Most of us are, in one way or another, a bit screwed up.
We carry doubts, sensitivities, compensations, old hurts, insecurities, and odd little inner bargains with ourselves. We compare, overthink, overwork, overprepare, and occasionally overreact. Yet this untidy psychological mix is not just a liability. In many high performers, it is part of the engine.
That is uncomfortable to admit because modern performance culture prefers a cleaner story. We are told that excellence comes from confidence, balance, positivity, and emotional composure. The ideal performer is calm, clear, self-assured, and internally aligned. But that picture is too neat. In reality, many of the people who achieve extraordinary things are not driven by perfect inner harmony. They are driven by friction.
I remember falling asleep on my bike high in the Rockies, on a remote track, and jolting awake just in time to avoid a serious crash. In the minutes afterwards, I found myself asking a hard question: ‘what the hell am I doing?’ and then, once the adrenaline had worked its way through my system, the unavoidable question ‘what exactly makes a person push this hard? The answer did not feel like ‘achieving the serenity’ we so often link with high performers. It felt closer to compulsion, unfinished business, and a stubborn refusal to stop.
It turns out that high achievement often draws energy from precisely the parts of us we are taught to “fix”: inferiority, perfectionism, impostor thoughts, obsessive passion, and even certain darker personality tendencies. The real task is not to eliminate these qualities. It is to understand them well enough to use them without being used by them.
The hidden psychology of extreme effort
People who push themselves into extreme sport, demanding leadership, entrepreneurship, or public performance are rarely powered by simple contentment. More often, performance becomes a way of regulating internal tension, meeting unmet psychological needs, or proving something to oneself. The concept of optimal dysfunction captures this well: traits that may look maladaptive in one context can become highly functional in another.
That helps explain why some people keep going long after comfort, reason, or balance would have told them to stop. It also helps explain why the language of “well-rounded wellness” often fails to describe what is really happening in elite performance. Some people are not succeeding despite their insecurities. They are succeeding partly because of them.
Inferiority can become ambition
Alfred Adler argued that human beings are deeply shaped by feelings of inferiority that begin early in life. In healthy form, these feelings prompt growth, competence, and contribution. But when the sense of inadequacy becomes sharper,through criticism, marginalisation, comparison, or conditional approval, it can become a more powerful and enduring drive (Adler, 1927/1956).
This often shows up as overcompensation. A person who feels not quite enough does not merely try to improve; they strive to become undeniable. Achievement becomes more than success. It becomes self-protection. The person may not consciously think, ‘If I become exceptional, I will finally feel safe’, but the pattern often works that way.
This does not make the achievement false. It makes it psychologically charged. Many high performers are not simply expressing talent. They are also trying to outrun vulnerability.
Obsession is bad for balance, but often good for output
There is an important distinction between harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Harmonious passion fits more easily into a balanced life. Obsessive passion is more rigid. It creates a stronger compulsion to engage, often at the expense of recovery, relationships, or perspective (Vallerand et al., 2003).
From a wellbeing standpoint, obsessive passion is risky. From a performance standpoint, it can be powerful. Why? Because obsessive passion often develops when people are trying to compensate for frustrations elsewhere. Work, training, or achievement becomes the arena in which they can feel effective, in control, or significant. That is not always healthy, but it is frequently productive. Many extraordinary outputs are driven by precisely this kind of psychological intensity.
This is one of the reasons the healthiest people are not always the highest performers. A healthier psychology may produce a better life. It does not always produce the most extreme achievement.
Impostor thoughts can sharpen performance
Perhaps no psychological label has travelled further in recent years than “impostor syndrome.” Since Clance and Imes first described the impostor phenomenon, it has typically been framed as a burden carried by otherwise successful people who fear being exposed as frauds (Clance & Imes, 1978).
But newer research suggests the picture is more nuanced. Basima Tewfik’s work argues that what many people experience is better understood as workplace impostor thoughts rather than a fixed syndrome. These thoughts can be uncomfortable, but they are not always harmful. In some settings, they appear to create performance advantages (Tewfik, 2021).
People who experience impostor thoughts often respond to high demands by working harder, preparing more thoroughly, and treating pressure as a challenge rather than a threat. They also tend to ask more questions, listen more carefully, seek input, and show greater interpersonal attentiveness. Their insecurity can make them less arrogant and more collaborative.
That is a useful corrective. Not all self-doubt is disabling. Sometimes it sharpens effort, humility, and vigilance. A leader who feels they still have something to prove may prepare more carefully than one who assumes they already belong.
The dark side
This becomes even clearer when we look at the so-called dark side of personality. Traits associated with narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are rightly linked to ethical risk and interpersonal damage. But research also suggests that some of these traits can confer competitive advantages, especially in high-pressure settings.
A degree of narcissism can support confidence, boldness, and charismatic presence. Machiavellian tendencies can aid political reading and strategic manoeuvring. Lower emotional sensitivity can sometimes help people make difficult decisions under pressure. Studies of leadership suggest that narcissism, in particular, may have an inverted-U relationship with effectiveness: too little can undermine authority and vision, while too much becomes destructive (Grijalva et al., 2015).
None of this excuses harmful behaviour. It simply means that the traits we instinctively label “bad” may have functional value in moderated form. High performance is often built from qualities that are double-edged rather than purely virtuous.
Why trying to “fix” yourself often backfires
If flaws and insecurities can drive performance, then much conventional advice starts to look misguided. Telling people to suppress their doubts, eliminate negative thoughts, and replace discomfort with positivity sounds sensible. But psychologically, it often fails.
Daniel Wegner’s work on Ironic Process Theory explains why. When people try not to think a thought, one part of the mind searches for distraction while another monitors whether the unwanted thought is returning. Under stress, fatigue, or cognitive load, the monitoring process tends to win, making the thought even more accessible (Wegner, 1994).
That is why “Don’t think about failure” is rarely useful before a major event. It is also why leaders who try to crush anxiety, hide insecurity, or force confidence often become more brittle under pressure. Suppression may work briefly in calm conditions. It tends to collapse when the stakes rise.
The same dynamic appears in the literature on fragile self-esteem. When self-worth depends on appearing strong, successful, and untroubled, it becomes vulnerable to criticism and failure. By contrast, more secure self-esteem allows a person to acknowledge weakness without experiencing collapse. Sustainable performance depends less on building a perfect self-image and more on becoming sturdy enough to tolerate imperfection.
Flexibility, not purity
A more useful model comes from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and the wider literature on psychological flexibility. This approach does not ask people to eliminate difficult thoughts or feelings. It asks them to notice those thoughts, make space for them, and continue acting in line with their values anyway (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006).
That shift matters enormously. It means the perfectionist voice does not have to disappear for disciplined preparation to continue. It means impostor thoughts do not have to be solved before someone can lead well. It means anxiety can be present without taking control.
Psychological flexibility is not passive resignation. It is disciplined non-entanglement. You stop wasting energy trying to become psychologically spotless and start learning how to perform effectively with your internal mess still present.
For high performers, this is often the breakthrough. The insecurity remains, but it no longer runs the whole system. It becomes data, fuel, or background noise rather than a master.
Use the engine, manage the shadow
None of this means we should romanticise dysfunction. Insecurity may fuel excellence, but it can also produce burnout, compulsiveness, volatility, and collateral damage. The point is not to glorify flaws. It is to work with them intelligently.
That requires self-awareness. You need to know your personal pattern. What drives you? What threatens you? Under pressure, do you become controlling, avoidant, grandiose, brittle, or obsessive? What physical and behavioural signs appear first? If you can recognise the pattern early, you can keep the productive energy while reducing the destructive spillover.
For leaders, this matters doubly because private insecurity quickly becomes public climate. A leader’s inner compensations show up in what they say, how they behave, what they reward, and what their team learns to fear. What begins as a personal engine can become an organisational shadow.
The discipline, then, is simple but demanding: keep the drive, reduce the damage.
Final thought
Peak performance is often presented as the reward for becoming psychologically clean, balanced, and complete. But many exceptional achievements come from a less flattering reality. They are built on tension, compensation, restlessness, and unresolved questions.
Most of us are a bit screwed up. Some of us are more than a bit. That does not automatically hold us back. Sometimes it is precisely where the energy comes from.
The real challenge is not to erase our flaws. It is to understand which ones are driving us, which ones are derailing us, and how to turn the difference into an advantage.
References
Adler, A. (1956). The individual psychology of Alfred Adler (H. L. Ansbacher & R. R. Ansbacher, Eds.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1927)
Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247.
Grijalva, E., Harms, P. D., Newman, D. A., Gaddis, B. H., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Narcissism and leadership: A meta-analytic review of linear and nonlinear relationships. Personnel Psychology, 68(1), 1–47.
Hayes, S. C., Luoma, J. B., Bond, F. W., Masuda, A., & Lillis, J. (2006). Acceptance and commitment therapy: Model, processes and outcomes. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 44(1), 1–25.
Tewfik, B. A. (2021). The impostor phenomenon revisited: Examining the relationship between workplace impostor thoughts and interpersonal effectiveness at work. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2021(1).
Vallerand, R. J., Blanchard, C., Mageau, G. A., Koestner, R., Ratelle, C., Léonard, M., Gagné, M., & Marsolais, J. (2003). Les passions de l’âme: On obsessive and harmonious passion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(4), 756–767.
Wegner, D. M. (1994). Ironic processes of mental control. Psychological Review, 101(1), 34–52.