In the different spheres of life, be it work, academic, sports and even matters of a personal nature, for many people the desire to achieve success has become an ideal that guides the behavior of how they will face their commitments. However, this tendency to impose goals and standards that are perhaps too high can lead us to be very self-demanding and, therefore, lead us towards a path where the negative consequences have an impact on our health and our general well-being.
When we talk about self-demand, we refer to the tendency of people to demand perfect performance in all areas of life, setting very high goals and standards for themselves. People can be self-demanding for various reasons, and these reasons, in turn, can vary from person to person. Among the possible causes we can locate from social and cultural expectations, to the search for external validation, the desire to avoid a negative value judgment or even the fear of failure or making mistakes.
Although for some people pushing themselves to give their best can be a source of motivation and personal growth, when it becomes excessive and constant, the consequence is that the person tends to be very critical of themselves and imposes excessive pressure on themselves to reach a certain level. of unrealistic excellence.
Sustained self-demand over time can lead people to a constant state of dissatisfaction and other unpleasant emotions such as sadness, guilt, anger, and identifying this pattern of treating oneself is very important, because it can be a direct access route to stress.
When people demand more of themselves, they tend to impose disproportionate expectations, generating an excessive load of pressure on themselves. This constant pressure can trigger various unhealthy behaviors such as taking on more responsibilities than we can handle and therefore being overloaded with work,
neglecting one’s own well-being and depriving oneself of time for rest, lacking balance and time for self-care.
All these responses lead to a state of stress since they are detrimental to our health, leading to emotional exhaustion, where the loss of motivation, joy, genuine interest in chores is located, as well as bodily exhaustion, asking to contribute to difficulties for falling asleep or alterations in eating behavior, poor performance and decreased ability to concentrate or other cognitive alterations. Therefore, some of the measures that we can take to reduce self-demand and, therefore, prevent the appearance of stress, could be:
-Be flexible and more permissive with ourselves.
-Learn to tolerate frustration.
-Set goals that are achievable and realistic according to our resources.
-Practice self-pity instead of self-criticism.
-Set limits and know how to say no.
-Learn to delegate or ask for help when we can’t with everything.
-Take time for rest and self-care.
-Accept that making a mistake is not necessarily a confirmation of our inability or lack of worth.
As the constant pressure for self-demand leads us to maintain high levels of personal demand, which can generate chronic stress, it will be important to bear in mind the effects that this entails on our health and, therefore, look for alternatives to achieve a healthy balance between compliance of our goals and our well-being.
Melisa Mirabet is a psychologist specializing in emotional management and high performance.
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