Pressure

some argue, is self-created. You are the creator of your life. Your values and goals are in your control. When you feel like you are not meeting these values and goals in a certain timeline, pressure begins to build. Putting a lot of pressure on yourself can be a lonely experience. Voicing your failures or your uncertainty may put you in a vulnerable position and the pressure may affect you negatively. The negative effects of too much pressure can manifest through missed deadlines, indecisiveness, and feeling like you’re stretched too thin. Although this can be a powerful feeling, there are ways to reduce pressure on yourself. The first step is to recognize how you’re feeling. Try some of the following tips to help cope and reduce the feeling of being under pressure.

 

Let others speak to you, but choose what you’ll incorporate into your life:

As social creatures, we all need social interaction. Making connections create feelings of happiness and joy. Although true, you must be mindful of what sort of connections you accept. Too often, you may be allowing those whose default state of mind is negative to seep into your thought process. You may be adopting their worry or fear. Negativity tends to spreaad much easier than positivity, so when you listen to those who operate on the negative spectrum, you are often seduced by these messages. Take time to converse with yourself, through journaling or talking with positive people, and ground yourself in positivity. That way, when negative messages are spoken to you, you know to choose to think otherwise.

 

Practice how you fail:

The practice of failure is at first daunting! However, we say practice, because it is truly something to be practiced. There is no succeeding in life without failure, therefore, if you want to succeed, you must become comfortable with failure. Give yourself time to be sad about the rejection letter, or the unhappy client that rejected your work. After that period, review your process and march forward. There are many reasons why failure happens, and often it is out of your control. Try not to create stories for yourself as to why things happened the way they did. Recognizing that you are not in full control of all parts of what success takes will lessen the pressure.

Act more than you speak:

If you find yourself living more in your mind than in the world around you, you must practice acting on your goals or ideas. The pressure to put actions into words comes with the fear of failure, or the goal of perfection. To act more than you speak, reduce both the fear and the fantasy of perfection, and just do it. There is a reason why Nike’s slogan is so catchy and globally recognized. Not doing it is too often the default action.

 

Create the bigger picture, but focus on the smaller goals:

Thinking big is helpful to stay focused on your overall goal. To successfully reach your big picture goal, you must break your goals down into manageable pieces. Focus on the task at hand when you are working on it, without letting your mind wander too much. When your mind begins to wander on the big picture too much, you may begin to feel the pressure of performance and this may affect your task at hand.

 

You can’t completely remove pressure from life. It’s a part of the gas that keeps us running. But, you can work to reduce the amount that you need to drive successes. You have to prioritize your mental health above everything else, and sometimes, too much pressure can bog you down. The next time you feel you are more in your head than in the world around you due to pressure, focus on these 4 tips to refocus on the bigger picture.