The Deadline Of Success: What The Pressure To Succeed Is Doing To You And How To Handle It
This is one that as I’ve continued to get older, it seems that the age of quote-on-quote success is going in the opposite direction.
I remember when I first started to get interested in side hustling and just the overall idea of success. I was living in my sister’s basement working at my uncle’s restaurant at 19 and I first discovered Tom Bilyue and Gary Vee.
I binged all the YouTube videos I could from educational content to the Jay Alvarez travel vlogs and quickly got pretty addicted to this idea of success at a young age.
The idea of traveling the world, having no worries about money, and getting to experience things that only most people could dream of became what I wanted so badly that I’d do just about anything for it.
Throughout my early 20s, most of my time was spent on this goal. I tried so many side hustles and business ideas trying to find the one that would allow for this type of success and lifestyle.
I worked hard, which is something I don’t regret at all, but continued to be disappointed in myself because I was still nowhere close to the life I thought I should have at 24.
But let’s be real. At 24 the odds that I would be financially set for life and be able to travel absolutely anywhere to have these insane experiences with friends was a bit unrealistic.
Not that it can’t be accomplished but first off, where I was just a few short years back was the complete opposite of this so to do a 180 would’ve been an incredible change, and with what I knew and the skills that I had I didn’t have great odds at accomplishing this goal.
I’m guessing that you might have had similar feelings or still feel like you have to have all this great success early on in your life and that it could be impacting how you see yourself and what you actually have accomplished in a negative way.
I 100% feel that, so let’s start off talking about where this pressure comes from before we go into how to handle each of them.
Where Does This Pressure To Succeed Come From
Now to me there are two places this pressure starts to creep in from and that’s from the outside world (think of social media, friends, pretty much everything we consume on a daily basis) and the other being from yourself (which is mainly extremely influenced from the first or something that you’ve just always had in your thoughts).
Outside world pressure
Starting off with the outside world, I mean this is one that we all right? From Instagram profiles of people buying, traveling, and eating the best to YouTube ads talking about how this next course is the best one out there and you could make $5000 a week just reviewing items, there isn’t a shortage of where this pressure comes from.
This is where my journey truly started. Watching those travel vlogs of people taking trips to places like Hawaii, surfing, and climbing mountains started to fuel the pressure I felt to have everything figured out and enough money to be able to do that.
I’m not going to lie to you, this type of pressure will likely continue to grow (and likely lower the age you should be successful at) as the years go by.
There’s no shortage of people just posing a certain way and saying that if you’re not living like them or don’t have a certain number in your bank account, well you’re just being lazy.
Pressure from yourself
Getting into the pressure that comes from yourself, this is the one that I believe can be more harmful and really start to destroy your self-image.
At first, I saw this pressure as just motivation, which still in my head is a good thing, I don’t want to not have pressure to create or be better, but it’s the type of pressure and the actions you do following it that aren’t always the best.
I remember saying to myself that by 25 I shouldn’t have to rely on a job to live and that I’d be on flights weekly to explore new cities, anything less than that was a sign that I wasn’t working hard enough.
Well, my 26th birthday is in 3 months and let’s just say I’m still working and I haven’t been on a plane or to a new city in about 7 months.
Now as I’ve gotten to this age, I’ve realized that it wasn’t that I was just lazy and that’s why I’m still where I’m at but that the process it would take to live such a lavish lifestyle was a lot easier in my head than what it was in the real world (and this is something I think many people deal with).
You see all over how people have done this in a year, then you hear 6 months, then 3 months, and then 1 month. If it worked for them, well it would work for you, you’re just not trying hard enough.
I constantly put myself down and trashed what I was doing because the life I had was nothing as it should be. That pressure from myself to defy so many odds continued to put me in a place that wasn’t good not only for me but for those around me.
I got so wrapped up in what that pressure was doing to me that I would push away friends and family, ignore them when they said I needed a break, and constantly put that definition of success above anything else.
Now looking back, I see how unhealthy it really was.
After going through it though, I’ve learned a bit about how to deal with both the pressure you face from the outside world as well as the pressure you put on yourself, so let’s take a look at some of that.
How To Handle The Pressure To Succeed
So these go with each other pretty dang well. From what I’ve experienced, it starts with the pressure from others or just the outside world in general and then that turns into pressure that you put on yourself, which turns into where most of it comes from.
Outside world pressure
Starting with the outside world pressure though, the biggest piece that I’ve leaned into is realizing that I don’t have to think my life has bro be what others deem as successful. You should have your own plan and your own definition of success that you actually want and will actually love what it provides.
Yes, we all would love a private jet and income coming in without doing anything (and that’s not a bad thing to work towards) but let’s take a step down and think of what you really need.
In my early 20s, I would have taken nothing less than that private jet but to be here a few years later without even a car and just an e-bike to get around, I’ll tell ya that I don’t need a jet to feel successful.
I strongly encourage you to take time to write out what life would look like in 10 years if everything went perfectly. You got the promotions you wanted, that business you started stayed afloat and actually grew, you found the love of your life, got into the best shape you’ve ever been in, perfect across the board.
Now look at that and, I’m just being honest with you, not all of that will come true. It certainly could and I’m not trying to crush your goals but life isn’t easy and accomplishing what everyone else also wants is a tough business to be in.
As they say, aim for the moon and if you miss you’ll end up in the stars. For me, I thought I’d be making well over 6 figures by 25 but what happened was I found a company and group of people I love and can call home for my career for many years. In my eyes that has been a success even if it hasn’t seen me also become a millionaire.
The second piece to the outside pressure is to understand that most of what you see or hear is likely not the full truth. Let’s be real here, we’ve all added a bit to our story or shown off a trip a bit too long on social media before.
That’s just the game these days and we have to understand that.
What I’ve started to do is just look through and watch content with a bit of a filter (and no not the filter that gives you dog ears and a tongue when you open your mouth) but one that maybe everything looks amazing but I don’t know what they had to go through to get there or if that was just a once in a lifetime trip for them.
Pressure from yourself
Now to get into how to handle the pressure that you put on yourself it really starts with just having continual check-ins with where you’re actually at.
I do this every few months.
I sit down with my caramel whiskey and a few ice cubes in a glass and think about how the past few months have been.
Are the relationships in my life taking too much of a back seat?
How is my health? Am I working out enough and sleeping well?
I ask myself these questions because when I was at a point in my life where I put so much pressure on myself it wasn’t always easy to be honest about that but I could be honest about questions that were a bit easier to quantify.
If the answers to most of these were not so hot, I knew that I might have had just a tough quarter but if these were the answers to multiple reflections in a row, I knew that I was putting too much pressure on myself.
Again, I’m an advocate of working hard, having fun, and living a life with no regrets but I’ve also come to the realization that I don’t want to work so hard my whole life that I don’t have people to enjoy it with.
Then moving on to the last piece to handle that pressure to be successful so young, it’s to just be lazy, have fun, and laugh along the way.
If you would have met me in my true grind days, I likely wouldn’t have been too happy or fun to be around.
I was so serious about what I was trying to do that it came at a cost of not taking time to go have a weekend of fun, crack jokes, and laugh till it hurts.
If you start reflecting as I mentioned just a bit back and a lot of those questions are on the negative side, well schedule in some time just to breathe.
Book a weekend trip to a new city. Get some tickets to that artist you’ve always wanted to see but said you wouldn’t until you accomplished that life you want.
Just do something to break the grind you’ve been in for so long. It doesn’t have to be expensive or lavish, but something you’ve wanted to do that you just kept pushing off.
That break will allow you to see that the pressure you’re putting on yourself might be too much and that you can enjoy life while still working to create the one you want.
Now to put a bookend on this episode, I do want to say that I love when people work extremely hard toward what they want. It really is a beautiful thing to see because normally it comes with a lot of growth personally and most folks will lift up those around them on that journey.
If you’re in a season of grinding, I’m pumped for you and cheering you on in the background.
If you’re in a season where you just need to take a break, do it, and maybe we can grab a beer or food to chat about how I think hot dogs are a sandwich.
The purpose of this episode isn’t to tell you what you should do or that you grinding toward your goals is unrealistic. It’s to just voice that I’ve been there and let it get the best of me.
Believe me when I say I love the grind but I also know now through screwing it up that I love to be lazy at times too.
Enjoy the season you’re in and be intentional with what you’re doing.
