If you are gifted, the standard you work toward is probably higher than the one anyone asked for. That is worth knowing, because it can cost you.
Gifted adults often set high standards, both for themselves and for the people around them. The results can be exceptional. They can also cause trouble, quietly, in the gap between what you delivered and what was requested.
I’m Dr. Patricia Turner, a Registered Psychologist in Calgary, Alberta. I work with gifted adults, and the impact of having high standards is one of the things we often talk about.
Details in the accounts that follow have been changed to protect privacy.
Many Gifted Adults Do Not Know How They Are Different
Gifted adults frequently do not realize how they differ from their colleagues. This is often the root of the problem. They do not see how much more intellectually capable they are than many of the people they work with, and they can assume that what is easy for them is easy for everyone.
Realizing how they differ does not mean a gifted adult should stop stretching themselves in order to fit in. It means learning when to work to full potential and when to relax their standard. When they work alone, or with other gifted people, they are capable of producing exceptional results.
When High Standards Help, and When They Hinder
When a gifted adult takes on something new, they can approach it with gusto, using their intelligence and their innate ability to see the whole picture at once. When they want to cut code, they can do it well. When they decide to learn to write, they can do that well, too. There is real satisfaction in doing things well, and when they have the time and the desire, gifted adults can accomplish a great deal.
The difficulty in the workplace is that constraints are frequently present. Time, staffing, budget, other people’s priorities. A gifted adult who sets out to deliver more or something other than what has been requested can exhaust themselves, and their team members along with them.
Gifted Adults Need Constant Challenge
Having high standards and not knowing when to temper them can be a problem when you are more capable than your position requires you to be. Outgrowing a job that used to be challenging is another problem.
Gifted adults tell me they continuously need challenge in their professional lives to thrive. A gifted adult learns a role more quickly than those around them, which can mean they outgrow their position before they are expected to.
An early career professional shared that she needed to change jobs because she had learned everything her boss had to teach her. If she stayed in her position, she said, all she was going to be able to do under his tutelage was more of the same.
This came as a disappointment to her, because she had enjoyed working with him. But once she realized she would not be sufficiently stimulated moving forward, she could not stay. The end of her tenure was a surprise to her — only five years earlier, that same boss had brought her on board into a job that made her reach.
When the Standard Is Higher Than the Task Requires
One client I worked with was asked by his boss to carry out a task that was the equivalent, roughly, of tuning up a Chrysler. Working on the project, he quietly recognized that he could build a Maserati instead. So he built a Maserati.
The problem came when his effort and the quality of the result were not recognized. It came as a surprise to him that when his boss asked for a Chrysler to be tuned up, what the boss wanted was a tuned-up Chrysler, and not a Maserati delivered to his door.
I made this mistake myself in graduate school. I was asked to write a fifty-page paper reviewing an area of the psychological literature. It was a pass-fail assignment, and passing meant acceptance into the doctoral program.
One member of my committee, which decided whether I passed or failed, told me it was the best comprehensive exam paper she had read in thirty years.
My error becomes obvious when you remember that the assignment was pass-fail. My standards were far too high. I turned in an excellent paper when what was required was one that was good enough.
The cost to me was time, energy, and sleep, and then the time it took to recover from the push. I missed out on a lot that summer. Camping, films, friends. My standards had come at the expense of my personal life.
What helps here is realizing you do not need to put the same degree of effort into every project you undertake. You can choose which projects deserve your full attention, and which ones you can cut corners on because they do not warrant more.
Learning to tell the difference can let gifted adults move work across their desks in a timely way and at a lower expense in energy. It also frees that energy for the projects they actually care about, at work and outside it.
When Others Cannot Meet the Standard
A different set of problems can arise when a gifted adult works on projects with other people. Colleagues may not be able to work at the pace or to the standard the gifted adult sets. Others simply will not want to.
Over time this can lead to interpersonal difficulties, and that difficulty can reflect badly on the gifted adult’s own performance.
When I was an engineer, I ran a software project with a team working under me. My boss set the deadline. I knew I could meet it, so I accepted it and set the pace for everyone else accordingly. It did not occur to me that a schedule I could meet was not a schedule everyone could meet.
They pushed back and said I had taken on too much. They were right. I was capable, so I was willing to gun for it. I exhausted myself in that role. I wish I had taken their reactions back to my boss and told him the schedule was too tight and that he was expecting too much of the team.
When the Standard Is Not About the Work
Another kind of problem arises when a gifted adult feels the need to prove themselves continuously. This need was frequently created when gifted adults were abused or neglected as children, and they have internalized that they are not enough or are not good enough.
For many of these gifted children, being a high achiever at school was what enabled them to survive. Academic accomplishment sustained them when nothing at home did. The strategy worked when they were children.
In adulthood, however, this strategy can backfire. Their need to constantly prove themselves can remain an unquenchable thirst because their underlying belief is that they are not enough or not good enough. There is no achievement big enough to settle a question that was never about achievement.
Not infrequently, I will meet a client who cannot do less than exemplary work, and who feels compelled to deliver everything at this high level of quality. This can exhaust them, which is usually when we meet. What they benefit from learning is that their high standard does not meet their underlying need, and that there are times to complete a piece of work to a good enough degree and move on. And then we talk about their childhoods, so that they can understand what has been driving them to be super performers, and let it go.
Considering Next Steps
High standards are not a fault to be corrected. They are a big part of what makes gifted adults capable of exceptional work. What can cause trouble is applying them indiscriminately, expecting them from people who did not sign up for them, or needing them in order to feel good enough.
If you would like help sorting out how your high standard affects you and what might be driving it, reach out to a psychologist in your area. If you are in Alberta, you are welcome to contact me.
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- The characteristics of gifted adults describes what giftedness looks like in adults, and what my clients say when they hear those characteristics named.
- My collection on gifted adults covers inner life, work, relationships, and the school years.