I’m sure you’ve been there before, the same way most of us have. You’re tired, you’re not sleeping properly, your boss is keeping you awake all night, or you don’t have a boss and that’s stressing you.
The problem is – when does it move from being ‘worth it’ to ‘not worth it’?
Pushing yourself for personal growth – how do you do it without having a mental breakdown?
There are so many articles about this on the web, but most say the same thing – it’s not worth it when it’s impacting you life in a way that makes you feel rubbish.
I’m going to contradict that a bit, because I do believe sometimes when things are really rubbish it’s when our biggest growth spurts occur.
I know this because I’ve quit a lot of stuff. I’ve also nearly quit a lot less stuff. It’s the times when I nearly quit that I remember as some of my biggest learning curves.
There have been times when I’ve cried myself to sleep because I can’t bare the thought of another day in the same place, when I’ve hidden in toilets to avoid conversations with people, but of course, you can only hide for so long in a toilet before some old lady comes knocking whispering, ‘are you alright in there dear?’ through the door. Then what do you do?
You come out and face the music.
You man up and deal with it. Yes, there are times when you want to save face and be the big (wo)man but just can’t handle it anymore, and if it’s genuinely too much that’s OK. But if there’s any part of you, even a tiny bit that has something left to give, fight the urge to quit and keep going, you may find you grow exponentially as a person because of it.
That said, when your back is against the wall, there are simple things you can do to try and manage better.
The best thing I found is learning to switch off. Stick with me here. I know when I say that to clients normally they immediately groan and say ‘I can’t’ but I’m here to tell you that you can.
Like I was saying last time about priorities, it’s a simple mindset shift.
The easiest way to do this is to grab a yoga nidra audio (I like this one
Yoga nidra trains the mind to be calm and one pointed. In yoga it’s called Dharana – one-pointed focus i.e. your mind’s not flitting about all over the place stressing but focused on one thing – the systematic relaxation of your body. Listen to the words and tell yourself that there is no more you can do for today apart from allow your body to rest and recuperate so you can be at your best tomorrow.
I know what I’m suggesting isn’t remotely easy, but it’s actually the very fact that it’s not easy that promotes the growth. In order to discover your true potential, you have to be willing to push yourself continually outside of your comfort zones at least in some aspects of your life. What’s important is that you manage your stress levels whilst you’re doing it.
To help you with this, why not sign up and join the growing creator community and get free access to the yoga nidra audio I was talking about above as well as a whole host of other goodies to help you de-stress and move forward confidently.