12-09-2018, 11:15 AM
I figured I'd write this out so I'm keeping track of it. But I feel like I'm doing an entire teardown of all my long held beliefs. Music for example. Today I caught myself being stressed about creating. I kept telling myself I have to do it, I have to get better. But it's definitely fear of not being good enough driving that vs the passion for music. I like reading about my favorite artists and what kind of mentality they have with creating music. A common theme among all of them is that the joy of creating is what keeps them motivated, not the desire to be good. And some of them, like myself, just need a form of expression in their life.
The funny thing is that for years I've believed putting massive amounts of pressure on myself would make me grow faster or achieve more. I'm finding that's not the case. If anything it causes more anxiety which causes more procrastinating. This is the teardown I'm specifically experiencing. Understanding and challenging that belief that working towards something has to be incredibly stressful. It's toxic and I need to replace it.
There's definitely a fear associated with it however. Like if I remove these demands on myself I'll just get complacent and never achieve anything. That's obviously not true. It just seems that I've correlated in my head two things that are irrelevant to each other. I could achieve the same if not more success by not being hard on myself.
I'm seeing the faulty thinking now. Restructuring this and challenging it is important vs trying to fight the fear away. Straight wrestling with the fear is not the way to go. I've realized these past few days I've just been using willpower to suppress the fear and move ahead vs deconstructing and removing it. But that makes sense because that's pretty much the only thing I could do to basically survive when I was younger. I just have no need for it now. Now it's a matter of instilling new positive habits.
The funny thing is that for years I've believed putting massive amounts of pressure on myself would make me grow faster or achieve more. I'm finding that's not the case. If anything it causes more anxiety which causes more procrastinating. This is the teardown I'm specifically experiencing. Understanding and challenging that belief that working towards something has to be incredibly stressful. It's toxic and I need to replace it.
There's definitely a fear associated with it however. Like if I remove these demands on myself I'll just get complacent and never achieve anything. That's obviously not true. It just seems that I've correlated in my head two things that are irrelevant to each other. I could achieve the same if not more success by not being hard on myself.
I'm seeing the faulty thinking now. Restructuring this and challenging it is important vs trying to fight the fear away. Straight wrestling with the fear is not the way to go. I've realized these past few days I've just been using willpower to suppress the fear and move ahead vs deconstructing and removing it. But that makes sense because that's pretty much the only thing I could do to basically survive when I was younger. I just have no need for it now. Now it's a matter of instilling new positive habits.
INFP
