Denial of achievement

I've had a growing awareness lately of some odd mental activity that occurs when I achieve a goal. I first noticed it while orienteering. Orienteering is an off-trail cross-country running sport. You have a detailed map with a number of control locations circled, and you try to visit them all in order as fast as you can, on foot. Each control is marked by an orange and white flag in the field.

I've noticed that when I glimpse a flag I've been aiming for, my mind kind of tries to block it out. For about a second, there is a tangled jumble of mental activity--I can feel sensation in my brain--it seems as though there is a cascade of reaction too fast for me to discern. Next, a kind of mental numbness. There is little or no joy in the achievement. Almost disappointment, and bewilderment. Within one or two seconds, my focus has shifted to the next goal (traveling to the next control).

Right now, this very moment, I am on the verge of achieving a minor goal at work. I have been trying to create a web interface for visualizing some data. I think I am on the cusp of getting it to work! Instead of forging ahead with the last little bits, though, I'm doing a thought experiment: what will my reaction be to actually achieving this?

I imagined getting it to work, seeing it work, and thinking, "I've done it!" And some voice in my brain answered, "No you haven't!" Incredible.

Then I imagine setting aside that message and thinking, again and again, "I've done it!" I notice resistance, discomfort ... a fullness in the right torso ... slightly constricted breathing.

It's dangerous to have achieved something. The parents will smash me.

Is this why I struggle constantly, at work, with feeling like I am too slow and that I haven't done anything?