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My Significant Drive - Too Much Pressure on Myself?
Is it bad to put too much pressure on yourself? That's a question that I am currently asking myself. I've been like this since after I graduated highschool, and started learning the lesson of adult life - failure.
Before my dad lost his job when I was 17, I had a privileged life growing up in my grandmother's household. One that involved basically getting everything that I wanted.
Granted, I never got designer clothing, like the other girls in my private school had - my mom always said that it was too expensive. Nor did the boys that I liked ever ask me out. I still got to go on yearly vacations, which averaged at three a year for a little while. Yet when I cried because I really wanted something, my parents or my grandmother always gave into me. When I wanted another dog after my father's dog died and I cried, my grandmother had my mom buy my sister and I another dog.
*I traveled from Hawaii to New York, and was going to do it again, but my mom convinced us to go to Puerto Rico instead. Most people around here have never been, because they claim that it's too expensive.
*I went to Disney World for three summers in a row, and five times in my life. My sister has been there more.
At the moment I have just entered my senior year of college. I still have two semesters left after this one, because I have chosen to engage in a double concentration of finance and MIS.
I became very depressed last summer. Mainly because I feel like I am above most people during my college successes. I have volunteered, I was a peer mentor (a role in which I was considered a student leader), the president of my history club, and now I am on the honors advisory board.
Up until last semester, when I got two A-s for the first time ever in my college career I had a 4.0 GPA, now I have a 3.93. The reason why that happened was because I was freaked out that I might have been pregnant with my boyfriend's baby. My body was acting really weird which turned into a yeast infection.
I didn't do that to brag. Primarily I am like that, because I push myself so hard. I study so much to the point where I do not have a life, out of fear that I will finally reach the point a failure. I will take 18+ credits and be sure to stay up all night just to get assignments done. Everyone in my family has voiced their concerns.
I will forget to turn in an important assignment, I will flunk a test, the chain of events will get too intense and I will lose my scholarship causing me to not graduate college.
Two professors who really liked me pointed this out. My history professor during my sophomore year of college, when I was getting ready to graduate with my Associates' Degree, a 4.0 GPA, and a member of Phi Theta Kappa.
I am just so driven to get things done and become successful. That's what I want a life, a future with my long-term boyfriend and success.
Is this bad? I just told my best friend that it will probably lead to me developing cancer, diabetes, and heart problems later on in life.
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I am not a psychologist so this is primarily Psychology 101 boot strapping. It sounds like your a type "A" person. Some one who is driven to success and will not accept failure. By many standards you have had a very privileged life so far getting most everything you have desired including travel to far off wonderful places. All of this goes with the type "A" personality.
What your missing is failure. We need failure in our lives from which if we are luck enough to understand failure we learn from it. Unbelievable as it sounds failure is needed in our lives as part of learning. People with type "A" personalities will not accept failure and learn to move on. To them failure is devastating and that is the fear you are feeling.
You can change who you are but it will take work and I suggest you talk with a psychologist for help in doing so. For if you don't change the health fears you have will be come a reality.
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The human body is not a machine and so it needs down time to unwind, a time of rest to re-charge. And even machines need some up keep to keep functioning properly. With machines, if we stress them beyond their limit, we wear out parts and replace them or replace the entire machine.
Humans can't be replaced and too much stress will wear out our bodies, and actually begin the process of early stages of disease. Don't kid yourself. I know of plenty young people, friends of my kids who in their late 20's or by 30 have gone on anxiety meds, depression meds and hearth meds. We live in a toxic world, a fact we can't escape so we must do whatever we can in other area's to ensure the best health possible and pushing too hard can overstress a person. That in essence raises the chances of you having a mental breakdown or a physical one, something it seems you've already figured out. If you need someone to tell you this is bad, then you have a strange thought process. I believe you know it's bad and believe you can't make yourself slow down so you have already given up on scaling down a bit, ready to accept the inevitable of physical and mental breakdown. Now answer this one for yourself, once you have all this success from never resting, how are you going to be able to enjoy it if your health is compromised. Your wealth may only be going to health care to keep you alive rather than enjoying a fancy house, car, the newest fashions, eating out, traveling the world, etc.... If you really truly want to scale back so you don't push yourself so hard, you need to discover what is in your experience, background, subconscious that drives you so and I c an only think of one person who can help, a psychologist, to expose and deal with underlying issues that make you so. And you are not going to find that here dear.
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Dear Pressure Cooker,
Sometimes you have to just step back, push the dial back and really take a look at things in your own perspective. Wanting or having great things should never define the type of person you want to be. Putting pressure on yourself only distracts you from the bigger and better things in store for you life. First you have to appreciate the type of person you are and not think you have to be someone you're not. Next surround yourself around people that will add and multiply to your life. Negative people will bring you down because they visualize things in a materialistic way and feel they have to have them to justify who they are. When you see yourself beyond those things you are less selfish and more motivated to move forward in all aspects of your life in a positive way.
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