SELF INFLICTED PRESSURE – MENTAL HEALTH DAY 2019

In commemoration of mental health day 2019, we will be talking on SELF INFLICTED PRESSURE.

While my last post was on “learning to hit refresh”, I think it is important we also deal with pressure, especially the ones we create for ourselves by ourselves.

Imagine blowing a balloon, it expands to its \’capacity\’ and you keep blowing, the once thick material starts thinning out, and you continue blowing; and boom….it bursts, well there goes all your hardwork.

You have successfully pushed the balloon past its limit, and that is exactly what we do to ourselves.

We keep packing on responsibilities and tasks, to the point where we stretch ourselves so thin, a lot of us are close to exploding.

Have you ever wondered why you rack on pressure? Why do you put yourself under fire? I get you have a lot to get done in what seems to be a short period of time and big dreams to chase, but of what good are you to yourself when burn out sets in?

I recently came to the realization that the causes of self inflicted pressure is a full circle of four points

CAUSES AND HOW TO DEAL WITH SELF INFLICTED PRESSURE

1. Unhealty Comparison; a lot of people inflict undue pressure on themselves because they try so hard to \’out do\’ others; because John got a new car you want to get yours, bigger and better.

We try so hard to be others, to live their lives and that sets us up for failure. Stop comparing your first year to someone\’s twentieth year. Read up on my blog post on COMPARISON

2. Ineffective planning: we all have plans, we have set goals; daily, weekly, monthly and yearly as the case may be. However our plans are not efficient, you do not consider your strengths and weaknesses, your lifestyle and its feasibility to your plans.

So you put \’read 5 books in one month\’ when you know you are a full time student with a part time job, or you have not successfully read one book a month previously. Therein sets pressure, which leads to things being done haphazardly and you feel choked and end up with mediocre results.

YOUR SPEED DOES NOT NECESSARILY DETERMINE YOUR RESULT – Rosemary Osuya

3. Procrastination; I feel some type of way telling others not to procrastinate because I am a member of the \’last minute dot com\’ community 🤦‍♀️. However, this is a strong factor why we feel pressured in life.

We wait till \’night to\’ or \’morning of\’ to execute our plans, to meet up with a job we had weeks to do. And then you start working on fumes and feel the pressure of the world on your shoulders. Do one thing each day, spread your workload out, 1 thing done from 20 is progress.

4. Success matrix: we all need to revisit our success matrix. WHAT DOES SUCCESS MEAN TO YOU? What perimeters or markers do you use in establishing your success. Answering this question will allow you understand what things you need to put in place and how to plan and achieve set goals.

See how we have come full circle?
Life isn\’t as difficult as we make it, protect your mental health, do not put unnecessary weight on yourself.
Live life at your pace.
Your mind is Gold, handle it with care.

You are amazing. You are Loved.
Stay Shining.

Ps. Why do you inflict pressure on yourself and how do you deal with it?