by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
The Illusion of Success and What to Do About It
In a success-obsessed world it can be easy to define ourselves by our goals but, unfortunately, many men find themselves chasing goals that ultimately leave them feeling hollow and unreal – this suggests that something has gone ‘wrong’ somewhere.
This article explores the deeper psychological and spiritual reasons why ‘success’ in the form of ‘achievement’ alone rarely scratches that inner itch that calls us towards fulfilment:
We’ll look at how shame warps our desires, how society’s version of ‘success’ often disconnects us from our truth, and why realness – not reputation – is the only foundation that truly holds and gives us what we’re truly looking for.
You’ll discover how compensatory behaviours rooted in unresolved shadow aspects keep you stuck in cycles of overwork and under-fulfilment and – most importantly – you’ll learn how to reclaim your power by reconnecting with the truth of who you are and what really matters (your REALNESS).
With practical steps and real insight, this is a wake-up call for any man who’s tired of wearing masks and ready to live from purpose, not performance.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
The Role of Shame: Twisted Desires, Twisted Direction
Before we even talk about success, we need to talk about shame because shame is the invisible hand that’s constantly steering the ship of our lives off course:
Most men don’t realise it, but shame distorts your desires:
It convinces you that you’re not ‘enough’ as you are in your realness and that success is the only way to earn your worth (because you fall into the trap of thinking that your realness is something you need to ‘achieve’ instead of simply ‘receive’).
It quietly implants the belief that if you can just achieve more, prove yourself more, get more validation, then maybe – just maybe – you’ll finally be able to say you’re okay.
This kind of striving is rooted in a lie because shame doesn’t just affect how you feel – it affects what you want. It makes you chase things that don’t actually fulfil you because you’re not chasing from a place of realness, you’re chasing from a place of ego and compensation.
This is why so many men climb the ladder of ‘success‘ only to eventually find it’s been leaning against the wrong wall.
When you don’t heal your shame by returning to the truth about yourself, then your ambitions are built on compensation, not conviction – you want power to make up for feeling powerless; you want validation to patch over self-doubt. You want attention because deep down, you don’t believe you’re worthy of love without it, and – with this emotional ‘stuff’ driving you – it all just feels so hollow, even if you ‘win’.
Before we talk about the illusion of success, then, we have to realise that most of us are under an illusion about our desires in the first place – we’re chasing things not because we actually want them but because we need them to keep the ego that we created in reaction to our own shame in place.
In other words, until you face your shame, you’re not choosing your path – you’re reacting to pain.
The Cult of Success
Success is one of the few socially acceptable obsessions for a man (even though obsession is often frowned upon as a weakness):
From childhood, we’re programmed to chase it – grades, trophies, money, girls, admiration, and status. We’re taught that to be a “real man” is to be a successful man.
And so begins the hamster wheel and all of the endless ‘chasing’ that comes with it.
What’s ironic however is that most men have no idea what success actually means to them because they’ve never really sat down to think about it or talked to anybody about figuring it out.
Instead, they’re chasing a vague image that was handed down by their parents, their peers, or society at large – a collage of cultural noise—status, wealth, muscles, women, reputation.
This collage might shiny on the surface but, for many, the more they achieve, the emptier they feel (because they’re chasing something that only seems meaningful on the surface and not that is actually aligned with their real values and deepest intentions).
When you think about it, the lesson here is pretty clear:
Success isn’t real unless it’s rooted in REALNESS.
Realness Over Reputation
Realness is your relationship with the truth and you’re ability to keep 1) uncovering the truth, and then, 2) living and breathing the truth.
It’s not about society’s truth. It’s not about your parents’ truth. It’s about THE truth and your ability to understand it from the point of view of your real relationship with you actually are.
This means that your real ‘success’ comes from the core of who you are underneath all the masks which is why shifting into a real gear can be so uncomfortable:
Most men have no idea who they are without those masks.
Part of the problem is that we’re constantly taught to measure ourselves by external results: for example, money, career, relationships, or how many people envy us on Instagram.
But those things aren’t real – they’re just symbols imbued with emotional and cultural meaning.
They only mean something REAL if they’re expressions of the truth – not substitutes for it.
When a man is disconnected from his truth, everything he builds is shaky and his life is on a tenuous and unreal foundation:
He might build a successful business, an impressive physique, or a polished reputation but if it’s not grounded in authenticity, it can never satisfy him.
At the end of the day, you can’t outsource your own wholeness and trying to do so just leads to a deeper and deeper sense of fragmentation.
The Shadow Dance: Compensating with Success
Enter the Shadow Dance – the ongoing tug-of-war between your Ego and your Shadow Self:
- The Ego wants to be seen as powerful, smart, successful, capable but…
- The Shadow contains everything you’ve rejected, buried, or refused to face – your shame, fear, insecurities, and the values, goals, and desires you’ve labelled as ‘unacceptable’ (even though they may bring you great joy or be totally healthy).
What most men don’t realise is a lot of the ‘success’ they chase is actually an unconscious attempt to compensate for what’s hidden in the shadow without giving up the ego they’ve become dependent on (to feel a false sense of ‘safety’ in the world).
Feel powerless? Chase dominance. Feel unloved? Chase validation. Feel unworthy? Chase achievements.
Absolutely nothing you gain externally will ever fix an internal fracture because what you’re really looking for isn’t success – it’s integration.
Wholeness.
And the bottom-line is that you can’t access that while parts of yourself are still living in the dark – no matter what you chase or try to find ‘success’ in.
Good Things Become Bad Gods
It’s not that achievement, money, women, or ambition are ‘bad’. Far from it. They’re good things. Very good things, in many cases.
The problem is that they become bad when you treat them as the only thing that matters (and become outcome-dependent which means investing your self-worth in these things because your shame has detached you from it).
Many men lose themselves not because they were chasing the wrong thing – but because they turned one good thing into everything:
They sacrifice their health, relationships, peace of mind, and self-respect on the altar of ‘success’ and then they wonder why they still feel empty and filled with shame when they reach the top.
When ‘success’ becomes a mask rather than an expression of something real, it leads to burnout, anxiety, and numbness.
You’re working hard, but you’re not working true, and so you take yourself out of life and put keep yourself locked in your head instead.
You Can’t Fill the Void with Trophies
There’s a Void inside every man who’s disconnected himself from the truth about himself, the world, and reality. It’s not depression, exactly, but something much deeper – the existential ache of being UNREAL.
And here’s the truth most men don’t want to hear: you can’t fill the Void with trophies because ‘success’ never has, never will, and simply doesn’t fill the Void.
What does fill it is a sense of purpose. Real purpose that reconnects you to yourself. The kind that strips away ego, heals shame, and brings your whole being into alignment and the natural drive towards wholeness that’s in every single one of us.
Purpose isn’t just about doing or even being – it’s about becoming. This means that it’s not so much about the goals (though they’re really important) but about the process of becoming more whole, more honest, more integrated.
It’s not something you achieve. It’s something you live by letting go of all the unreal ‘stuff’ you picked up and focusing on something REAL.
Practical Steps to Reclaim Your Realness
- Define Success for Yourself
Stop using society’s scorecard:
Sit down with yourself and ask: What actually matters to me? What kind of man do I want to be when no one’s watching? What values am I willing to suffer for as I bring more of them into the world? - Identify Compensatory Goals
Look at what you’re chasing and ask: Is this coming from truth or is this an attempt to compensate for shame, fear, or insecurity? Be honest with yourself. Most of your goals will have both. But the awareness changes everything and makes sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing (so you’re not just acting on autopilot because of ego). - Do Shadow Work
Start a daily or weekly practice of self-inquiry:
Journal about what you reject or judge in others – these things often points to ‘parts’ of yourself that you’ve disowned. Embrace what you’ve buried and unravel the threads that need pulling. There’s gold in the darkness that you can build into your life. - Embrace REAL Purpose
Choose purpose over performance:
Real purpose connects you to others and requires service, integrity, and truth. It might not impress everyone – but it will fulfil you deeply more than any external idea of ‘success’ ever will. - Deconstruct Shame
Notice the voice in your head that says You’re not ‘enough’.
Question where it came from: Whose standards are you really living by? Are they yours or are they inherited? - Let Go of the Image
Stop curating a brand and start becoming a man:
The goal isn’t to look good but to become good from the inside-out.
When you focus on realness, success becomes a by-product, not a burden that you’re endlessly carrying with all that chasing.
Conclusion: Success Without Realness Is Just Another Costume
The world will keep telling you that ‘success’ is about metrics – money, followers, six-packs, and an endless grind of empty busyness.
The quiet truth is pretty different:
Real success is becoming the man you were designed to be, not the man the world expects you to be.
When your version of success is built on realness, it nourishes you, grounds you, and heals you (because it brings you back to wholeness).
When it’s built on shame, ego, and overcompensation, it becomes just another form of self-abandonment (because you become fragmented).
Next time you find yourself striving and not getting anywhere, take pause. Because success without realness isn’t success at all. It’s just a gilded cage.
Stay real out there,
If you’d like to overcome the illusion of success and grow real and you’re interested in coaching then book a call with me.
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