The Success Trap

Have you ever looked at your seemingly successful career and asked yourself, “Why does this not feel like success?” In The Success Trap: Why Good People Stay in Jobs They Don’t Like, physician-turned-coach Amina Aitsi-Selmi argues that what we call “success” can often become a prison of our own making. The habits, identities, and beliefs that bring us professional recognition can later entrap us in lives that feel empty, anxious, and disconnected from meaning.

Aitsi-Selmi calls this paradox the Success Trap — the point at which the momentum of external achievement overrides your deeper needs for autonomy, purpose, and authenticity. She writes for high achievers—doctors, executives, lawyers, and creatives—who have ticked every box of traditional success yet find themselves wondering, “Is this it?” Drawing on science, psychology, and decades of coaching leaders across sectors, she guides readers on how to disentangle their identities from their titles and redefine achievement on their own terms.

The Paradox of Modern Success

Aitsi-Selmi begins by diagnosing a modern epidemic of disengagement. Her data tell a striking story: up to 85% of workers globally feel disengaged, and work consistently ranks among the least enjoyable daily activities—only slightly above being sick in bed. Yet we keep striving for promotions, pay raises, and external validation. She attributes this paradox to what she calls “the illusion of safety”: our primal brain mistakes status and salary for security, keeping us stuck even when we’re miserable.

This “illusion” is intensified by the volatility of the 21st-century workplace—the so-called VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous). Artificial intelligence, economic instability, and the collapse of lifelong careers have turned the once-reliable career ladder into shifting sand. And yet, our psychological programming still clings to outdated myths: that working harder will save us, that a good job means security, that certainty equals safety. The result is anxiety, burnout, and the creeping sense that life might be passing us by.

Burnout, Identity, and the High Achiever’s Dilemma

Through case studies—like “Xena,” a respected doctor trapped in bureaucracy, and “Diana,” a world-class clinician whose success only magnified her restlessness—Aitsi-Selmi reveals the psychological mechanics of burnout. Often it begins when external rewards overshadow intrinsic values. Over time, high achievers conflate identity with productivity, performance with self-worth, until slowing down feels like failure.

She terms this the High Achiever Paradox: winning society’s game while losing your sense of joy. The achiever’s skills—discipline, resilience, perfectionism—become snares. Combined with imposter syndrome (“I’m not good enough”) and rescuer tendencies (“I must fix everything”), they form identity loops that perpetuate exhaustion and self-doubt. The trap isn’t the job itself; it’s the mental filter through which we interpret reality.

From Goal-Chasing to Creative Flow

Aitsi-Selmi’s remedy is not another productivity hack but a deep reboot of how we relate to work. She contrasts the mechanical goal-driven life—fueled by dopamine and external rewards—with the organic creative flow described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihályi. Flow, she argues, is our natural state when we align challenge with skill and act from curiosity rather than compulsion. It’s not about setting more goals but about sculpting your life the way Michelangelo chiseled marble, patiently uncovering what’s already within.

The key is awareness: slowing down to notice the emotions and beliefs driving you. As she explains, “We can’t change what we can’t see.” Slowing down paradoxically accelerates growth by restoring creativity, presence, and calm decision-making. Drawing on neuroscience, Aitsi-Selmi describes how mindful awareness re-engages the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for empathy and creativity—silenced by chronic stress and “toxic urgency.”

Unlearning and Rewriting the Inner Script

At the heart of the book lies the High Achiever Paradox Transformation (HAPI) process, a structured method for freeing yourself from limiting beliefs. It combines self-enquiry (questioning your thoughts) and self-mastery (observing and releasing emotions). Through reflective exercises—such as identifying the thought “I can’t say no” and testing it through curiosity—you move from autopilot to agency. The goal isn’t self-improvement but self-liberation: to see thoughts as stories rather than facts.

Aitsi-Selmi integrates insights from mindfulness, Stoicism, and neuroscience to show how awareness reprograms your mental filter. She argues that true transformation comes when you shift from controlling life’s outcomes to cultivating inner spaciousness and trust. From that space, purpose, mission, and values don’t need to be “found”—they naturally reveal themselves.

The Road Beyond: From Employee to Entrepreneur of Your Life

Once you learn to think beyond the Success Trap, the challenge is to act from freedom rather than fear. The final sections map the evolution from employee to entrepreneur—not necessarily by starting a company, but by adopting what she calls the entrepreneurial mindset of self-leadership. Entrepreneurs, Aitsi-Selmi explains, thrive amid uncertainty by treating careers as creative projects rather than rigid ladders. They play the infinite game—one that values curiosity, collaboration, and contribution over status or control (a concept echoing Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game).

Why It Matters

Ultimately, The Success Trap is less a career manual than a manifesto for conscious living. It calls on you to replace the myth of “success equals safety” with the truth that safety comes from self-awareness. In a volatile world, your greatest security lies not in a title or paycheck but in your capacity to navigate uncertainty with creativity and compassion. If success once meant climbing the ladder, Aitsi-Selmi invites us to redefine it as building a life of purpose, autonomy, and joy—step by mindful step.

Aitsi-Selmi opens her analysis by asking a simple but unsettling question: why are record numbers of people unhappy in their jobs despite enjoying higher living standards than any prior generation? Drawing on data from Gallup, the UN, and the World Happiness Report, she paints a detailed picture of a global workforce in crisis: disengaged, anxious, and increasingly burned out. In this context, the old promise of hard work leading to happiness is broken.

The VUCA World

She uses the acronym VUCA—Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous—to describe the chaotic labor landscape. Global interdependence means that floods in Thailand can halt laptop production in California, while automation and AI steadily eat away at traditional jobs. Musk predicts mass mechanization, but Aitsi-Selmi emphasizes the human response: uncertainty fuels fear. The tragedy, she claims, is that our instinctive reaction—to tighten control and seek predictability—actually deepens stress and kills creativity.

The Brain’s Struggle with Uncertainty

Modern workplaces constantly trigger our ancient “survival brain.” The mammalian-reptilian brain seeks safety and control, but the world now demands flexibility and constant reinvention. When people perceive uncertainty as threat, their neocortex—the seat of empathy, reason, and creativity—switches off. Burnout is, therefore, not just a workload problem; it’s a neural one. Our biology is mismatched with the pace of change.

The Illusion of Safety

One of the most insidious forces Aitsi-Selmi identifies is the illusion of safety. Individuals cling to familiar jobs—often toxic ones—under the false belief that stability equals security. She calls this “searching for safety in the wrong places.” Material comforts, company benefits, and professional titles become emotional armor. Yet, as her case study of the executive with the perfect exit plan shows, fear of the unknown can paralyze even the most capable professionals until external circumstances force change. To break free, one must learn to view uncertainty not as danger, but as raw material for reinvention.

Why Burnout Is a Symptom, Not a Weakness

Aitsi-Selmi reframes burnout as moral injury rather than personal failure. It happens, she argues, when people must repeatedly violate their core values—working under dehumanizing systems, ignoring intuition, or competing in zero-sum office politics. The result is alienation, cynicism, and eventually physical breakdown. This systemic framing recalls the work of Michael Marmot (Status Syndrome), who showed how hierarchical structures harm health at every level, not just the bottom.

Understanding burnout as a feedback signal—evidence that your outer life has diverged from your inner truth—transforms it from crisis to catalyst. A career breakdown becomes a doorway into self-knowledge.

Aitsi-Selmi devotes an entire section to the elite professionals most ensnared by success: the high achievers. These are the people society praises for excellence but who, privately, live in cycles of guilt, restlessness, and burnout. In her words, they are “winning the rat race but losing happiness.”

Achievement Addiction

Success becomes an addiction when achievement starts to meet multiple psychological needs: safety, connection, significance, and growth. As with any addiction, when the brain links reward (dopamine) with goal-chasing, absence of a target feels intolerable. The achiever’s day must be filled with tasks or crises; otherwise, anxiety rushes in. Unlike overt addictions, work addiction is socially rewarded, making it harder to detect.

Aitsi-Selmi compares this to rolling Sisyphus’ boulder endlessly uphill: every summit is followed by emptiness. She borrows Erich Fromm’s insight that the pursuit of external success produces “illusory happiness”—a fleeting high that demands constant repetition.

Trapping Identities

She identifies two common identity traps that amplify the paradox:

• Imposter Syndrome: High performers attribute success to luck or error, fearing exposure as frauds. Despite evidence of competence, they never internalize success. As Aitsi-Selmi notes, even icons like Maya Angelou and Michelle Obama confessed to this feeling.
• Rescuer Syndrome: A compulsion to fix and help others, even at personal expense. Borrowing examples from medicine and leadership, she illustrates how perpetual rescuers exhaust themselves serving others’ needs while neglecting their own.

Both patterns originate in fear of vulnerability. They distort the natural balance between giving and receiving, doing and being. The antidote is awareness—learning to witness these drives rather than obey them.

Rethinking Success and Merit

Through her critique of meritocracy, Aitsi-Selmi questions the cultural script that says we “deserve” success solely through effort and talent. Drawing on philosopher Michael Sandel’s Harvard lectures on justice, she points out that no one’s achievements exist in a vacuum of personal merit—they’re built on luck, privilege, and circumstance. Realizing this can free you from both arrogance and guilt, turning gratitude and humility into sources of strength. This shift reframes the high achiever’s crisis as an awakening: a chance to replace egoic success with meaningful contribution.

What if the problem isn’t that you set the wrong goals—but that you set too many? Aitsi-Selmi warns that modern productivity culture has transformed goal-setting into a psychological trap. While research proves that accountability improves achievement, she observes, endless goal-chasing can become a dopamine-driven treadmill that drains vitality.

Goal Addiction Versus Creative Flow

She distinguishes between the goal-driven life and the creative life. In the first, goals are compulsions to fill inner emptiness; in the second, goals become outcomes of curiosity and alignment. Using Tony Robbins’ human needs model, she explains how goal addiction meets competing needs—safety, challenge, significance, connection, growth, contribution—creating inner conflict. The cure is not renouncing goals but rebalancing them: letting inspiration, not fear, set the direction.

The Creative Cycle

Inspired by psychologists Graham Wallas and Mihaly Csikszentmihályi, Aitsi-Selmi describes creativity as a repeating cycle with six stages: Relax, Reflect, Release, Reconnect, Respond, and Receive. Progress requires alternating action with incubation—periods of stillness where the subconscious recombines ideas, much like Newton’s orchard or Archimedes’ bath. The implication is radical: rest is productive. In her client case studies, breakthroughs occur not during frantic problem-solving but moments of pause—a walk, a nap, a conversation.

Letting Go of the Social Self

The author cites neuroscientific studies showing that creativity blossoms when regions of the brain regulating social conformity—our internal audience—switch off. Jazz improvisers, for instance, deactivate self-monitoring circuits when they solo. Similarly, the photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s unconventional genius emerged after he lost social inhibitions due to a brain injury. For the rest of us, mindfulness cultivates this same freedom deliberately: it quiets the “social self” obsessed with others’ opinions and reconnects us with instinctive creativity.

You’re Not a Machine

Ultimately, Aitsi-Selmi urges you to stop treating yourself like an algorithmic output machine. The industrial model of productivity—maximizing throughput—is incompatible with human flourishing. To innovate, we must reclaim our rhythm: cycles of expansion and rest, logic and imagination. In her view, this is not indulgence but necessity. The best work, she asserts, arises from presence, not pressure.

In what may be the most counterintuitive chapter, Aitsi-Selmi proposes a paradoxical truth: the more overwhelmed you feel, the greater your need to slow down. Borrowing lessons from elite organizations and spiritual traditions, she reframes self-care as performance strategy, not self-indulgence.

The Toxicity of Urgency

In frenetic cultures, “busyness” becomes a badge of honor. But constant urgency triggers chronic stress responses—tight muscles, racing thoughts, sleeplessness—that erode judgment. When leaders are always in fight-or-flight mode, creativity dies. Studies she cites from McKinsey show that teams who consciously slow their pace often outperform those addicted to speed, because they think more systemically and waste less energy firefighting.

Creating Space

To reset, she introduces HALT—a reminder to check if you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired before reacting. Simple yet profound, this practice mirrors mindfulness-in-action. She also urges readers to “make friends with time” by leaving psychological time loops (rumination, worry) and returning to real-time awareness. The aim is not time management but choice management: consciously directing attention, energy, and priorities.

Boundaries and the Inner Boss

A major barrier to slowing down is guilt. High achievers often hear an inner boss—a critical voice whispering “you can’t stop now.” This internalized authority, she explains, is a relic of upbringing and work culture. Learning to say “no” is therefore an act of liberation, not rebellion. Setting boundaries—both external and internal—redirects energy toward what truly matters. Her case studies show that professionals who prioritize recovery end up more focused and successful, not less.

Mindfulness over Multitasking

Multitasking, she warns, is a myth; our brains perform better with batching and flow. She points to research on deep work (Cal Newport) and four-day workweek experiments at Microsoft Japan demonstrating that shorter, calmer schedules yield higher productivity and satisfaction. The book connects these findings to meditation science: eight weeks of mindfulness training thickens brain regions for attention while thinning those tied to anxiety. Pausing isn’t procrastination—it’s alignment.

Freedom, Aitsi-Selmi insists, begins with unlearning. The Success Trap endures because of invisible assumptions—stories we confuse with facts. The sixth chapter presents her most transformative tool: the High Achiever Paradox Transformation (HAPI) process, a method of self-enquiry and self-mastery for dissolving limiting thoughts and emotions.

Reality Is a Construct

Combining sociology (Berger & Luckmann), neuroscience, and mindfulness, she explains that much of what we experience as “real” is socially constructed and reinforced by repetition. When you define situations as real, they become real in their consequences. A professional who labels themselves “not creative” unconsciously censors innovation; a leader who believes “you must always appear strong” blocks genuine connection. Recognizing thoughts as mental constructs is the first step to freedom.

The Five Questions of Self-Enquiry

Her five-question framework introduces a systematic way to examine stressful beliefs:

• What thoughts and feelings am I experiencing?
• How does this thought not serve me?
• Do I choose to believe it?
• What is an alternative thought that’s as true or truer?
• What do I resolve in this moment?

Through this Socratic process (inspired partly by Byron Katie’s “The Work”), clients like Freya and Tara learn to reframe crippling beliefs—“I can’t say no,” “I must have the answer now”—into empowering ones. The shift isn’t cognitive alone; it’s emotional, releasing the body’s stored tension.

The Role of Self-Mastery

Self-mastery complements reflection with emotional presence. When intensity arises—fear, grief, frustration—breathing, self-soothing, and compassion activate oxytocin and calm the limbic system. Aitsi-Selmi cites evidence from Compassion-Focused Therapy and neuroscience proving that kind attention creates trust, safety, and clarity. Over time, these micro-practices forge seven observable shifts: from reactivity to responsiveness, from control to creativity, and from fear to flow. Awareness, she concludes, is home. It’s the mental place where you are free, regardless of external conditions.

After the inner transformation comes practical application. Part Three of Aitsi-Selmi’s book offers tools to translate awareness into action—reconnecting with purpose, managing energy, communicating mindfully, and leading with authenticity.

Reconnect, Respond, Receive

She structures this around three verbs: Reconnect (to mission and values), Respond (by taking aligned action), and Receive (through patience and acknowledgment). Rather than chasing a lofty purpose, she advises letting small daily joys reveal it. Exercises like writing your epitaph in the present tense (“I am remembered for…”) or exploring your Ikigai—the intersection of what you love, what you do well, what the world needs, and what pays—help resurface authentic motivation.

Energy and Influence

Through tools such as the energy audit, readers identify what drains or energizes them. The principle is simple: where attention goes, energy flows. She then applies this awareness to relationships via Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Conversations framed around observations, feelings, needs, and requests dissolve defensiveness and build trust. “Turn complaints into clear asks,” she advises, whether you’re renegotiating workload or proposing a new project.

Her guidance on meetings and emails underscores mindfulness in modern contexts—pausing before replying, replacing “Yes, but…” with “Yes, and…”, and ensuring time for genuine listening. Such micro-habits, she argues, are what transform leadership cultures.

Staying Free

Freedom is not a one-time event but a practice. Since old habits always threaten to resurface, Aitsi-Selmi recommends regular self-reviews—daily reflections or monthly check-ins—to celebrate wins and recalibrate choices. “Transformation is an upward spiral,” she writes. “You may backtrack, but you never return to who you were.”

The world’s volatility can either paralyze or propel you. Aitsi-Selmi reframes uncertainty as a gateway to possibility—the raw ingredient of innovation and fulfillment. Drawing from economist Frank Knight’s taxonomy, she distinguishes three kinds of uncertainty: predictable risk, calculable probabilities, and true unpredictability—the last being the realm of creativity.

Comfort Zone Bias

Humans, she explains, are hardwired for the familiar. Behavioral experiments reveal we require double the potential gain before we’ll risk a loss—a comfort zone bias. In careers, this manifests as staying in “good enough” jobs rather than risking reinvention. Entrepreneurs differ not by lacking fear, but by harnessing it: they treat experiments as learning loops, not existential bets. Courage, then, isn’t the absence of fear but conscious engagement with it.

Responding to Uncertainty

The author introduces an emotional change cycle—from naive optimism to pessimism, despair, and renewed informed optimism. Recognizing your stage lets you respond wisely. Informed optimism, she writes, balances realism with hope; it’s the mindset of the adaptive leader who can pivot rather than panic. Her case study of Athena, a surgeon turned global health researcher, exemplifies this: once she stopped forcing outcomes and relaxed into uncertainty, new collaborations—including with UNICEF—appeared effortlessly.

Living in the Learning Zone

Aitsi-Selmi invites readers into the “learning zone,” a space between comfort and panic. Here, anxiety becomes energy for growth. Playfulness, she argues, is essential: turn challenges into games, collect “nos” as trophies, and celebrate experimentation regardless of outcome. Passion, she notes, is not a prerequisite for risk but a by-product of it. Following risk generates meaning; waiting for passion delays life.

Her closing reminder echoes Viktor Frankl: purpose is discovered when you commit to what you’d “do even from a cardboard box.” The task is not to eliminate uncertainty but to dance with it—transforming fear into freedom.

In her finale, Aitsi-Selmi turns from personal change to collective reform. If individuals can break free of the Success Trap, so can organizations. She envisions workplaces designed for psychological safety, creativity, and shared humanity rather than competition and fear.

The Antidote to Toxic Cultures

Drawing on Harvard professor Amy Edmondson’s work, she defines psychological safety as the belief that one can speak up without punishment or ridicule. Google’s Project Aristotle confirmed it as the single strongest predictor of team performance—more than talent, resources, or strategy. In contrast, cultures built on rigid hierarchies, blame, and insecurity erode trust and innovation. Employees stay silent, creativity stagnates, and burnout spreads.

Leadership, she argues, must evolve from command-and-control to compassionate ruthlessness—a balance of truth and care. The CEO who saved his manufacturing company during the 2008 recession by instituting furloughs instead of layoffs exemplifies this: “Better that everyone suffer a little than one person suffer a lot.” His empathy doubled savings and morale.

Healthy Human Productivity

Aitsi-Selmi redefines productivity as “creative contribution,” not output per hour. Echoing Simon Sinek’s “leaders eat last,” she lists traits of good leaders: embracing uncertainty, guiding instead of commanding, knowing when to let go, and going first in vulnerability. Meetings that begin with authentic sharing (“one thing I don’t want people to know about me”) transform teams instantly by normalizing humanity.

The Infinite Game

Finally, she reframes work itself as an infinite game. Success is not a finite victory but an ongoing collaboration in the evolution of humanity. Tasks, careers, and achievements are notes in a symphony larger than any individual. Adopting this lens dissolves fear of failure and breeds both ambition and serenity. In that spirit, her closing words echo Nelson Mandela: “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”