Anyone else put extreme pressure on themselves?

[Jen1989]

Hi everyone

Just wondering if anyone else on here puts extreme pressure on themselves to over achieve?

I never feel pleased with anything that I've achieved and always feel like I should be doing better. Is this common with anxiety?

For a 25 year old I have done OK.... But I'm forever looking for how to make myself better and always compare myself to others

xXx

[.Poppy.]

I do. For me it ends up coming out as guilt, which just makes me feel worse and more anxious. So, I may fail at something and be beating myself up for it, but I also will feel really ashamed and awful that my friends and family may be disappointed in me and that I didn't know better.

For example, I recently learned I did not get into graduate school. I feel terrible about that, personally, but it was worse to tell my family that I didn't get in because I felt guilty and like I wasn't good enough - even though they told me repeatedly that they weren't disappointed and they knew it was a very hard program to get into.

I also got a puppy a few days ago - he's a rescue dog and I really, really wanted him; he was a good distance away and we all (as a family) had to travel to get him. He was very sweet upon meeting him and still is, but he mainly sticks to me and doesn't want anything to do with anyone else. As a result, they try to be sweet to him, but are constantly making comments about how he's not that great, or is a "dud". Naturally, I'm very anxious about being responsible for this new life (I even posted a thread on here about it) but now I'm also terrified about him turning out "bad" and I feel guilty because I feel like I may have made an unfixable mistake and my family may be upset with me because I made such a bad decision. And I'm a mess because of it!

In the end, anxiety just messes with us in the worst ways. Life is unpredictable, life is messy, life is hard. Those are facts for everyone. But a good portion of the world are able to take things one thing at a time; see the whole picture instead of just the parts; and not let everything bother them. They may hold themselves to high standards, but they also probably don't get in an awful mess if they don't succeed, or fret about succeeding. For those of us with anxiety, we see life as others do but we have difficulty coping with it. We're not only holding ourselves to standard, we are constantly freaking out about how we're going to face the next obstacle and keep ourselves where we want to be - even if that next obstacle is never a reality.

Hopefully, we can all learn to cut ourselves some slack once in awhile. It'll be hard, but maybe possible?