Are You Forgetting Your Own Success? The Truth About Success Amnesia

Are you constantly chasing the next goal without celebrating your wins? You might have Success Amnesia—and it could be holding you back. 
In this episode of This Is A Voice, Dr. Gillyanne Kayes & Jeremy Fisher dive into why high-achieving singers, teachers, and performers forget their own success, how this mindset can lead to burnout & imposter syndrome, and—most importantly—how to break the cycle.

We also explore: 
🎤 Why singers, voice teachers, and performers are particularly vulnerable to Success Amnesia
🧠 How this relates to ADHD, burnout, and high-performance careers
🚀 Practical strategies to track, celebrate, and harness your achievements for growth
💡 The game-changing Success Bank method

If you’ve ever felt like you should be further along by now or your successes don’t count, this episode is for you

💬 Join the conversation: Do you experience Success Amnesia? What’s your strategy for recognizing your achievements? Tell us in the comments!

📖 Read the full blog on Success Amnesia here: https://vocalprocess.co.uk/success-amnesia/
📚 Book mentioned: Now It All Makes Sense by Alex Partridge https://amzn.to/4l0g4zF
📚 Article mentioned: Singing Voice Teaching and Voice Science: Where is the Meeting Point? By Gillyanne Kayes and Irene Bartlett https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/425/article/935196/pdf

🔗 Follow us for more insights on voice, singing, and performance:
👉 YouTube: https://youtube.com/vocalprocess
👉 Website: https://vocalprocess.co.uk

#ThisIsAVoice #SuccessAmnesia #SingingTips #ADHD #ImposterSyndrome #Musicians #Burnout #VocalCoaching #Singers #ChoirLeaders #VoiceTeachers #Mindset #Performers #MusicalTheatre #SuccessMindset

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Transcript

0:11

This is a Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is, a Voice Hello and welcome to, this is A Voice, season 11, episode four. The podcast where we get Vocal about voice. I'm Jeremy Fisher. And I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes. What are we doing today? I've forgotten. We had a brilliant idea for a topic to talk about and I. What was it? Success amnesia. Success Amnesia. I wrote an article very recently on the website in the blog things on Success Amnesia. It was something that we learned about recently, but we've known about for a long time. Yeah. Shall we tell them how we found out about it as a syndrome and it's a. One of the syndromes you look for in someone who is ADHD is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's exclusive to ADHD but it's certainly there. Success amnesia. We've, we learned about this when we were on a long journey and we listen to, we don't listen to music in the car. It's too much part of the business. We do listen to audio books and we were listening to Alex Partridge doing a book, which I think is called Now it All Makes Sense. Yes. On living with ADHD and first of all, it was so funny because we were listening to this and Gillyanne was just grinning at me the entire time. Yeah. Every so often I would pause and say. Yes. Yes. Now I get it. Yes, you do that. Yes. And also now it all makes sense to me and it's brilliant. So I just want to say, shout out to the wonderful Alex Partridge for all the amazing work he does in this area. He has a podcast about. ADHD doesn't he? He specifically set around such a good idea. He set up a podcast and invited a whole load of ADHD experts in all sorts of arenas to come and talk about their work. Mm-hmm. So he was learning just as much as the listener was every time. So if you are diagnosed or if you are undiagnosed, which Jeremy is, but we're pretty darn certain he's ADHD He ticks all the boxes. Yep. Or if like me, you live with and work with someone who's ADHD I absolutely recommend that you listen to or read that book. It has, it's really helped us actually. It really has. And I'm also, for me listening to it, it's like, yeah, I do that. Yeah, I do that. Yeah. I think like that, yes, that works for me. Yes. That's how I deal with it. And it was a sort of affirming audio book as well. Ultimately what you go is, oh, I'm not weird. Yeah, I'm weird, but I'm not weird, and that's really useful. Embrace your weirdness. Thank you. Because actually what I want to tell people is. If you do give yourself this opportunity to recognize what ADHD means, it will improve your life and it will improve the life of those around you. I honestly think Jeremy has been happier since he stopped masking. And I haven't said this to you, but I think our business is running more smoothly and more optimally. Yeah. Okay. That's a shout out for accepting ADHD then. We will put the link to the book in the show notes if you want to go and have a read. Yeah. Okay. Jeremy, you wrote the blog? Yes. What is it? Success Amnesia is, it's just a really interesting thing. It's. When you have achieved something, but it doesn't mean anything to you. You don't even notice that you've achieved it. It's oh yeah, okay. Another box ticked and onto the next thing. So there's no awareness of the sort of success that you've done. And also there's no celebration of it. And I will say my life coach, and I've had him for a number of years. Has been honored me to do all sorts of things like this. I didn't know that it came under this banner. But I know in the blog I talk about a very large poster, which in fact I'm looking at right now. Which is just above my desk. And I am not the sort of person that would put a poster up. I had to be persuaded to do this. But I did a masterclass in university of Chichester and they did an amazing poster of me doing the masterclass. I just saw it on boards when I was there and I went, Ooh, can I take that home with me? So it's up on the wall. So every time I'm working, every so often I will look up and I'll go yeah, you did that masterclass. That was good. Basically you are the level that can be invited to do masterclasses, well done. And it's just a sort of prod for me to remember where I am, what I've done. And some of the successful things. Yeah. And actually one of the reasons why we wanted to talk about it in this podcast is because it also happens to me and it happened to me recently, I dunno if you remember. But I was putting together, a proposal for a book, an abstract, and it was hard work. And, the way that I process is very different from Jeremy. Yep. I will get germs of ideas, little seeds of ideas. Then I start to look at all the different seeds, and at a certain point they start to make a pattern. For me, it's a bit like working with a jigsaw. I hate jigsaw by the way, but that's the idea. I'll come in piece by piece, and then I think, oh, this is the whole picture. And I absolutely love seeing the connectedness of things. And then everything will drop into place for me, and this is exactly what happened. Yep. Because. I allowed myself some sifting time before I finalized this proposal, and I was absolutely thrilled to bits with myself. And then I said to Jeremy, and do you know what I just remembered? I had this lovely email from a research colleague back in the summer who said that they'd come across my initial chapter for the Oxford Handbook of Singing called. Structure and Function of Singing Voice, I think, and they said such nice things about it. And I'd forgotten that. And I actually went and got the email out and I read it aloud to Jeremy. I was gonna say, I don't think you even told me that email had arrived the first time. No. It had just 'cause so many things were going on in my mind at that point. And I don't know if you've spoken about this, but over the last two years, we almost got to that. We did get to the point where we were in burnout. For those of you who might not know, one of the symptoms of burnout can be that you develop, hopefully temporary acquired ADHD So I started to notice some of the things that Jeremy normally gets that I was getting, and that was one of them. It gave. Oh and also on that topic success amnesia is one of the things that contributes to burnout because you have no concept or no awareness that you are good at what you do. You just assume that you are bad at what you do and that nothing has ever worked. And I think, obviously we're gonna talk about it for, for musical music professionals, but in terms of you, Jeremy, because you have. At least a hundred ideas a day minimum. And of these, some of them will actually be pretty bloody brilliant. Yeah. Now whether one follows through on those ideas, for instance, in a business situation is another matter altogether, and that's one of the things we've had to learn to deal with. But because you are onto the next idea, you simply haven't realized what you did before. And because you're onto the next thing, you simply don't realize and celebrate. You don't get into that. It's called the psychological state of satisfaction, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, and and linked with that, Gillyanne has been telling me for years, and in fact we've talked about this before. I would come back from a coaching session, this is years ago. Mm-hmm. And would say, oh yes, I did that with that person. And she would go, that's really good. Can you write that down? Can we do something with that? And I'd go, what? Completely oblivious. That should be my middle name really, but so I'm just oblivious to the effect. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't realize how brilliant it was. So in particular, there are two ideas that you brought home from teaching. That you unpacked with me and I thought, wow, these are so good. These are brilliant. I know which ones you're gonna say. Yeah. They're in the Learning Lounge, aren't they? Yes, they are. Certainly one of them is. Yeah. One of them was Answers on a Postcard. Mastering Musical Theatre in the Learning Lounge. Which we have used over and over in master classes, and I absolutely love that other practitioners and other teachers have morphed it and are using it in their sessions as well. Yeah. Fantastic. And then something that got into Successful Singing Auditions was the FOAL Process. The FOAL Process, Falling Off A Log - FOAL. Your falling off a log area is the thing that you do so easily that you don't even notice it. You don't rate it, you don't think it's particularly special until you see somebody else struggling with it and you go that old thing, why are you having a problem? That's because it's a falling off a log area for you. And one of the things I'm doing in my career coaching now is helping people find their falling off a log areas because that's the thing that they're gonna be able to sustain in a career. Fun. So Jeremy thinking. To the blog. Yeah. Can you tell us more about how you see Success Amnesia in the people you work with? The music professionals, the singing, voice professionals. The performers. The first thing that I notice is the whole moving on. Mentality. Which is yeah, that wasn't anything special. What's next? And there's no pause. There's no moment where you go, I did really well. Or That worked, or, I'm so pleased that happened, or, I'm sure this can lead to something. Really interesting. There's no pause moment because it doesn't occur to people that there is something there to celebrate. That's the first thing. Can I just read this?'cause I actually really like this paragraph. Yes. Success amnesia happens when you consistently forget your own achievements. Instead of sitting in the glow of what you've accomplished, your brain zooms straight to what's next? What didn't go perfectly? Hello? Professional musicians. Yeah. What don't I feel there yet? Wherever there is. Why? Sorry, why don't I feel there yet? As if there's some kind of arrival point. This is something I suffer from as well. Oh yeah, me too. For years. It's like, why haven't I made it? And the question is made it doing what? Being what? Arriving where. It's really, it's just a, it's a fascinating thing when you realize that it is a thing. Yeah. And. We as musicians operate in high stakes, high emotional environments, and we do tend to be constantly seeking approval. Teachers, audition panels, audiences, casting directors, and hello social media. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So why does it become a problem, Jeremy? Because there's no moment of satisfaction, because you are constantly on the move. There's no settling anywhere. And oddly enough, it's because you don't acknowledge your own skills and sometimes even your own level. And so there's a sort of sense of dissatisfaction that runs through everything. That is not good for you to keep that sense of dissatisfaction going. So it's gonna drain enjoyment. Yes. Burnout. And that's going to drain your confidence. Yeah. Burnout. The whole burnout thing. Yeah. Which is, and imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is a big thing for artists in general. Any kind of artist, anyone working in the arts. Because. Part of it, part of the creativity is I, it's almost like I need to create something, but I dunno if it's any good. And then you are constantly looking outside for people's opinions. And the impostor syndrome is, people, if you like. Aren't telling me that I'm any good. Sometimes they don't have time to tell you. Sometimes they will tell you a year later. Yep. Thank you for telling me. Can you do it at the time? It's much nicer. And also the whole, because of that, you disconnect from what you do. You disconnect from the joy of what you are doing and the passion of what you're doing. And again, for artists, it's very important that we can connect with that level of joy and that passion. It's quite a big thing. It has a lot of knock on effects. In the article I talk about three things that you can do. Can I just, 'cause I've, you haven't written about this in the article, but I, it's something that I've spotted. If you do have success amnesia and you're constantly thinking that there should be something else you should do. And if you don't recognize the successes so far, don't you think it's gonna make it harder for people to start a new enterprise because they're gonna feel concerned that maybe it won't be successful? I think it's more do ing Yeah. I think it's, it is a big part of it is about knowing yourself. And, Gillyanne and I are very big on knowing yourself as part of your role, as a performer, as a teacher, as a coach, as a whatever. When you know yourself, you know where your strengths lie, you know where your skills are, and it becomes, life and your job becomes so much easier because you're doing what you do. And I think the difficulty, if you have Success Amnesia, is that you don't really know where your skills and strengths lie. And so you go chasing after the latest thing. And you put, you might even put together a whole business plan, which is actually, you miss yourself outta the business plan. And I can speak from experience because we've done it like that. It doesn't work. It doesn't work in the long term. So this is all part of getting to know yourself and your strengths. Yeah. Do you know when I was thinking about how I wanted to speak about this today, I was digging around in my desk and I found, yes, I have a desk, people, not just a desk desktop. And I found some of my little prompt cards. Because some of you listeners may not know that I can suffer. Severely from performance anxiety, and I certainly did as I, I was a young singer. But there are all sorts of other performance situations that, one puts oneself in, like going to a conference and being a keynote at a conference and being a headliner at a conference, presenting research papers, et cetera, et cetera. Any of those things can give you performance anxiety. And one of my prompt cards I noticed today said, warmth, connectivity, and competence. Nice. And those are three elements, if you like, attributes that I feel I can demonstrate and be. And so if I'm going to an event, I might take that card with me and have a look at it and go, okay, I'm these things. I can do these things. And this is part of knowing yourself, knowing what you have to offer. Okay. Let's, that's your first exercise as a listener. Can you come up with three words that you would be comfortable living with or living as that reflect you? And if you don't know yourself very well at this moment mm-hmm then fine. Ask somebody else. Ask your friends. If you had to pick, if you had to describe me in three words, what would those three words be? Write them down and actually ask different friends. We did this, that it's the sort of What Three Words thing, the What Three Words for you? Yeah. Yeah. What Three Words for you? You and your personality. Very useful to ask different people because they come up with different words, but you'll often find that there is a theme running through, and in fact, we did this for our Accreditation people, as they were coming to the end of their programme for cohorts 22 and 23, all of them, I think we, I think we might have done it for 21 as well. And it was really fascinating because we collated them and I gave everybody a word cloud, which was everybody's words for that person. And it's such an emotional thing when you see how people think of you and how they, they recognize your strengths sometimes more than you do. And when you see those word clouds, what then happens is that you'll look at them and maybe there's some things you never thought of, but there will be things that you look at and you can honestly say yes. Yeah, absolutely. And those are your things. Absolutely. Those are the things that you can demonstrate and show up with in the world, and that's really important.'cause then again, that connects with your purpose and in terms of how you manifest that purpose, if you like. In terms of career, if you have those words, you can go to someone. I'm gonna give a shout out for your career coaching because you get such amazing feedback from it. Yeah, I do. Yeah, you do. You, there you go. You go. There's moment. I just had a moment. Yes. Which is, yes, actually I do. Yes. Yeah. That you can go with those words and say, how do I make this happen in what I do? Yes. There's also something lovely about this, which is if you do have success amnesia, and you are the sort of person that doesn't focus that much on yourself and your own skills. When you see that word cloud or that list of words that people have created and chosen for you, sometimes it kick starts you into going, actually, am I that person? I am that person. And it can change your view of yourself and it can actually help you to become more grounded. It's quite extraordinary. Jeremy, I've got a little confession to make. Oh, okay. I got one of my three words wrong. Oh, okay. Yeah. It is a word that I use in relation to myself, connectivity. Yeah. But actually it was. Authenticity always a good word, and I love it. Warmth, authenticity, and competence. Yes. We could have a whole conversation about authenticity, but not in this episode. So what else? Do you want to tell people? I just wanna go through the first Yeah. The, 'cause I give people three, three things to do nice exercises in the article. Yeah. I want to give the first one in this podcast, which is define what success feels like for you. Now for some people, that's an incredibly easy question, and for some that is nigh on impossible. But if you work at this one, what would a successful day look like, feel like, sound like? What would you be doing? Where would you be? What colors would be around you? What scents? There's all sorts of things that you can build into that question. It's a really powerful exercise to do. So close your eyes if you are comfortable with that and imagine preferably not if you're driving, listening to this and imagine one perfect work day wouldn't be very long if you were driving and we're focusing on work day specifically because of the idea of being professionals. Yes. And our work lives. Yes. Your ideal work day, what are you doing? And Nick, you can be doing anything at all. You can be doing a whole mix of things. You can be doing just one thing all day. It's entirely up to you because this is your best day. Who are you working with? Are you by yourself? Are you working with colleagues or do you have people coming for lessons? What's going on? Who are the other people there around you? Yeah. And if you are by yourself and that's your best day, take notice of it. And then how do you feel? I know we do a lot of feel questions. Part of the thing is that my primary modes are kinesthetic and visual, so I tend to do feel and see. And if that's not a thing that you are comfortable with, then just describe what's happening, what's going on around you, what do you see? What do you hear? But there's something very powerful about, if you like, how do you know that this is the best day you've had in your work life ever? I'm just wondering if I can share an example. Sometimes when we haven't taught for a while. For instance, we took a pause, didn't we? Between, we did, the last two accreditation cohorts, which I think was a great thing for us to do on. That was also a scary thing for us to do on many levels. Yes, it was a scary thing. And I remember getting to maybe the second or third training with the current cohort. And I just said to them, this is my kind of day, this is my kind of training. It is a joy to be doing this with you. Yeah. It's something that Gillyanne says a lot. Has and has said a lot through the years is that, she comes out of a lesson and she goes, I love doing this. And it's about working with people. It's about helping them grow. It's about helping them solve problems and that sense of satisfaction when you see them experience their success in the session. And also, I love working with voices. I just love voices. I find them so fascinating and actually with you raising this because of course. Post pandemic in many ways, our work life has changed and my work life has changed. I don't have the same levels of energy that I had even five years ago. And because a lot of the focus of our business now is with delivering training to teachers and growing the teaching community, I in fact do less one-to-one voice training, and it's more than once I'll go into a session thinking do I still know how to do this? And then you come out and you go, oh yeah, yeah. It's all come back to me. Yes. I love this. So you know, the time that I stop loving doing a one-to-one will be the time when I stop doing it. Can we, I just wanna pick that up'cause I think this is, I should be putting up my singing teacher shoes. This is really fascinating. Your singing teacher shawl. Yes. This is really fascinating the whole business of if you haven't done something for some time and yet it was absolutely in your comfort zone and you go back in to do it again, and there is that, it's sometimes it's rather longer than just a moment. Of, can I do this? Do I even know what I'm doing? Yes. The number of times that I've heard that when I've been doing career coaching with people where they go I used to do that, but I can't do it anymore. I don't think I can do it. And if we talk them through the situation, what usually happens is we talk them through the situation and within three minutes of starting it, even mentally starting it, in, in your imagination, they go, oh yes, I remember. And the number of times that's happened to me where I've gone into a situation going, oh, I used to do this 10 years ago and I don't, I'm getting old now and you are in three minutes. And you go, oh, I remember. Yeah. Everything is fine. So there's something about putting yourself into the environment in which you're gonna be working as well, even if it's mentally. Mm-hmm. That gets you clued into the energy. And when you do that, you remember. Do you know what I'd love you to talk about next? The Success Bank building. What does that look like? Building your Success Bank? These are basically reminders. They're reminders of what you can do. So the Success Bank is something that you build yourself, and it can be letters from students. It can be testimonials, it can be reviews from performances, it can be memorabilia. So if you did a particularly good performance, but you didn't get a, an individual review, but you have a card from somebody doing that performance, oh there's all sorts of things that you can use. It's a bit like a gratitude exercise, isn't it? But it's really geared towards maybe the feedback you got or there, there are. There are something you noted yourself about what? Was really satisfying about that event. Yeah. And yes, you can have the physical stuff, but you also have the sort of mental milestones. And so you ma you make a note of the mental milestones. And again, it's very much, you remember a situation or a performance or a lesson or a a, a lecture or whatever you do that you go, yes, I can look back on that and go, that was good. You choose something from that situation, you actually put yourself back mentally into that environment again, and I'm back on this one because something happens to your brain that it goes into that environment and it remembers stuff that you don't necessarily remember and make a note of it because those are your success milestones. Ah, I was just about to say what is a mental milestone? Yeah. So finding something like that is an anchor point. Yes. That reminds you how well you did. And the thing is, if you are not used to doing that, it can feel horribly embarrassing because you're going, why am I doing this? This is so stupid. But the thing is, it isn't because what it's doing is it's celebrating your successes. I've just thought of an example for something. Yep. Do you remember the Round Table session that I did at PEVOC 2022. I do, I videoed it. Oh, did you did? I did. So you did. Where we were talking about singing and voice science and, I had the slightly contentious title, voice science. Do we need it? Yep. And very interestingly, very high level voice scientists actually wanted to have that discussion and eventually, the result of having had that Round Table got published in the Journal of Singing. Yeah. So do go and check it out if you haven't read it. I've forgotten what the official title is. We'll put it in the show notes. Yes. But where I wanted to go back to was. At the end, we're a little bit rushed for time. And so I was listening, as we were going along and I was listening to how people, what people were talking about and just writing down little notes. And I stood up and did a summary. Just from those notes. It was a scrappy piece of paper, which by the way, I pinned immediately afterwards and had to rescue.'cause I didn't realize how important it was. So I stood up with this scrap of paper and I did a summary. I can't tell you how many people came up to me afterwards and said, that was an amazing summary. You must use that summary. You must publish on this, you must do this, do that. And I looked at one of my colleagues and. I said, do you think I should write it up? And they said, yes. Just use that summary. I better go and get it from the bin. But do you know what, when I'm having a moment about a conference, 'cause that was the first time I'd ever I organized and chaired that round table. And that was an absolute first for me. It was a big moment. So whenever I'm feeling scared about something new, I'm doing particularly for a conference. Then I remember those moments. I just want to pick up on this, 'cause it's such a lovely example of Falling Off A Log. Gillyanne is superb at listening to somebody describing their work and then summarizing it just off the cuff. And that's such a beautiful example that it's oh yeah, scrap a paper. Yeah. You said this, you did that. Yeah. This is where we're heading. And then I can pull it all together here and I can come out with two sentences at the end and everybody's going, how did you do that? And she's going, what? That old thing? Yeah. The piece of paper I threw away no. It's, it is nothing special. Yep. That's just, yes. It's me with the jigsaw. Yes. It's that's how I roll. And that's why. It's a funny thing, as I'm getting older, I begin to realize how my brain works. Yeah. That I've got to have that little bit of sifting process and actually for me. A lot of the preparation for that moment was that we'd all got together, we'd had a discussion as a group about how we were gonna run the session. I had seen everybody's presentation, so I was already familiar with the material, but I wasn't familiar with how they were going to deliver it. So that's where I was doing the active listening. Yeah. And it's made me realize just how my brain works and to embrace it. I think it's so lovely because you just said, you said earlier on that you love working with voices, and I wanted to say it at the time. I'm gonna say it now. I love working with brains. Yeah. I don't quite know whether that's too Frankenstein for people, but I love working with brains. So I love working with the way that people think and also spotting talents, spotting sort of skills. That people don't necessarily know. It's one of the things that I think makes the career coaching so interesting for me is that each person who walks into the room has is a different brain, and I just want to go, how do you work? That's it. That's all we've gotta say on this subject for now. We would love to hear from people about their experiences of success. Amnesia, do you have it? Yeah. Have you heard about it before?'cause it was a new concept for me. And if you have had it and overcome it or you deal with it on a regular basis. Which he does. Yes. And apparently I do too. Yes. What's your best tip for other people? Yeah. And I just wanna say right at the end, remember how brilliant you are. Mm. We'll see you next time. Bye. This is a Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher