Why You Shouldn’t Force and Pressure Yourself: The Power of One Step at a Time
For some reason, I always push and pressure myself to work hard to increase my productivity and earn more money so I can provide for my needs and buy the things that I want. To the point that I am opening myself to all opportunities that I discover, it is like doing a lot of things every day and it is draining and makes me do the opposite of what I suppose to do.
In my previous post, I mentioned that surrounding yourself with people with the same habit that you want, they said surrounding yourself with successful people will also be a helpful key to becoming successful. I believe in it, but the downside that I noticed is that it is hard to stop your mind to compare yourself with them. They are successful and you are not, they are earning a lot and you are not. It is easy to say that you should stop negatively but you know, I think it is natural for the person to compare themselves…and it is hard to avoid.
The thing is, once you compare yourself to them, you will not notice that you are pressuring yourself by doing a lot of things that you are not even sure if it helps you in your life and career.
Although learning a new skill and having another side-hustle is good, it becomes unhealthy if you are doing a lot of things at one time. You are stressing yourself. Don’t say that you are multitasking…but sorry to burst your bubble, multitasking does not exist. According to Harvard Business Review, “multitasking does not exist, at least not as we think about it. We instead switch tasks. Our brain chooses which information to process.”
You see, I am writing on several platforms to start my writing career and earn some money from it but I am still seeking more because I feel that the money that I am receiving is not enough…and comparing myself with others is one of the reasons for this dilemma.
The solution that I am doing is working harder and exploring new things with or without relation to writing – which is I think a not-so-effective solution. As time passes by, every time I do my side-hustles, I realize that I can’t concentrate and focus more than before. The reason is that my time is divided and I am having a hard time growing in every community.
Every day, I have a lot of stuff on my plates and I found out that instead of working for them, I am discouraged because my mind will automatically think that my day is difficult and it is like a punishment for myself.
This might be quite contradictory to being productive every day, building a new skill, and side-hustle. I learned that doing things slowly by executing them one step at a time is better than having a full schedule every day. Giving yourself free time every day for at least 30 minutes can refresh your mind. Pressuring yourself will never be helpful, yes, you can do a lot of tasks, but the question is, is it healthy? Do you enjoy it? Are you sure that you grow? Think again and ask yourself.
Now, I found a helpful way to overcome this pressure-yourself-thing and it is by choosing the things that you need to prioritize (you can rate it from 1 to 10), then making a schedule for each side hustle. For example, you can set writing and publishing on Monday, promote your blog posts on Tuesday, sell your services on other platforms like Fiverr and Upwork on Wednesday, and so on.
This is what I am doing right now as part of my experiment to myself where I could be more productive every day.
In short, you don’t have to pressure yourself to become successful, especially when you are young. I used to complain every time I encountered a person who earned twice my earnings but then, they said I should stop complaining because I am still young and I have more time to grow. I also learned that not giving a f*ck on everything and to everyone is also helpful for self-development.
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Published: May 22, 2022
I think it's natural to compare yourself to your peers. A good thing is to try and build community and that way, lift everybody up. Thanks for sharing on Dreemport.