I used to wake up almost every day dreading the day ahead. My first thought would be “no“, quickly followed by “I can’t wait for this day to be over.” Sundays were the worst – I had a heavy cloud of anxiety knowing Monday was approaching.
During the week, life mostly felt like pushing through from one task to another.
On the outside, my life looked pretty good. I had a successful career, lots of friends, and had traveled across the globe. But inside? I felt empty. Unloved. And lonely.
The strategy I developed to try to feel safe was to achieve. It wasn’t really a choice, it was survival.
Because I truly believed love and acceptance were things I had to earn through improving myself: Doing more, looking better, or just… having a better life in general.
If you’re nodding along right now, knowing exactly what it feels like to achieve so much and still feel empty inside, this story is for you. Today, I’m sharing my journey from achievement addiction to self-love.
Find the full transcript at theselflovepath.com/podcast
When Achievement Becomes a Survival Strategy
My journey with achievement started early. I remember my first day of school – backpack ready, excited to be one of the “big kids.” I couldn’t wait to learn.
But school didn’t become what I had imagined it to be. Instead, it felt like something playful inside me died. Everything became black and white – right or wrong, yes or no.
I remember my first test – how to hold a pencil. Everyone in the class was told to grab the pencil, and the teacher was going to walk around making sure we did it right. I felt confident – because I already knew how to read and write.
Proudly, I was waiting for the teacher’s approval. But when he reached my desk, he shook his head. Wrong. I was holding the pencil the wrong way. My heart sank. Shame washed over me. I was shocked. I mean, I’d been writing while holding the pencil like this for months. Why hadn’t anyone told me I was doing it wrong? Embarrassed, I changed my grip. 7 year old Monika learned then and there that school is an environment where you will be judged. There are no margins of error.
Growing up between Finland and Sweden deepened this lesson. As the kid who never felt like she belonged, achievement became my ticket to acceptance. And the more “good” I became, the more praiseI I got for being the good girl, the good student. I never cried or complained, I did everything right and learned to operate in a way that pleased others.
By my teenage years, this expanded beyond grades. Now food and body became new territories to control. Perfect grades, perfect body – these weren’t goals, they were survival strategies. Each achievement felt like a shield against not being enough.
Now, this coping mechanism took me to some great places. I graduated from one of the highest ranked universities in the country, I worked at amazing companies like Google and Meta. I met incredible people and did incredible things, all of which I’m extremely grateful for.
And my strategy almost worked.
The problem was that after each achievement, I’d feel ok for about 5 seconds. Then the fear of the next thing would start creeping up on me. I could always do more, be better. It was never enough.
What’s interesting is that deep down, I was questioning everything. Somehow, I knew there had to be a different way. That I’m not just here to try to make it work, to try to survive or make myself safe.
But I had no idea how to change. I believed that my reward, peace and happiness, would come after the next accomplishment. So I kept on running forward.
Discovering a New Way of Being
Then one day a friend handed me the book “The Power of Now”. I learned about consciousness and how, beneath all our thoughts, feelings, and worries, lies our true self – the part of us that’s always at peace and fully present.
This opened up something in me, even though it would take years to fully understand it. Seeds were planted – the first glimpses that maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with me.
I made radical changes – switched jobs, moved countries, ended relationships and bought a home. But that empty feeling still lingered. I was still convinced I had to fix the outside, for my inner world to feel better.
Maybe you recognize yourself in this?
When you’re stuck in your mind, when you feel disempowered, you are convinced the problem is 100% outside of you.
You try to figure out “what can I do to make that situation or person different, so that I can feel better?” This makes you feel stuck because quickly you realize I can’t change that person and even if you change jobs, the next one will be more or less the same.
The conclusion you make is that you’re just gonna have to deal with it. And that becomes your story.
And then suddenly you start living life proving your story is correct. This happens because the mind is always looking to validate the story it has written. The mind wants to be right above all, even if the price is unhappiness, because it associates being right with safety.
That’s how I felt in it all. I was recreating the same situations where I felt I had to prove my worth, because that felt safe.
I needed a hard stop to get the wake-up call: In the middle of the pandemic I had an accident that required no less than three surgeries in 2 months. For the first time, I couldn’t achieve my way out of a situation.
Stuck home alone and in pain, unable to do the simplest things, I was Forced to stop. Here, I finally heard what my inner voice had been trying to tell me: This isn’t who you are.
I made the decision to change, even though I had no idea how. But the commitment to myself, gave me energy and inspiration to take the first step. And as Rumi says, “When you start walking, the path appears.” That turned out to be true for me.
One step led to another, and it felt like I was being guided every step of the way.
I trained as a Yoga teacher, which reconnected me with my body. I stumbled upon the perfect book at the perfect time, offering insights that shifted my perspective. I was recommended to a therapist and a healer, both of whom guided me further back to myself. I traveled to retreats and met people walking similar paths.
Looking back, it might seem like I was actively doing a lot, but it didn’t feel that way. I wasn’t forcing anything. I was being led.
One of the most profound experiences I had was during a retreat in Costa Rica. In the midst of a ceremony, with the shaman’s Icaros filling the air, I connected with parts of myself I had always detested – the achiever, the “worrier”, and the one constantly seeking approval.
I could see these parts as if they were little children outside of me.
For the first time, I truly heard them. They weren’t the villains I thought they were; they were crying for love and acceptance in the only ways they knew how. The achiever pushed forward, the approval-seeker people-pleased, and the worrier tried to control everything.
I realized they were all trying to protect me. Their intentions were loving, but they were speaking a language I hadn’t understood – until then.
In that moment I felt a love for myself I hadn’t experienced before.
What Self-Love Really Means
Here’s what I discovered about self-love: It’s not about bubble baths or daily affirmations (even though those can be nice). It’s not even about liking all parts of ourselves.
Self-love is about accepting ourselves fully, even and especially the parts we’ve been running from or the parts we find annoying.
The sides of ourselves that we detest the most, are not asking for anything else but our loving attention.
After the retreat experience, I discovered two incredible coaching schools that helped me deepen my self-love journey and set me on a path where I would later guide others.
I embraced radical self-acceptance, letting go of criticism toward myself and others, and learned to be patient with the process. I began caring for my body from a place of love rather than control.
It became clear to me that my pursuit of “health” had been rooted in fear, with weight loss as my primary goal and controlling food as my main strategy.
I learned to forgive myself. I connected with something bigger than myself. I understood that reality is more than what I can perceive through my 5 senses and I don’t know anything really. And no one does! This was very liberating for a control freak like me!
With this connection, I started feeling less separated. I developed a deep understanding that my worth cannot ever be up for debate. If I decided that all I want to do for the rest of my life is to sit on a bench and feed the birds, that’s ok.
I understood that what I above all long for, to feel connected, present and alive with myself and my life, exactly as it was, was accessible to me, right here.
I understood that change is not about becoming someone else, but discarding everything that I’m not, so that I can become myself. And when I’m myself, that’s when I attract the things that are meant for me.
If you’re resonating with this, I’ve created a free guide called “4 Essential Shifts to Cultivate Self-Love and Live Authentically.” It contains the key insights that were transformative for me on my journey. You can download it at theselflovepath.com/guide.
I really want you to get this. Self Love isn’t some fluffy concept. It’s not something to roll your eyes at. Loving yourself is not narcissistic or self absorbed. Because if we don’t take care of ourselves, we don’t only harm ourselves, we are also much more likely to harm other people.
Without self-love, we spend our lives seeking acceptance and safety from outside sources – other people’s approval, achievements, looks. This is extremely exhausting, and it makes us attached to external things in an unhealthy way.
We become clingy, needy, and even manipulative, because we’re trying to get from the outside what can only come from within. Byron Katie says this very well: “Nobody is safe from me when I need them that much”.
Today, I still have moments of doubt and fear. I’m still human. But the difference is, I have tools to work with these feelings. I know they don’t define me. They’re just parts asking for attention, and I can meet them with compassion instead of resistance. I’m even grateful when they arise, because I know I’ll find gold on the other side of the fear.
This journey led me to my calling. Today, I help high-achieving women stop attaching their self-worth to their achievements and appearance. I guide them to love themselves, find peace with food and body, and listen to their authentic self. I do this work because I’ve walked this path, and I know both its challenges and its profound rewards.
I’m deeply passionate about this work because when you detach your worth from external validation and start loving yourself life opens up in ways you never imagined possible. And I really want that for you.
The world is waiting for you – not the version of you shaped by achievement or perfectionism, but the real you. Your truest self has the power to change everything, for yourself and those around you.
If something in this story resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to me at monika@nullselflovepath.com, or connect with me on social media. The world needs you – not the version of you shaped by achievement or perfectionism, but your truest self.
And remember, your worth is pre designed. You don’t need to earn it.