Don’t Pressure Yourself to Do Anything

Being lazy means taking it easy and taking it easy means not being too hard on yourself.  I mean, if you’re tryna make things easy, you definitely don’t want to do anything *hard*.

And you know makes life hard? Pressure - forcing yourself to do things.

That’s right, putting yourself under a constant burden to improve or “get more” in some fashion -- that ain’t easy.

It’s a hard thing to regularly berate yourself for being *less than* some ideal or fantasy that you somehow believe you should be, which is often influenced by the “success culture” in which we live in.

Success and glory are so strongly sought after to the point where it seems to be tied to your entire worth as a human being in society. If you’re unsuccessful, then you ain’t worth shit, is the societal idealism message we’re sold.






But the amount of success you have isn’t equivalent to the amount of worth you are. In fact, happiness is a more worthwhile trait to seek after. You can be the most successful person on the planet, but if you’re unhappy, what good is it really? Sure, you may be idolized in the eyes of others, but at the end of the day, outside approval doesn’t matter if you’re fundamentally miserable with yourself.

You gotta stop criticizing, loathing, or otherwise pressuring yourself about things. There’s no reason to turn the heat up. Take a chill pill and stay cool.

You gotta be able to lean back and relax, instead of hunching over trying to carry weight on your shoulders. Drop that shit off your back and go lie down, man.

After all, no sense in ever putting in more effort than necessary. Truly embrace laziness and remove the habit of pressuring yourself to excel. You don’t need to excel at all, man. Just do enough to get by. No more, no less.

Now of course, we’re all faced with pressures in life.

If you’re in school, you feel pressure to get good grades. If you’re in a job, you feel pressure to perform well. If you have bills, you feel pressure to pay them on time.

You might even feel pressured to reach a certain standard, like “having it all together” or being financially savvy or maybe even being a “good person”.








But pressures are nothing but restraints, limiting your potential to grow and actually feel happy. I mean you can’t be happy if you’re always placing a reason why you can’t be happy above your head, like “I won’t be happy until I get married” or “I won’t be happy until I get my dream job” or “I won’t be happy until I own a house or a fancy car.”

Pressuring yourself to attain MORE, makes you feel like you have LESS in the present. You fail to appreciate, yet alone even notice, the good you *already* have when you’re constantly pushing yourself “beyond the limit.”

Despite whatever you have *already* attained or achieved, no matter how spectacular it may be, it’s NEVER enough. You feel perpetual pressure to get an even bigger, an even grander, an even more impressive feat. Once you have a house, you want an even bigger one, in a  fancier neighborhood. Once you have your dream job, you want one that pays even more. Somehow, no matter how tremendous or extraordinary an achievement is, it’s never quite prosperous or favorable enough to say “alright this is good, just the way it is. I like it.”

Under pressure, you appreciate the things you DON’T have much more than the things you *already* DO have. You want to be able to appreciate what you have IN THE PRESENT, not long for what you *could have* in the future.

Otherwise, you’re not really...living. You’re dreaming. You’re dreaming about a future, which may or may not actually come about. In order to live, and feel what it’s like to be alive, you have to experience and appreciate what’s happening right here, right now, not fantasize about some far off future.

Of course, even if you tend to be satisfied with the right here, right now, you’ll be encouraged to push beyond your limits.

Look, contrary to popular belief, it’s OKAY to have a limit and not push yourself any further than that. Not everyone can be top dog and you don’t have to strive to be. Just appreciate what you got for what it is. Don’t pressure yourself to upgrade or get any more.






The more you fall under pressure, the more it will eat away at your overall level of happiness. You carry around some sort of heavy burden to be something or someone you’re not and you’re left feeling drained.

Pressure wears you down, man. Pressure is stressful. It’s a bit of heaviness.

It’s one thing to want to improve or better yourself. It’s another to obsess over it, to really beat yourself up about it, to drastically hold yourself accountable for some arbitrary standard that you may or may not personally want to fulfill but either way feel compelled to.

Pressure creates a sense of urgency -- that it SHOULD be done, that it MUST be done.

But you should never feel “oh so obliged”  to pull something off. You must realize you have freedom to live life the way you want to, not the way it is expected of you.
Stop shoulding yourself with pressure, damnit!

Today, we’re gonna take a look at what pressure is and what pressure does as well as how to put a stop to it so you can relax in your laziness and enjoy an easy breezy life, without the hassle of feeling obligated (or pressured) to do anything. You do what you want...and get away with it!

And without further ado, let’s dive...right into it!













Why all the pressure?

Before we get into the nitty gritty details of how to handle all this pressure, we have to take a look at where it even comes from in the first place. Ya know, where does this pressure stem from anyway?

I mean, it certainly isn’t some type of curse spell that just magically makes you feel compelled to do something. There’s some psychological inner workings going on for sure. And understanding what your brain is doing and how it’s thinking while it’s developing this sense of pressure, can help you control it and put a stop to it.

Pressure can emerge from several factors, but all of them come down to one main attribute: insecurity.

If you are feeling pressure, it means you aren’t confident with who you are and where you’re at RIGHT NOW. You’re insecure about the way you look, how much money you make, your current relationship status, or what have you. You’re basically not self-assured that what you have *in the present* is okay. You don’t feel like you’re good enough. At all.

You need “better” - better looks, better money, better relationships. 

Now, again, wanting better for yourself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I’d say wanting better is good. It’s good to want to level up and become a better person.

 It’s when you make it an obsession, when you believe to yourself that what you have isn’t good enough, that it becomes a bit problematic.

There’s a fine line between feeling inspired and feeling pressured. Both of them motivate you to move forward. Whereas inspiration is encouraging, pressure is discouraging. Inspiration comes from a place of desire, while pressure comes from a place of obligation.

Inspiration will tell you “If you do this, good things will come about.” Pressure, on the other hand, will tell you “If you DON’T do this, bad things will come about.” Under inspiration, you’ll say “I WANT to do this.” Under pressure you’ll say “I HAVE TO do this.”

It’s all about perspective.







The main difference between the two is it’s either coming from a place of confidence or a place of insecurity. 

And as you guessed it, pressure is that place of insecurity. The question is, where does this insecurity come from that’s developing pressure?

Well, there are a few key mindsets that come into play.

One of them is fear of failure. You’re afraid that you’ll wind up fucking up, so you don’t even make any sort of attempt to begin with. You stop before you even begin. 

You pressure yourself to do the thing, but wind up not even taking a single step forward because you get anxious just thinking about how bad it could end up if you don’t make it.

But mistakes are meh. Forgive the fuck ups.

Don’t stifle yourself and your potential just because you might not get it right the first time. Failure isn’t the end. It’s just part of the learning process.  Face it, you ain’t gonna succeed on your first try or maybe even your 37th try, but you’ll get there...eventually. Pressuring yourself to rush and get it done right away, without any sort of mistake, serves you no good.

Be willing to fuck up and don’t freeze yourself in horror. Relax man, there’s nothing to fear.

The next factor that leads to pressure is unrealistic expectations, or perhaps perfectionism. You have in your head that you “should be” at a certain level and that level is quite frankly unattainable.

Your goals should be actually possible. Don’t buy into the notion that you have to be perfect. That’s quite a ridiculous standard to strive for. We’re human. We’re flawed.

Accept yourself and your own flaws. And don’t pressure yourself to fix them overnight.

Be happy with where you’re at. Besides, you can always do it tomorrow. And when you do do it, it ain’t gotta be perfect.













No One is Pressuring You, Besides Yourself

Now you might think that the pressure comes from something or someone external, like a boss at work, or maybe a wife or husband at home, or friends or people at church.

And sure, they may attempt to *influence* you and your way of thinking, but ultimately, the pressure you feel is something YOU create for yourself.

Look, you don’t owe nobody nothing. You don’t have to live up to *their* standards or meet *their* expectations. 

You have to have your own principles, your own set of standards, your own expectations. Stop trying to live up to what others expect of you. Be your own Dude.

If you feel like you have to attain a certain status quo, that’s not them, that’s on YOU. You are responsible for pressuring yourself.

Nothing anyone says or does should be seen as an obligation just a mere suggestion, a suggestion on what to do. It’s up to you if you decide you want to do it. There’s no pressure to get it done, unless you put yourself under it.










Do Just Enough

Life is short. Death is inevitable., a morbid thought, perhaps, but it’s the truth.

While we’re here, alive, we should enjoy it, live life, actually have fun, not make our life a series of one obligation to the next.

There’s this popular idea that you should always do more, achieve more, be more, get more. But that throws you in a perpetual loop of never being satisfied with the way things are. Fact of the matter is, when you get the “more” you’re pining after, you’ll only want “more” again and again.

See things the way they are and actually appreciate them. Do just enough to make yourself happy. Contrary to popular belief, LIMIT yourself and don’t stretch beyond your means.

You don’t have to make it big or make a name for yourself in any way. Simplify your life and focus on doing things that make you happy, not what makes you rich or famous.

Fame and wealth aren’t going to lead you to happiness. They’re just distractions from finding fulfillment.










Put in a Half Ass Effort

We covered this idea in depth before and I’ll recap here briefly. Do what you can. Do it a little bit. Do it kind of. Do it...half ass.

After all, half ass is better than no ass.  Value your progress being made and don’t focus so much on the end result.

It’s better to exercise for two minutes than zero. It’s better to make one single dollar than none at all.

Be proud of how far you’ve come and have faith in how far you can go. One. Step. At a time.

Don’t strain yourself and force yourself to put in effort that you don’t have. Put in a half ass effort and feel satisfied in knowing you did your best.