"Driving Yourself into the Ground"

Among chronic anxiety sufferers, there are a couple of personality traits that really shine through. Are you someone who feels that you just never have enough time to get it all done? Is the whole burden or success or failure on your shoulders and you don't know if you can make it? Do you get up in the morning feeling like you've been asked to tunnel through a mountain on your own... using a teaspoon? Are you a "work first, play later" person? If so, you may have noticed that the work's still here and the play never seems to come. These people are often very good at what they do (to the point of perfectionism), and have a really solid work ethic - so solid in fact that they view life as a certain amount of work to be done. "I work, therefore I am". The major flaw in this perspective is that it leaves you living for tomorrow... and tomorrow never comes. In other words, you say to yourself, "I'll be happy when I get that job, that raise, that assignment done, etc." Or you decide you can't take a vacation until such-and-such gets done. This is nothing but a way of surrendering the power over your time, energy and happiness to outside forces. And these are impersonal forces that can easily crush you. You'll never get out of the anxiety / stress dynamic unless you take back responsibility for your own happiness and start to live in the present - and not for a future that never comes. Determine that you're going to spend tomorrow happy and relaxed. If you find a mood inside you that is unhappy or discontent in any way, just override it. Just tell it to take a hike. Try putting part 5 into practice at the same time - become obsessed with someone else's welfare. If you have a tendency toward perfectionism, it's time to reorient it. You'll say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing well". And I agree. But the reality of life is that unless you're selective about what has to be "perfect," you're likely to drive yourself into the ground. Perfect your own life. Make your life into a work of art. That's the only way you can help yourself or help others. There's no other way. And to do that it may mean that you'll have to allow that assignment at school or work, that meal you're cooking or that talk you have to give to be not quite so perfect! The irony is that sometimes when we stop obsessing about doing something perfectly, we end up doing it better. There is a law in the mental world that the more we try to force something by sheer hard work, the slower the results. Some of the best talks I've ever heard were from people who were given no time to prepare! When we stop trying to engineer perfection, creativity comes through and often creates something quite extraordinary. The bottom line? Live in the present. Decide to look after your quality of life in the present. Don't succumb to the temptation to postpone your happiness for a future that will never come.
Symeon Rodger
www.ByeByeStress.com