Life is stressful enough without making mistakes that cause more stress. Small decisions we make every day add more and more weight to the load until you finally feel yourself buckling. We must all be selective with our choices so we aren’t rocketing ourselves to stress-induced burnout.
What’s more, other people don’t generally have your best interests in mind. They may not consider how you’re feeling before asking you for something. You have to be the one to decide what responsibilities you’re willing to take on, rather than trusting others to do what’s right for you.
These are some mistakes that you can and should avoid, in order to help keep your load light.
1. Overcommitting To Responsibilities
People who won’t say no quickly find themselves overwhelmed with responsibilities. Friends, family, and coworkers who want to offload some of their responsibility will always ask the “yes” people first because they know that the “yes” person will agree. That’s a recipe for disaster if you’re a people pleaser.
Before you say “yes,” make sure you have the emotional bandwidth to handle another responsibility. You may be fine agreeing to this request, but it may be too much if another problem comes up before it’s resolved. Then, as you agree to more and more, you may find more people come out of the woodwork to make requests of you, too.
That’s where boundaries enter the picture. Sometimes you just have to say “no” and let others figure out their own problems. Another person’s lack of planning is not your responsibility, and so many good things happen when you stop people pleasing and start respecting yourself and your time.
2. Comparing Yourself To Others
“Comparison is the thief of joy”, so the saying goes. It’s also the creator of unnecessary stress. In this era of social media, you may find that you compare the whole of your life to the highlight reels of others. Frankly, it’s super easy to make it look like your life is awesome on social media. All it takes is some smiles and believable captions, but it’s not reality.
Few people are posting the uglier parts of their lives online. Even when they do, we eat popcorn and treat their suffering like it’s some form of entertainment.
The trap you can fall into is comparing your very imperfect life to another’s curated highlight reel. It’s impossible to live up to that standard because no one’s life is that good. And even if it is, it won’t be forever. Life happens, and things get ugly. Fast.
Life is not a competition. You have to walk your path in a way that is right for you and stop making comparisons, or you’ll make life much more stressful than it needs to be.
3. Neglecting Your Physical And Mental Health
Maintaining your mental health is an obvious choice to minimize your stress. If you have mental health struggles, keeping them under control is necessary to try to keep your life smooth, more predictable, and less stressful. Not surprisingly, a lot of people neglect their mental health until the problem becomes so big they can’t ignore it.
Many don’t factor physical health and healthy living into stress management, though. As Harvard Health Publishing informs us, good physical health plays a major role in good mental health.
I can tell you from personal experience, having neglected my physical health for a long time, it makes a huge difference in reducing stress and boosting moods. One great benefit for me was better sleep.
Exercise produces all kinds of hormones that allow your body to function optimally, as well as creating the right circumstances for quality sleep. It should come as no surprise that good, quality sleep is vital for stress management. Everyone gets cranky when they don’t sleep.
Neglecting your physical and mental health just makes you more anxious and stressed.
4. Chasing Perfectionism
Perfectionists often view perfectionism as a good thing. They tell others, and themselves, that they have a high standard of quality and that they can’t rest until it’s perfect.
Is it good to have a high standard of quality or work? Absolutely. The issue is that perfectionism doesn’t often stem from the desire to do an exceptional job. The experts at UPMC Health Beat tell us that perfectionism is often an unhealthy coping skill for anxiety. It’s an impossible standard that perfectionists set for any number of reasons.
Perfectionism can stem from trauma. The person is constantly tweaking, constantly working, because if it’s not perfect, then it’s not done, and if it’s not done, they won’t be judged on it. Perfectionism may also stem from anxiety or other mental health issues, where the person is trying to self-soothe through predictable work and outcomes.
In truth, perfectionism only causes more stress and anxiety in life because it’s an impossible standard to meet. No one can ever live up to it. No matter how perfect you think a thing is, someone else can find a problem with it. Nothing is above criticism, and people have different tastes, so it’s important to overcome perfectionism if you want a less stressful, happier life.
5. Trying To Multi-Task Too Much
A typical human brain is not built for multitasking. A typical brain is built to focus on one issue at a time to get the best results. Trying to focus on more than one task adds frustration and stress because your mind is trying to process two complicated matters at once. If you focused on just one, it would be less stressful.
Of course, not everyone is wired that way. There are a lot of neurodivergent people, such as those with ADHD or those with certain mental health conditions that make it nearly impossible to focus on one thing for any length of time (assuming they aren’t in hyperfocus, that is). Even still, those people can find themselves exhausted and stressed out by trying to juggle 15 things at once.
They may be able to do it, but it’s not always the healthiest thing to do. It’s tiring, and it can be difficult to get things done.
6. Avoiding Or Ignoring Difficult Conversations
There’s a saying that goes something to the effect of, “Your happiness is proportional to your willingness to have difficult conversations.” That statement says a lot. It alludes to the fact that you can only change certain bad situations by having difficult conversations. If you are unwilling to have those conversations, you are locking yourself into miserable circumstances that may not be right for you.
Ever stayed in a bad relationship because you didn’t want to hurt the other person by breaking up? Or avoid setting boundaries because you knew the conversation was going to be uncomfortable or turn into a fight? Or not standing up to bullies who were treating you unkindly?
Yeah, these are uncomfortable conversations to have, but you can’t avoid them. Avoiding them only keeps them looming over your head until the situation finally breaks. It’s a low-level, background stress that quietly compounds and makes your life worse.
7. Trying To Control Everything
Some people believe they can control every outcome. They can’t. The issue is that you have no idea what you don’t know. You can research a problem and all its outcomes to the finest grain of detail, but then some problem smacks you out of nowhere because you had no idea it could happen. That often happens with people because people aren’t always that predictable.
Micro-managers are often trying to self-soothe anxiety or trauma they have. However, they set themselves up for failure because everything can’t be controlled, and they can’t control every outcome. Instead, they spend all this time and energy trying to create the outcome they want and micro-managing the people involved instead of just letting go.
It’s good to research and plan the problem you want solved. However, you can never totally predict the outcome. You have to stop trying to control everything and let things go how they’re going to go.
8. Ignoring Your Need For Rest and Relaxation
Rest and relaxation are important parts of maintaining your health and keeping your stress levels manageable. Unfortunately, we have been led to believe that every spare minute of every day should be spent hustling and grinding. As a result, many of us find it hard to relax.
Your body will often tell you when it needs rest – always tired, exhausted, unable to focus, stressed, and worried. If you live a busy life, as many of us do, you may not be able to find the time to take a break. Instead of finding the time, we must create it. We must schedule in time for rest and treat it as important as our most important responsibilities. Because it is.
Final Thoughts…
Stress is an unavoidable part of life for most. Life is just stressful. We have things to do, places to be, and responsibilities to tend to. However, by avoiding the small ways that we add unnecessary stress into our lives, we can make it so much easier to carry.
There are a lot of minor things that we are accustomed to doing to get through our day that may be more habit than consideration. Sometimes we’re just too busy to really take the time to think about it. But if you do, and you can eliminate some of these small stress creators, you may be able to reduce the stress in your life.
