The Achievement Trap: Performance vs. Personhood

Achievement looks like a gift until it becomes the thing our kids use to prove they matter. We name the achievement trap and lay out a simple way to anchor identity in something that can’t be taken away. 

• identity crises that hit when grades, awards, or starting spots disappear 
• horizontal worth built on approval and why it feels like a roller coaster 
• how parents accidentally teach conditional love through pressure and reactions 
• achievement turning into an idol and why it’s so sneaky 
• vertical worth rooted in creation and redemption 
• Jesus’ invitation to rest and why performance cannot carry your soul 
• Sabbath as a practical reset that reminds kids they are more than producers 
• the identity audit tool and the two questions that open the conversation 
• a real parenting moment that went wrong and what apology and repair look like 
• encouragement for anxious, burned out kids and hope for parents who feel stuck 

If this episode encouraged you, please. Share it with another parent who could use this resource. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next two episodes in this miniseries where we're going to move from identity to ambition. 

Send any questions you want answered to podcast@waynechristian.org

This podcast is presented by Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ. You can learn more at waynechristian.org 

Transcript

Nate 0:01

What happens when the A disappears from your report card?

Luis 0:05

Or when the starting spot is gone or the the award doesn't come. Who is your child then?

Nate 0:12

Exactly. And the danger is that for many of our kids, their who has become entirely tied to their do. We've accidentally taught them that they are only as good as their last test score, their last game-winning shot, or their last lead role in the play.

Luis 0:32

Today we're talking about the identity crises facing this generation and how parents and leaders can anchor kids in something that can't be taken away.

Horizontal Worth And The Roller Coaster

Nate 1:05

And we're glad you're here with us today, where we're starting a three-part miniseries called The Achievement Trap. We're talking about how to disciple driven kids. Now, Lewis, we've talked a lot about things through the worldview lens. And our culture, you know, talks about identity being built from the outside in, right? They they say I per I perform, people applaud, therefore I have value. And so what we're talking about today is this whole idea of they get that that horizontal worth, right? It comes from the horizon. It's people around me and what they think of me.

Luis 1:46

And the big problem with this idea of horizontal worth is that it's like a roller coas uh a roller coaster. I can even talk to you.

Nate 1:56

That's a okay, let's practice. Roller coaster. Roller coaster. There you go. What's going on with me? I don't know. Breaking down. This is true, truth proof. This is proof. I can't talk either that you are not AI right now. I'm not. Well, AI can make mistakes, though. There's been questions, though, sometimes of whether you are actually an AI-generated voice in our podcast.

Luis 2:16

So this idea of this horizontal worth and it being this roller coaster is that if you're at the top of the class, you feel like a god, right? You feel like you're important. You feel like you've arrived, but when you fail the math quiz, then you feel like trash. And there's no stability in this roller coaster.

How Parents Fuel Performance Pressure

Nate 2:37

Yeah, and the same thing could be said for sports, right? Did you hit, you know, the home run? Did you have that you did? Did you play baseball? I thought you were a football guy. I was. I played baseball through my sophomore year of high school. Okay. And then that was it. You were a football guy. I was a football guy. You were a football guy. I was a baseball guy. Yeah. You were really good? I was really good. And that's why you quit after your sophomore year? No, I no, I'm not talking about baseball. I was really good at football. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. And humble about it too. Very. Okay. Very good. So we talk about this, whether it's sports or, you know, fine arts or you know, athletics, like we've been talking about. You know, and so as parents, we have to help our kids see that this is a trap, right? We're calling it the achievement trap. It's when good things like a high GPA, a letter on, you know, a varsity sport, they're not just good things anymore. They've become God things. In the Bible, God calls that an idol. It's anything we look to for the meaning and security that should only come from God.

Luis 3:38

And that's sneaky, right? Yeah, yeah. So because we're not bowing down to like a golden statue. No like golden cast. Because that's what people think about, right? Like an idol is this golden statue, this golden cow, this physical thing that I'm bowing down to. But what's happening is that we're bowing down to that elite sticker on the back of your minivan.

Nate 4:04

I do drive a minivan. You do, right? There's no stickers though. And then we don't put bumper stickers on our car at all. No. So no, like I was driving through with a kid. No. I was driving through town the other day and I saw like uh a George W. Bush presidential campaign sticker on the back of a car.

Luis 4:19

Was it like from 2000?

Nate 4:21

Yeah, like the 2000 election.

Luis 4:23

Like the hanging Chad election.

Nate 4:25

You remember the hanging chad? I do remember that. I do remember that.

Luis 4:27

I used to hang with a guy named Chad.

Nate 4:28

Did you? I did.

Luis 4:29

And so you were hanging with Chad. So then when our kids' performance becomes the source of our pride as parents, we are actually fueling their identity crises and we're teaching them that our love and God's love is conditional.

Vertical Worth Through Creation And Redemption

Nate 4:46

Yeah. That's and that's so sneaky, right? Because I don't think there's any parent that would say that to their kid. Yeah. Right. And if you are, we need to talk because that's terrible. We got to go back to a few episodes. Yeah. The several episodes we can send you. Right. But no parent would just be like, oh yeah, if you don't get an A on this, then you're a terrible person, or I don't love you anymore. Right. But because we push so hard and we get so upset when something happens, right? Or they don't achieve what we think they should achieve or they're capable of achieving, like that then what they hear is that they're not good enough and we don't love them as much as we could. Yeah. Right. And so it's it's an accidental. Like, like I said, nobody would say that, but it's it's something that we unintentionally kind of bake into the way we're leading our children. So the question is, you know, how do we break that trap, right? How is it, Lewis, that that we would come, we've got that horizontal worth, the achievement trap. What would you say? Like where should we start with breaking this achievement trap?

Luis 5:53

Well, we we've got to help them pivot from this horizontal worth of what do the people around me think, what do my friends think, what do my teachers think, what do my parents think, to this identity of a vertical worth, right? Like their identity is built from the top down, and it's based on these two important biblical truths. And we've talked about it before: creation and redemption, right? Yep. Creation tells them you have value because the creator of the universe knit you together, right? You are an Imago Day, you are an image bearer of the creator. I love how Paul puts it when he says that we are God's masterpiece, right? We are his workmanship, right? And so that value doesn't change whether you're the CEO of a multi-billion dollar business or you're the person that's cleaning the office.

Sabbath Rest As A Worth Reset

Nate 6:52

Yeah, I think that's really important, right? You you root it in creation, right? We talk about this before creation, fall, redemption. And so redemption tells us you are so valuable that Christ died for you, right? To bring you into his family. And so your resume is really written by Jesus on the cross. It's not about like, here's my list of things that I achieved, here's my A plus and all this. No, you take his achievement and it's been credited to your account. And that's why in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, it Jesus says to the crowds, like, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He says, Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I literally love that. That's really true. Because it's this whole idea of like in them, their achievement culture, like the the Jews in the first century, you know, their achievement culture was a religious achievement. Let me do these things and I'm gonna be a good, you know, Jewish person. God's gonna love me more. And Jesus says, No, you know, come to me and I'm gonna give you rest, right? And so today, you know, mo sometimes it's a religious achievement, right? I've got to be a good kid. Yeah, don't get in trouble, never, you know, like I'll see that sometimes. So like I'm a principal and kids will get in trouble. They come to my office, and you'll see that kid that it's like the very first time they've ever come to the principal's office, and like they take it so hard sometimes. Sometimes they don't, and that's a different problem. But they come in and they're just so distraught because they feel like they're a terrible person, and it's there where I'd have to kind of pivot and be like, Yes, this was wrong, what you did. However, like let's have this conversation of, you know, Christ died for your sins, and so there's redemption. And we can do that in anything. We put that pressure on us, and we feel like we need to perform in school, in sports, in whatever, but really we just need to rest in what Christ has done for us.

Luis 8:57

And that's actually really good because it leads us right to consider the Sabbath, right? Oh, yeah. And what the Sabbath is like why did God command rest? And it wasn't just because we get tired, it was a theological statement, right? When we stop working for 24 hours, we are providing ourselves this opportunity to disconnect from what the world is doing, right? Because the world keeps spinning without our effort, right? Like we like like we may think we're so important that we always have to be working, but when we stop working, the world keeps on ongoing. That's exactly right. And we're reminding ourselves that our worth isn't and should not be tied to our work. And it's it's important that we understand that that God wants us to rest to remind us that our value doesn't come from the work that we do.

Nate 9:56

Yeah, that's exactly right. And you think about you know, God did that, he rested in that you know, creation week, not because he needed to, right? He was just setting the pattern for us because he knew we needed the rest. And he knew we needed to have that moment to trust in him. I love yeah, every time in in Exodus, like you read through Exodus and and God is reminding them of the Sabbath day, he points back to creation, but he also points back to their enslavement in Egypt. Oh, that's right. And he talks about like you need to rest. The Sabbath is holy day unto the Lord because you were slaves. And so now you need to learn how to stop working just as much as you need to learn how to work hard, right?

Luis 10:42

I read from somebody s a while back this idea of Sabbath and and rest and how God didn't prescribe specific things to do on the Sabbath, right? Like He He He just rested, right?

Nate 10:55

Yeah, like He doesn't The Jews didn't worship on the Sabbath. It's not like we think Sunday, yeah, and so we're going to church and like that was not what the Jews did. I mean, they did start doing that, yeah, but that was not the primary purpose of their day.

Luis 11:07

And so as this person is riding about it, they say that God intentionally didn't prescribe what to do on the Sabbath because he knew we would create an idol. I know, yeah. So then and and actually it's what happened, right? Like that's part of what happened in the New Testament where Jesus comes on the scene and the Pharisees are telling Jesus, like, hey, your disciples are picking like wheat off of the wheat stalks while they're walking on the Sabbath. They're harvesting. Like, you're gonna let them do that? And Jesus looks at them and he's like, What? Well, how else are we gonna eat? You know, you know, and so like God knew our human nature. And so the idea of Sabbath is is you just you just rest, right? And so we need to teach our kids to Sabbath from the pressure of performance or of performance because they're constantly thinking that they have to be performing at this level.

The Identity Audit Tool

Nate 12:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really important, right? Because we're not producing, we're not performing. It's a time to rest, right? But but we want to give you guys listening the this practical, some practical tools, right? Um, we want to get practical, we don't want to just get theoretical. Because I think I would I would hope, right? You all listening, you understand this, that that this is a trap, and you know your kids' worth is not tied up in their performance. You know your worth is not tied up in your kids' performance, even though you may act that way sometimes. So we want to give you a practical tool, and it's called the identity audit. Like the identity audit. It's just a time for you and your kids to sit down and really just kind of audit where are you finding your identity? You know, you can sit down, maybe you have some ice cream, maybe a waffle sundae would be really good because we've talked about waffle sundays before. You mean like a waffle cone with No, like a legit like waffle that you would eat for breakfast, but with ice cream on top. Okay. And then me, you make it a Sunday with all the syrup and caramel and peanut butter waffle. Ice cream. Ice cream on top.

Luis 13:12

Yeah.

Nate 13:12

That's good.

Luis 13:13

I can get down with that. That's like a dessert.

Nate 13:15

That is a dessert. It's not breakfast. No, you could do breakfast for dinner. That'd be disgusting. That would be okay. Do not sit down with your kid over breakfast for dinner. Fun fact right now, it is currently 11 13 on the day that we are recording this, and there is breakfast food in one of the teachers' lounges, and I have had some.

Luis 13:34

The record should show that I did eat it before 10 30.

Nate 13:37

Yes.

Luis 13:37

The record should show that I have instructed them to not eat any food breakfast food after 10 30.

Nate 13:43

Yep. They're not listening to you. I hope they submit to my authority. Nope, they will not. We may need all new teachers. But okay, back on track. So you sit down with your kid, you know, make it fun, coffee, ice cream, dinner, breakfast, whatever you want. Okay. And Lewis, what should what should parents do if they're gonna perform this identity audit, you know, over breakfast for dinner? So keep it simple, right?

Luis 14:05

Ask them five things that they are currently proud of, or five things that they feel define them. So five things.

Nate 14:15

Make a list. Yeah. I'm a fan of lists.

Luis 14:17

What are the five things right now in your life that you're proud of, right? Like if I were to ask my daughters this, they might say, I'm a good soccer player, I'm a good softball player, I get good grades, right? Your children may say, I'm a straight A student, I'm popular, I'm number one in my Fortnite guild. Is that a thing?

Nate 14:37

I don't know. And my kids don't play Fortnite. So I think that was evidence when we had the gaming episode, and I was clueless.

Luis 14:44

They might say, I won my Mario Kart race.

Nate 14:47

There we go. Okay. There we go. So Mario Kart.

Luis 14:50

But ask them right, what are the five things that they're currently proud of, or what are the five things that define them? And then once they make that list, ask the identity question. If these five things were taken away from you tomorrow, if you lost your spot on the team, if you struggled in school, if your friends moved away, how would God still see you?

Nate 15:14

Yep, yep. And that's good, right? It's that it's not meant to be a gotcha moment, right? It's a chance to remind them God would still see you as his child. You might even need to say, I still love you. I am still proud of you, right? God would still see you as his masterpiece. He would still see someone he was willing to die for. Like those things, and and you can say that, and your kid might be like, Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm dad, I know. But it helps them, right? Because they're decoupling their personhood from their performance.

Luis 15:47

That's that's really good.

A Parenting Fail And An Apology

Nate 15:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you decouple who you are, your identity, your personhood from your performance, it gives you an opportunity to then rebuild, right? You're acknowledging that those things are good. And you can even say, hey, I'm super proud of you for those five things too. Yeah. But even if they go away, yeah, I'm still proud of you. And I still love you.

Luis 16:08

And you know, this actually reminds me of something that happened recently. And it it's just a moment of transparency that I think it is going to help you because we've talked earlier about how this can be a sneaky thing, right? Like no parent is going to intentionally try to create their their child's worth based on what their child is doing in school or on their sport team. But it can sneak up on you. Like my wife and I, we had this really proud moment last week where my daughter, who plays soccer, played in a game and we did not feel she played to the level of her ability. And so when we got into the car and were leaving the game, like we deserve an award for this because we were like parents of the year, right? And so we took the opportunity to point out to her how poorly she played, and we made sure I'm sure she took that well, too. Yeah, so we made sure she knew that that she did not play to the level that we thought she was capable of. We made sure she knew that there were missed opportunities in the game and that she could have played at a lot better level. What what made this even better was that earlier in the day she had asked if we could go to uh have you heard of crumble cooking? Yes. Okay, so she had asked about that, and and I had said, yeah, like we can go, I'm sure you because there was there was a a specific cookie that she wanted to get, and her mom and her probably would have liked it. Well, in in our parenting expose, let's just call it that, right? I forgot that we were gonna go to crumble cookie. So we spent like 15, 20, 30 minutes just talking about everything she could have done better in this soccer game that we forgot to go to crumble cookie. And so then it was like, oh, we forgot to go to Crumble Cookie. And so all of these things happen. And y'all, like, I mean, it's it's one of those things where my wife and I that night we were talking about it, and we were like, we should not have done that. Like, we we just created this moment where her performance, right, was was connected to how we felt about her. And and we don't ever want our daughter to feel this way. And so thankfully, a couple days later, after kind of the emotions.

Nate 18:36

I thought you were gonna say you door-dashed a crumble cookie. I should have.

Luis 18:38

It doesn't come to our house though.

Nate 18:40

Oh, okay.

Luis 18:40

And so my wife and I were praying with our daughter, and we took that opportunity to apologize to her and to let her know that we were proud of her and that that conversation was out of line and and we were apologizing for for what happened. But y'all, we we may do 99% right, and that one moment it's it it just it just snuck up on us, right? Like we know that our daughter's identity is not tied up to in in soccer or her athletic ability, but for those 30 minutes after the game, we made it about that, right? And so we had to go back and and course correct and make sure that she understood she wasn't defined by that, that we still loved her, that we still cared for her, that her value to us and to God is so much more than the soccer field and her soccer ability. But that's just goes to show you like how quickly it can happen, right? And that's why this identity audit is so important because your kids are going to speak to you based off of what they think is important to them in their life. And you may hear it and be like, oh, did I accidentally have I been parenting in a way that that's the identity that they've created? And so, like Nate said, it's not about that gotcha moment. It's about how do we help them see themselves that God still loves them, they are still his masterpiece. Because if we're not careful, you can have those moments like my wife and I had where we didn't do that. Yeah and we conveyed a different message.

Encouragement And Next Steps

Nate 20:21

Yeah, yeah. And that's that's really important for us, right? And so we've kind of built this up here with talking about the achievement trap, right? Our role in, you know, almost setting that trap sometimes. And so maybe you're listening to this and you feel a little down because maybe you notice that you have set that trap for your kids. The good news is, like you just heard, right? There's a way out. And over the next two episodes, uh, we're gonna give you some of those pointers. We've already talked about this one tool, the identity audit, but there's gonna be some more coming. So make sure you stay tuned, subscribe for those next episodes. But but Lewis, before we wrap this up, what what encouragement would you give to a parent who's listening to this, you know, they feel like they've set that trap for their kids, their kids are falling for it, and we haven't released the next two episodes yet, or maybe we have and they're still working through it. What encouragement would you leave them today?

Luis 21:15

Well, look, parents, if if your child is stressed, if they're anxious, if they're burned out, it might be because they are carrying the weight of an identity that they weren't meant to build on their own. And so take take time today and remind them that they are image bearers first, right? They are imagined. And then their students, athletes, whatever they are, that is secondary to being image bearers.

Nate 21:48

Yeah, that's that's real good. So remember that as you go uh away from this episode. Um, and thank you all for listening today to Equipped for Impact. If this episode encouraged you, please. Share it with another parent who could use this resource. And be sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next two episodes in this miniseries where we're going to move from identity to ambition. We're going to talk about those taking the gifts and the talents, the ones that we've just audited, and shifting them from upward mobility, right? Making a name for yourself to that outward ministry, making much of our Savior Jesus Christ. And until then, keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ.