Hey guys! Welcome back to the blog. How are you feeling? Let's do a check-in right now. For this week's post, I've been inspired to blog about the topic of putting too much pressure on yourself. As someone who has dealt with this, I'm aware of the toll it takes on your mental health. Mental health will always hold a special significance in my heart, and that's why I decided to start this platform. To be honest you guys, this post does show more of my vulnerability. But to learn and inspire, I think it's important to show my growth and personal experiences that have truly shaped me :)
In a world where we're easily impacted by society and other people's opinions and expectations, we can often put so much pressure on ourselves that we don't even realize we're doing it. When I was a freshman in high school, I dealt with chronic anxiety since I put so much pressure on myself. For example, there were times when I would make mistakes on a test, and I remember that I'd cry so much because I was seriously mad at myself for making mistakes. Or, I would work so hard at one period of time to the point that I'd be completely mentally drained and burnt out. At that time, I didn't realize that these situations occurred because I had so much internal pressure on myself. It got to the point where even taking breaks was giving me anxiety because I felt the need to keep working and working. This pressure of constantly being hard on myself truly impacted my mental state, even when at all times, I was just trying my best.
Today, I can thoughtfully reflect on the fact that I've gotten so much better about managing the amount of pressure I put on myself. Dealing with anxiety allowed me to build this realization that I'm just a human and that doing my best is what I am capable of. Putting pressure on ourselves truly comes from within us. Sometimes, we do have control over the amount of stress we're putting on our minds and bodies. But know that other times it is uncontrollable.
The first step to tacking being pressuring on ourselves is to first recognize that we're doing it. And this can be done by just examining our day-to-day and how we're treating ourselves. Perhaps if you notice that you're hard on yourself for making mistakes, resting, or just trying your best each day, then you may be putting too much pressure on yourself.
From personal experience, here's what I suggest when you think this is the case. For a lot of situations when I felt pressure from myself, simple reminders and positive self-talk helped me a lot. For example, in a situation where I was feeling a lot of internal pressure, I would pause whatever I was doing and say to myself: "I'm putting too much pressure on myself and I need to stop." Doing this will help your brain recognize the presence of you putting pressure on yourself and it will gradually decrease. Another instance of putting too much pressure on myself was engaging in negative self-talk. To help with that, I would simply remind myself that life is too short to not be kind to myself. Additionally, when I needed to stop working and give myself rest and would remind myself that my mental health comes first. Positively reminding myself in times when I did feel a lot of self-pressure not only helped decrease the amount of pressure on myself but also allowed me to establish a healthier relationship with myself.
It's so easy to fall into these situations where the pressure can feel a lot. It can be from a certain time at work, to getting a certain grade. My philosophy and what I believe in is that you can't do more than do your best. And that means that you put in what you could and that is amazing.
To end this post, the one thing that I want you to take away is to work on having the satisfaction of doing what you can. This is truly where a healthy mind comes from. Remember that everything is a work in progress, and you are not alone in this journey of tackling putting a lot of pressure on yourself. We're all on this journey together of establishing good relationships with ourselves and taking care of our mental health and happiness :)
Xo,
Esha
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