Over the last few weeks I have been exploring, not because I consciously wanted to, the concept of pressure and how it can impact my life. Some of my clients have been dealing with a similar challenge and I thought it would be a great idea to post something about this today, to leave you to think about.

For some time now, I have believed that the harder I work, the better the result. Even though that hasn’t been true for me in the way I’ve gone about it, that didn’t deter me. Being an entrepreneur and health professional, I fell into the trap of ‘all entrepreneurs work crazy hours and don’t switch off because that’s just the way’. I started to realise pretty quickly that this concept doesn’t apply to all of us out there. We all have different approaches to life, business and how we manage ourselves.

What made this idea stand out even more in my mind that it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ way of looking at life was when I had a personal training session about 2 weeks ago. For the last 4 years, when I have trained at the gym, I have a specific way I like to work out. The movement is slow and continuous. The weights aren’t super heavy and the sessions are short and sweet. I decided to try a different approach with my person trainer. I pushed heavier weights, worked harder and a bit faster. As a result, I came very close to passing out after I was done and to add to that, I was out of action for 5 days. It took too much of a toll on my body. It became very obvious to me that working out in that way and also applying that same mindset to the way I do business, is not for me.

Then I asked myself, is there such a thing as too much pressure? Well that all depends on who you are. We all have different ways of handling life and this is determined by the way our body and mind operate. Some of us love being quick and on the go, pushing hard and achieving massive goals in a short amount of time. Some of us love to move slower and take our time, pacing ourselves and seeing a bigger picture before we take action and achieve our goals. Every one is different and that’s what makes life so interesting.

So before you take your next action step towards achieving your goals, ask yourself – is this the best set forward for me or am I trying to be like someone else? The answer to that question could help you save time, energy, money and most importantly, prevent you from getting sick or feeling emotionally stuck.

How much of your life is governed by the fears you have? Do you stop yourself from doing certain things that you would love to do because you are scared of failure, getting rejected or maybe not being good enough? What about any of the fears you have about certain social or health challenges you face or could be confronted with in your life? Do those scare the crap out of you to the point that if you had to deal with any of them, you’d want to eliminate them, delete them from your life or find a way to create an ‘anti’-dote for them?

The majority of us deal with fears on a daily basis ranging from fears around failing to be a success in business to being in financial crisis to worrying about whether or not the guy or girl we like is going to reject us or keep us around. Without us even realising it, we make decisions and take certain actions in our lives that have fear as the major driving force. We stop ourselves from saying how we feel, from pushing boundaries, taking risks in business, choosing to be who want to be and the list goes on.

We have been taught that confronting situations that challenge us are something we need to avoid, run from or eliminate somehow. As a society, we fear things that we don’t understand fully, like cancer or the current bullying issues that are affecting children and adults worldwide. Our lack of education around these big issues or illnesses pushes us towards making choices that actually lead to even bigger challenges. We want to make laws to criminalise bullying. We want a world with peace and no war. We even think that we can bypass nature somehow and eliminate bacteria from the planet. In doing so, this has lead to an increase in childhood allergies. We try to play g-d at every turn, wanting to live in an illusionary world with no challenges, with no illness and no conflict. When did human beings become so fearful of living? When did we choose to believe that we somehow have control over the laws of nature? At what point did we lose respect for the flow of life and the order of things?

I recently had a conversation with someone about all of these fears people have around some of the biggest issues that the world is dealing with today. Bullying and cancer were the two topics that came up, which I’ve blogged about before and spoken about at length. I suggested that the reason why human beings may have an aversion to dealing those issues and confronting them is because they’re scared of what they could mean and how their lives might dramatically change as a result. I mentioned that they are so scared of getting connected to who they are, uncovering the power that they have inside of them and doing something meaningful in their lives.

It was at this point that I offered an idea that I know challenges a lot of people, to such a degree that the very notion of going down a different road that could create change in their lives scares them even more than the situations they might be in. When human beings are faced with significant road blocks in their lives like cancer or bullying or even changes in their relationships, it appears that the easiest option is to run from the pain, avoid the problem altogether, cut it out, reject it or push it aside. My advice, based on personal experience as well as observing powerful changes in my patients and clients lives, is to step towards the pain that hurts the most and find out why you created that pain for yourself. Only when you can truly understand the pain and struggle you’re confronted with, can you change it. What most of us don’t realise is that we have the power to change our lives, to alter our trajectory and heal whatever ails us. We have it all inside of us but if choose to avoid what hurts us or could even kill us, we miss out on some of the most valuable lessons, points of feedback and inspired ideas that we could ever receive.