How to Break Free of the Pressure of Life
We’re so conditioned to be under pressure, under deadlines, to be good enough for the people around us. When we’re young, we need to be good enough for our parents, as we get older, our peer group and our teachers, then we need to get good enough grades and have a good enough resume to get into a good enough college to get a good enough degree to be good enough for a potential employer to be good enough for a job to make good enough money to support a good enough family and have good enough kids and raise them to be good enough.
The External Force
The pressure to be good enough and to always be looking for an external force to validate us – an external force being parents, peers, potential employers, etc. – this pressure can be very very intense. Because really when we are under this pressure, we’re really not working hard for ourselves, we’re working hard to be good enough for others. We end up working just hard enough so that people look at us as good enough.
And frankly, it sucks when you’re always trying to be good enough for other people and please them. And we’re all so conditioned to be this way that we have nice tidy little stories that rationalize why we’re not doing that – why what we’re studying is what we really truly want to study, why the job we have is the job we want, just so we can sleep at night.
How to Break Free
The way to break free of this is to be different, think different and act differently than everybody else. To rebel – not in an aggressive, abusive way, but in a way that blazes a new trail for a new way of thought. Whether you like him or not, Bill Gates broke free of these pressures by going against what everyone told him to do. He went against his parents who told him to stay in school, went against the law actually on a couple occasions, but he created a massive positive change in the way the world communicates and does business. You may say, “well yeah but he’s Bill Gates” – yes, and you are who you are. You have your own individual gift, your own individual genius that is waiting to be shared. You may not see it yet, but I promise you it’s there.
The way to breaking free of these pressures is to have confidence in your gift, have confidence that you have a truly unique greatness inside you and believe in yourself that it’s possible to have a profound impact on the world. To quote one of my favorite commercials – it’s an adidas commercial that ran a few years ago and the dialogue goes something like “Some people listen to themselves, rather than listen to what others say. These people don’t come along very often, but when they do, they remind us – that once you set out on a path, even though critics may doubt you, it is okay to believe that there is no can’t, won’t, or impossible.”
The Challenge…
I challenge you to rethink this: if you feel like you’re under all this pressure from your work, your school, your potential employers, maybe even your parents still – is it them that’s putting the pressure on you? Or have you just continually decided that what they say is true and to allow them to hold you back from expressing your true gift?
See you at the TOP!
John Whiting
John Whiting | Free Resources for Life Design, Life Coaching & Life Ignition! 
Hey, not too long ago, you gave me a few recommendations on investment books, which I’m really grateful for.
In return, I would like to recommend to you the following book: The UltraMind Solution by Mark Hyman. Basically, it’s about how our diet not only affects our bodily health but also the health of our brain. So your mental and emotional well-being/happiness depend a lot on you dietary lifestyle. Although I already knew a lot about nutrition (and I’m sure you do too), the value that this book provides is just amazing.
Thank you
Kevin L.