for the future. My Achiever had talents and ambitions beyond compulsion and weight management. I saw, in him, my potential to do truly special things someday. He seemed touched, gifted with the will and capacity for greatness. Whatever path I chose, I knew my Achiever would be there. He would sit beside me for 1000 watercolors; stand beside me for 1000 depositions; run beside me for 1000 crosscourt forehands. He inspired me to dream big.
But he scared me, too. Even then, I could sense that my achiever had a darkness to him. In his tendency to shut out the world; his ability to silence critics; his desire to win at all costs; he bred both confidence and fear. Like any strong-willed person, he did not listen well, and he was hard to control. I marveled and worried at who he might have me become.
From the beginning, then, I loved and I feared the Achiever-in-me.
Those early chapters turned out to be my Achiever’s most creative pursuits. The OCD and the diet were unique challenges, but the rest of high school was far more run-of-the-mill. My Achiever kept my heart set on the Ivy League, enrolled me in hard classes, maxed out my extracurricular list. He also sharpened my study skills and kept me from procrastinating, such that I could spend plenty of time with my friends, who I adored.
On December 11, 2003, our steady efforts paid off. Sitting at my friend Amanda’s wooden dining table, minutes before we were due at play rehearsal, I opened the email. I shrieked, then cried: I had gotten into Harvard.
Later on, I would better understand the bevy of systemic privileges that afforded me this moment. But at the time, I clung to it as my own. I shared it only with the Achiever-in-me. He had run me ragged, but the slog was so worth it. He had taken a wispy dream, which in so many moments felt beyond my reach, and he had made it real. I trusted and loved him more than ever.
The hours that followed felt cinematic to me. Amanda and I skipped rehearsal. After she drove me home to give my mom a quick hug, we headed to campus. There, I could find more friends, enjoy their hugs and congratulations, and prolong this moment.
One of the first people I set out to tell was my English teacher, Ms. Z. She had been a favorite. She was a no-frills kind of educator: with Ms. Z, you read, you talked, you wrote. But she didn’t need more than words: she loved them, she understood them, and she believed that we, too, could harness our own special relationship with language. My friends and I spent many lunch hours at her desk, reviewing drafts, discussing chapters, and trying to learn more about her approach to life, in the roundabout ways that teenagers do with the adults they admire.
I could only imagine how happy Ms. Z would be when I told her the big news. She was a fan of mine, as a student, writer, and person. She knew how hard I had worked. Plus, she had invested her own time and energy in the endeavor, writing my recommendation letter and helping to sharpen my personal statement.
Amanda and I found her at her desk, marking papers. She looked up, startled, as we barreled through the office door. “I got in!” I cried.
She surveyed for a moment, looked contemplative, maybe even hesitant. “Andy, congratulations. That’s great news.”
Great news? It was far from the reaction I had expected. Ms. Z was the first person who didn’t play cinema with me. She did not wave arms, did not shout, did not throw out superlative adjectives. I felt confused and a little bit hurt. But I was too protective of the broader moment to hang around this kernel of disappointment. “Thank you for everything,” I said, and Amanda and I carried on, back into the hallway, on the hunt for new celebrants.
Weeks later, after the high had (sort of) subsided, I began to wonder more about Ms. Z’s muted response. The Achiever-in-me was both mad and curious. He demanded to know more. What else was expected of us? Had Harvard not been a sufficient pinnacle?
So, at one of our lunchtime conferences, I asked Ms. Z about admission day:
“You seemed not so happy for me, about Harvard. And I was wondering if I was right about that, and if so — why?”
She registered exactly what I was talking about, but took her time in responding. “Of course, I’m very happy for you.” She paused. “But seeing your reaction, Andy, it was very intense. I could see how much Harvard mattered to you. And while I’m happy it went your way, and while I think you will do great things at Harvard…I’d want for you to know that you would also do great things at any number of colleges. Because you’re great. And that’s true, regardless of what Harvard says.”
At the time, Ms. Z’s response made little sense to me. At a literal level, I understood what she meant. I did not disagree. Yes, I would thrive at many colleges. Yes, Harvard wasn’t the be-all, end-all. But the feel of her logic seemed way off to me — and was a total affront to my Achiever. However true, her insights were rationalizations, the kind one generated to face failure and survive disappointment. Such sentiments had no place when reveling in victory. I thanked Ms. Z for clarifying and decided to keep Harvard out of our conferences moving forward.
It would take a lot more growing up to actually hear — let alone listen to — what Ms. Z had been trying to tell me. She saw the Achiever-in-me more fully: not as a trait, but as a shadow, a sidekick, someone present and powerful who lurked at my periphery, but not my core. There was Andy and there was his Achiever. The one was a curious learner, a creative artist, a kind friend; the other knelt at the altar of the Ivy League. For now, they coexisted. But Ms. Z was worried that my Achiever might grow in size and stature; might hunger for more of my time and energy; might bid for more real estate of my soul.
Her fears were not unfounded. At Harvard, my Achiever rowed strong and steady. He was never as loud or dazzling as he had been during that OCD-diet rookie season. Still, his stamina was impressive. A humming engine, he kept me honest paper after paper, exam after exam. I logged the hours needed to pluck straight As from my courses and to pick up a few extra accolades along the way.
I did make time outside of academics — the occasional party and play, slow meals and long walks with friends. I never lost my natural curiosity, and I loved the things I learned at Harvard. But there was always that line between studying to understand and to studying to achieve, and I always crossed it. I spent too many hours past the point of curiosity and comprehension, hedging for As, rereading essay drafts and crafting meticulous study guides. Looking back, I can say, definitively, that I regret the imbalances.
My senior year, the Achiever-in-me overstepped in memorable fashion. That semester, I had used one of my final elective credits to enroll in “The Art of the Screenplay.” Our professor was a real Hollywood writer, finding work during the 2008 strike. He led a supremely cool seminar. We dissected On the Waterfront and Erin Brokovich with canonical revere. Discussions were smart but casual, and overall, it was a laid-back and low-stress course.
But the Achiever-in-me went on high alert when our professor explained our two final paper options. Option A, creative: try your hand at writing the first 15 pages of a screenplay. Option B, conventional: write a 10-page analytical paper about one of the films studied in the course.
I was meant for option A. The Achiever-in-me was not my only sidekick; there was the Artist-in-me, too. He spent childhood at an easel and adolescence on stage. He continued to find ways to flourish, writing parody songs for friends’ birthdays and penning short stories when they came to him. I respected my Achiever, but I loved my Artist. My creativity was my most cherished trait, and I had always been someone to choose the creative option. And now, an opportunity to draft a screenplay for a Hollywood writer? It seemed a no-brainer.
But my Achiever stood tall. He urged me to reconsider. There was a non-negligible chance that my screenplay would suck. I had never attempted the genre before. I lacked a clear internal gauge for quality. What’s more, I had no clue what kind of scripts my professor might appreciate, or how he might grade them.
So, even though this was such a low-stakes circumstance — an elective course at the tail end of my college career — my Achiever struck fear in me and won out. I chose Option B, wrote my paper, and got my A.
The final class session was excruciating. Almost everyone else had chosen the creative option. As we read through their scripts, I could barely track the words on the page. I felt like a coward and a fake: a self-proclaimed creative who chose an easy grade over the slightest risk. With the last script, the cosmos sent salt for the wound: another senior, named Will, had written “Fat Andy,” the story of an obese high schooler on a quest to lose weight. It was crueler than fiction, to be presented with an innocent, unknowing theft of my own life’s most unique story. Of course, the professor loved it.
It has been tempting to let go of this memory; to diminish its significance to my story. But in truth, that 10-pager on Erin Brokovich lingers. When people ask if I have regrets, I think about that seminar table, full of original scripts, none of them mine. When I submitted that paper — handed the Achiever his victory — I departed, in small but certain steps, from the person I thought I was and the person I wanted to be. Kicking OCD, I had wanted that. Losing weight, I had wanted that. Harvard, I had definitely wanted that. But leaning away from the creative option, to play safe for a grade? I had never wanted that. Yet, I had chosen it.
This was, perhaps, what Ms. Z had prophesied and feared. She would have been surprised and disappointed in me. After all, it was in her class that I, uninvited, suggested we scrap the final paper for Antigone and design a mock trial for the heroine instead. I used to create the creative option. Now, I had run from it, into the safe and structured arms of an analytical essay. These sorts of choices, which shrank my Artist and grew my Achiever; these were the concessions that Ms. Z had been warning me about.
Following the Art of the Screenplay, my Achiever vs. Artist battle lay dormant for over a decade. After Harvard, I joined Teach for America and taught elementary school in the rural Mississippi Delta. Three years later, I moved back home to New York and looped up with its burgeoning charter school sector. My career accelerated quickly, and I became a principal in what seemed the blink of an eye.
It was an interesting time for the Achiever-in-me. I was working sensationally hard. I was up at dawn. I spent full days zipping in and out of classrooms. I labored full nights, pouring over student work and lesson plans in the dim light of an Upper-West-Side attic apartment. But I was very happy. I loved the work. Part of that joy, I think, was dedicating my Achiever to more noble and selfless ends. Rather than dropped pant sizes or unblemished GPAs, achievement now meant a quest to build and lead fantastic schools.
My vision for school was ambitious but holistic: vibrant cultures, happy and hard-working students, and yes, tip-top test scores. Fueled by this vision, my Achiever and I were bothered by lots of things in the best of ways. Drab bulletin boards, dull lessons, and subpar writing became equally activating forces, sparking action plans and team huddles. My Artist had his moments, too, performing songs and raps for special events, doodling surprise cartoon figures on whiteboards when no one was looking.
As a principal, I endorsed Achieverdom, personally and programmatically. I gave countless speeches about the importance of ambitious goals, the virtue of hard work, and the power of high standards. I designed advisory units focused on goal-setting and reflection. As my founding class approached college applications, I urged them to pull out all the stops: another SAT practice test, another personal essay draft. Trust me, I said. It will be worth it. It had been for me.
Most students in that class did get into their first-choice schools, with scholarships to boot. That December, watching the early decisions roll in — admit, admit, admit — was a window of unbelievable joy for me. As a principal, I had done an outstanding job. As a mentor, I had done great work too, for kids I cared deeply about. What my Achiever had shown to me, I had shown to them: that they, too, could achieve their goals, if they worked hard enough.
After that founding class graduated, an exciting opportunity came my way, and I left the principal seat. The transition has opened up a lot of space in my life. Even though I am still working full time, the hours I formerly spent on the immediacies of school — on the bulletin boards and lesson plans and staff meetings — are now more flexible and free. After an all-consuming decade, the time to think has found me. With that, an unwilling and overdue self-inventory has begun. For the first time in a long while, it feels, I am taking serious stock of my life and of myself.
This inventory has bothered and bolstered the Achiever-in-me. I’m seeing him again, more clearly than I have in years. He is so busy these days, trying to answer the questions that these unscheduled, less certain hours have raised: How should I spend my time? What do my choices say about the person I am? What choices will make me the person I hope to be? Like the OCD and the diet did in my youth, these questions have activated my mid-30s Achiever.
He’s been tough on me. As a principal, my Achiever had, per usual, worked me hard and accomplished a lot. But, untethered from classrooms and hallways, he’s been looking around at the rest of my life and feeling disappointed. School leadership had distracted him, flooded him with too many narrow and urgent goals. Now, he thinks we have not done enough. Weren’t we supposed to have accomplished more by our mid-30s? Invented something? Founded something? Written a book? He seethes, scrolling through social media streams, jealous at any life path that is not our own. My Achiever has even raised concerns on behalf of my Artist: in ten years, we have written, painted, and performed so little.
In the wake of these realizations — or judgments — my Achiever has sprung to action yet again, enacting a series of self-improvement projects. I’m writing daily. Learning Spanish. Tracking my workouts. Reading three books a month. I’ve also enrolled in a doctorate program, part-time. I built a Google sheet to mark off my daily progress in these pursuits. Thanks to the Achiever-in-me, I’m making up for time I didn’t know I lost and chasing goals I never knew I had.
***
Should we educate students to become Achievers?
Before I consider what to make of our students’ inner Achievers, I need to better understand the Achiever-in-me. My current thoughts about him remain tenuous and confused. Watching his recent work sparks both appreciation and fear.
I appreciate that he keeps me busy. He fills my days in ways that are substantive, engaging, and often joyful: I write, conjugate verbs, hit the court, and work on my lit reviews. In a deeper sense, I appreciate my Achiever’s vote of confidence. I feel, in his ambition, deep belief and fierce love. He thinks so much of me. He knows I have more to offer. That’s why he refuses to let me settle.
This side of an Achiever, I want for students. I want them to feel such certain belief and strong love; to reap the benefits of the resultant drive. To experience the fullness and the growth that an Achiever can bring.
Still, I fear the Achiever-in-me. He exhausts me. I sit on the couch for only five minutes before he begins to gnaw: What is this for? You’re already behind. He’s never satisfied. And he’s a bit of a gas-lighter. To let him tell it, you’d think I’ve done nothing with my life. Totally wasted my mortal minutes. He makes it so hard to rest. Hard to be grateful. Hard to be present.
As for his love: it feels strong, but not pure. He loves who I might become. He does not love who I already am. And I don’t know that I will ever be enough for him.
This side of an Achiever, I want to keep far away from students. I want no voices in their lives, let alone inner voices, to question whether they are enough. I look back on my best-effort speeches and my goal-setting templates, and I worry for the ways that I might have invited such critical voices in. Voices that might haunt them into their 30s, with no signs of slowing down. Voices like the Achiever-in-me.
The more I reflect, the more I realize that I cannot fully endorse or flatly reject Achieverdom, for myself or for others. As a person, and as a teacher, I find myself hoping, so sorely, for a middle ground.
I wonder what that middle ground might look like for the Achiever-in-me. I imagine that he’ll grow up a little. That he’ll stop tantruming, curb his jealousies, and soften his ego. That he’ll clarify what he really wants — not from me, but for us. That he’ll figure out what all of this achieving is really for.
As my Achiever works all of that out, I hope my practice will grow along with my person. I’d love to locate ideas and strategies for cultivating healthy inner Achievers in our students. The kind of Achievers who inspire diligence and dreams, but who do not grow too large, nor step too far.
This will be a different kind of initiative for my Achiever. It will require self-transformation and sacrifice. But I have reason to hope. He has yet to balk at a challenge. His track record, we know, is strong. Now, after so many years together, perhaps we have become our own project. Perhaps the time has come for us to go hand-in-hand: to work on ourselves from within ourselves. To change, for the better, the Achiever-in-me.
