Stop trying so hard.
‘Glass Tears’ by Man Ray, 1932
I don’t know how to stop trying so hard. There, I said it. I’m a pusher Katie, I like to push. I’m a Type B on the outside — laidback, “chill,” goes with the flow — but on the inside I’m Type A to a fault. I hold myself to impossibly high standards I never am able to meet. I judge, belittle, and criticize my lack of “achievements.” I measure myself constantly against my peers and idea of “normal” (whatever the fuck that is).
I’ve struggled throughout my 20s to accept myself. I convinced myself that my pure existence isn’t enough. I feel this constant tension and pressure to prove myself — to prove that I can be an “adult,” that I’m able to be a functioning independent member of society who has their shit together.
And it’s funny because the more pressure I put on myself, the more I try to apply force — nothing happens. The more defeated I feel. The more my self-esteem plummets.
The moment I declare I am “doing” something, all of a sudden I don’t want to do it all. It begins to feel like an obligation. I start to resent it.
For example, every time I state “I’m going to focus on writing, I am a writer,” I begin to hate writing. I begin to lose my connection to my creative flow. It’s like all the energy gets sucked dry.
Or earlier this month, I told everyone “I am going out there and getting a job.” So I got my resume together, started trawling through LinkedIn and Indeed, messaged potential references, began pushing myself to apply to jobs, heck, I even tried to write myself a bio. But then I started to feel this extreme inner resistance and frustration. I felt like the harder I was trying, the less I wanted it…
I don’t know what the cure is. Do others feel this same sense of pressure and urgency? Does pushing yourself actually get you what you want? Because in my experience, the harder I push, the further I push my desires further away.
It’s like the whole saying that when you stop looking for something, there it magically is. When you finally let go and surrender, the thing just falls into your lap.
Maybe you really do have to let go in order to receive. You have to do some reverse psychology.
I keep trying to run away from loving my life as it is today. Always looking to the next thing, always feeling like this isn’t enough, that I should be “further along.” Feeling ungrateful and disappointed, unable to see the blessings right in front of me.
Source, God, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, wants us to be happy. There is only joy or the obstruction of joy. I’ve been addicted to my own suffering for most of life. Making things harder than they need to be. Struggling against resistance, trying, forcing, pushing, unable to just sit back and allow myself to be.
I want to love myself without conditions. I want to love myself not based on any external measurement or societal standards. I want to let go of the expectations I have for myself. I want to enjoy life and have fun again, like I did when I was a child. I don’t want things to be so hard; I don’t want to keep trying.
I’m not perfect. I’m messy and unpolished (even when I often try to present the opposite). I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m at the start of my Saturn Return and it feels like I don’t have a solid identity to cling to anymore.
I keep trying to rush this phase of my life. I’m impatient and I hate waiting. I want to skip to the good part where everything has seemingly “fallen into place” and it all makes sense. It feels uncomfortable to feel like you’re gestating… like you’re in the womb. There is an undercurrent of change happening but clarity hasn’t emerged. I feel half-formed right now — an old self dying, a new version self barely poking through.
Anyway, I don’t want to push myself anymore. I don’t want to try harder. I don’t want to hustle to justify my worthiness. I don’t want to perform for imaginary audiences for imaginary rewards. I want to be myself, fully and authentically. I don’t want to shame myself anymore for my life story. It is not “wrong” — it is mine, and it is unique. Own it.