When The Pressure Creeps In, The Joy Seeps Out

Here’s a little story for you:

Marcy loves to run. She’s been running for years and does it for the health benefits and plus the fact being out in nature just makes her feel good. She feels free when she runs. It’s her “me” time and is a hugely satisfying part of her life.

Marcy went for a run with a friend one day who suggested that she enter the upcoming local 10km race. Marcy thought that sounded fun so she ded. Much to her surprise she won her age category and is the third female finisher overall. Her friends and family can’t stop congratulating Marcy on her amazing run and as encouragement they suggest she should get “serious” about running…you know, really try.

Marcy, thrilled by the feelings of success she’s experiencing decides that she’s going to up her game and get serious.

Fast Forward One Year:

Marcy has completed numerous races and has done very, very well but isn’t satisfied with her results. She wants to be faster. She wants to win. She wants to be the best. She looks around at what the other runners are doing trying to figure out what they eat, when they train, how they train, and so forth. She knows she’s putting pressure on herself but she also knows she’s capable of so much more. So, she works harder, trains harder.

Fast forward another year

Marcy is miserable. She’s sick a lot. Her relationships feel stressful lately. And, she now hates running. What used to bring her such joy now feels like a burden. When she knows she needs to go for a run she avoids it, procrastinates, tries to make herself busy with other things so she doesn’t “have” to go. In the end she goes for a run but it doesn’t feel fun anymore.

Last fast forward

It’s a year later and Marcy has quit running. She’s moderately depressed and wondering why she didn’t succeed? She can’t seem to see how amazing her results actually were. In no time she went from being a recreational runner to a highly competitive athlete who was winning all sorts of races. Instead of feeling dejected, Marcy could feel proud of her achievements but because of the pressure she put on herself and the goals that she set all she sees is what she didn’t do/achieve/accomplish.

Has this ever happened to you?

Think about it. Think about your relationship, your business, your parenting, your own personal goals. Have you ever stopped and wondered if the pressure you’re putting on yourself is reasonable? Don’t get me wrong…I’m all for having BIG goals but I’m also all about having  a solid plan for going after those goals.

But when the goal becomes to have more, be more, get more, achieve more, the reasons that we’re doing our thing in the first place can get lost becuase we’re now focusing on the whole faster, further, smarter thing.  We start to create expectations for our self and start to focus on the outcome way more than the process, the journey of getting there.

And we put pressure on ourselves in all sorts of ways:

• Time pressure
• Money pressure
• Appearance pressure
• Status pressure
• Perfection pressure
• Keeping up with the Jones’ pressure (who are the Jones’ anyways?)
• Peer pressure

Here’s another little story:

I registered for Ironman Canada without knowing how to do front crawl (properly). Now if the race had only been two months away I can’t even imagine the pressure I would have put on myself to learn how to swim and be fast and master a stroke that I’d never spent much time learning.

But it wasn’t two months away, it was a year away. And I took a swim class. And then another set of swim classese. And I had a coach.

And I had little goals that I set for myself so that I wasn’t constantly thinking “Holy shit, I have to swim 4 km (2.4 miles).” I also didn’t pay a lot of attention to the faster swimmers. I focused on my own progress. Some of them had been swimming for years so of course they were faster than me, and yes, they looked a  lot “prettier” swimming in the water than I did.

But you know what? I did it. And I learned a whole lot about how to swim and how to get fast at the same time. And most importantly, I loved every minute of my journey.

When you notice that the joy has seeped out of something that you used to love to do, it’s time for a check in with yourself.

Ask:

• Are my goals reasonable?
• Have I somehow convinced my self that my worth is dependent on the outcome I achieve?
• What are the expectations I have of myself?
• What assumptions am I making?
• Do I need to adjust anything here to help keep this goal fun & enjoyable?
• Can I turn the “pressure” down at all? If so, how?

Not sure how? Here are a few suggestions to decrease the pressure:

• adjust your goal
• adjust your expectations
• check in with whatever assumptions you have and find out if they’re valid
• create a plan, have bite sized goals instead of one big lofty one
• stay curious about the outcome instead of attached to it

Because here’s what I know: When the pressure creeps in, the joy seeps out. And that’s just not a fun way to go after the things that we want in life.

Please drop down into the comments section and let me know if you get what I mean about “pressure” – would love to know if anyone else feels this way sometimes.

Jen