MENTAL MESS WOF RESULTS
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Fear of Failure
Fear of failure is an emotional perspective which assumes that you will fail to meet anyone’s expectations including your own. This means that you can approach any given scenario, relationship, or task with the perceived outcome of missing the mark. The fear of failure can cause you to increase your standards to an unrealistic level and acquire a heightened need of validation only satisfied by meeting high expectations. The fear of failure also builds a repeating lens or filter that you may see the world through, as this filter builds over time it can begin to produce behaviour such as avoiding new or challenging tasks, negative self-talk, holding back from fully expressing yourself, and procrastination. We can create self- imposed limitations and a cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies that keep you trapped.
The good news is that the fear of failure can be overcome. Not by running straight into big challenges but clearing the mess in your brain that gives you reason to fear failure in the first place. Your brain is not stuck and can be renovated.
Perfectionism
If you struggle with Perfectionism, chances are high that your mindset is built on excessively high standards for yourself or others, and striving for flawlessness in all areas of your life. Your brain may tell you that having all things perfect or right is what will keep you safe from harm and therefore, you become overly critical, excessively attentive to details, find it difficult to celebrate achievements, or constantly dissatisfied. This impacts your wellbeing, spilling over into all areas of life. Ranging from disturbed sleep patterns to difficulties forming or maintaining relationships.
Perfectionism cares little about the process or behind the scenes and is all about the “final product”. This pressure to preform can come from a myriad of experiences and differ from each person. Take the time to interrogate the expectations you have and see what experiences they link back to. If you notice you have difficulty delegating, often procrastinate, or notice your creativity hindered by being unable to make mistakes – it may be time to take a look into perfectionism.
Like two sides of the same coin, over working looks a lot like perfectionism from the out set. Over working is a never satisfied standard of what is ‘enough’. The striving for success or achievement at an incredibly high standard is what make these two so similar. However, over working prioritises the effort put in or amount of work done rather than the end goal. This mindset creates and endless stream of work to be done and can have the black lash of effects like imposter syndrome and burnout.
These two thinking/behavioural patterns can have a significant impact to your mental and emotional wellbeing, it can rob the joy of your everyday, increase levels of anxiety, make you prone to taking on toxic emotions and make it really hard to be present with the people you care about the most.
Self Doubt
Self-doubt is the constant belief that you, your efforts, or your abilities will never be enough. It is like a broken tool, used to constantly measure yourself against unrealistic or unreliable standards – it is inaccurate in every way but feels entirely legitimate. Self- doubt is motivated by fear, these fears interpret experiences to build the narrative that gives you reason to doubt. Self-doubt left unchecked can result in indecision, prevent the pursuit of goals and dreams, and erode self-worth.
You may be experiencing self doubt if you: lack confidence in your abilities, decisions, or worth; you feel you are undeserving of success and therefore unable to maintain it.
Maybe you are uncertain in your abilities to achieve goals resulting in over achieving to prove yourself, but no matter how many times you prove to yourself you remain skeptical of yourself, and constantly seek reassurance from others.
In order to experience life to the fullest, a healthy mental and emotional wellbeing, self doubt must be an issue you overcome.
Fear of the Future
Fear of the future is a mindset characterised by persistent worry about what lies ahead. Fear of the future doubles down on the emotions associated with memories of significant life transitions, instability, or lack of control and uses these to try predict future outcomes – often over estimating negative outcomes. It gives us reason to believe that we will be safe and secure if we can predict all potential outcomes. Due to this it keeps your mind going and you can find it hard to be present.
The unsettling emotions involved in this are daunting and as a way to cope you may find you have developed high standards, striving for perfection, seeking validation, avoiding challenges, and constant negative self-talk. This tendency to presume the outcome will start to create a very negative outlook on life and will keep you living in the narrative that says “ there is always something to worry about”. If you struggle with fear of the future chances are you find yourself overthinking or catastrophising things often, are tense or restless, and are unable to make decisions, plans, or commitments.
Fear of the future will remove your joy and your ability to be present. It negatively impacts your mental and emotional wellbeing and can have a negative impact on your relationships.
Lacking Purpose
Lacking purpose can keep you feeling aimlessness, lacking clear goals or direction, and in a sense of disconnection to something meaningful. The heart of this issue could originate from major transitions in life, loss, constant unmet expectations, or be a result of a lack of self-awareness. Often living in constant survival for periods of your life can be a major contributing factor to lacking purpose in your life today.
Lacking purpose can also be a state of spiritual burnout, we can lack things like hope and expectation for tomorrow or the ability to persevere through adversity. The lack of purpose can also be a reason for increased frustration of today, because we don’t have clarity of where we are going or why we are doing what we are doing. It can seem like the problems in front of us are all that matter, we can often get consumed by small details and fail to see the bigger picture. The lack of purpose can have major negative impact to your brain health
People Pleasing
People pleasing is a behavioural pattern and perception we have which excessively prioritises the needs and interests of others. The people pleasing behavioural pattern can look like excessive apologising, difficulty setting boundaries, inability to make decisions, difficulty expressing needs or desires, and avoiding conflict. People pleasing can make you believe that the only way you get peace in life is by keeping everyone around you happy. These behaviours are outward expressions of internal desires to be accepted and valued; fear of rejection, abandonment, or disappointing others; and a need for control is what can often motivate our thinking and feeling. These attempts to maintain relationships or keep the peace most likely come from past relational hurts and it is important to find out what memories are contributing to this perception. It is this build up of emotional narrative that fuels the need to place others needs above your own. While people pleasing may be masked as trying to be a nice person or striving for moral excellence the reality is people pleasers find it hard to have an authentic expression of themselves, so they do not have true connection with others and as a result their relationships are strained. On top of this they most likely experience emotional exhaustion, loss of identity, compromising on their values, and even chronic stress/ burnout.
Intrusive Thoughts
Intrusive thoughts are sudden and unwanted thoughts, images, or impulses that intrude and interrupt your ability to think, be present, and even function at your best. These thoughts may be around taboo topics and are persistent. As a result you may fear acting on them, attempt to suppress or control them, and experience heightened anxiety or distress. Experiencing intrusive thoughts can leave you with a lot of questions about your character or sanity. However, intrusive thoughts can be a by-product of stress, anxiety, or trauma – your minds way of letting you know something is going on here that needs addressing.
Guilt & Shame
Guilt and shame are often found hand in hand. Guilt is a a feeling of remorse or responsibility when you believe you have caused harm. While shame on the other hand is an intense feeling of humiliation, inadequacy, or unworthiness most commonly from a perceived failure. What both have in common is that an expectation or standard has not been met (or at least you perceive it this way). This is internalised as your fault or a definer of who you are. It can begin to drive your actions and often can become the reason you use to bring positive change in your life. However, you never feel like the good works you have done are enough to cancel out the bad. Guilt & shame is also one of the big contributing emotions towards low self esteem and self worth issues.
Unresolved guilt and shame can eat away at a person: creating relational difficulties, self-destructive behaviour, negative self perception, self isolation, and hindering progress.
It can be a burden we carry and it’s what keeps our bodies in toxic stress. Guilt and shame are mental barriers we must address and break free from.
Low Self Confidence
Self-confidence, is an outcome of a deeper mental mess. It causes you to not trust or see value in yourself or your abilities, leading to feelings of insecurity. Low self confidence can be outwardly expressed in behaviours like avoiding challenges, excessive self criticism, constantly seeking approval and hesitancy expressing opinions or setting boundaries. As a result your day to day life is effected and you find yourself not pursuing your passions or lacking conviction to keep with your goals and dreams, you struggle to take risks and find set backs hard to handle. As a result you stunt your own growth, never reaching your full potential which is followed by feelings of inadequacy. This rut low self confidence puts you in is likely linked to negative self beliefs. These beliefs have been fashioned and learned overtime from your past experiences, lack of positive reinforcement, repeated disappointment or failure, criticism, or past trauma. The hope is that this is a barrier you can overcome.
Overwhelmed
Being overwhelmed refers to a mental state that is in distress emotionally. If you notice you have heightened emotional reactions, mood swings, or a sense of detachment – this is how being overwhelmed effects your day to day life. This may be a result of excessive work loads, conflict, traumatic events, or hardship. Sometimes it is simply due to lacking the skills to cope with what is going on in your world. Whatever the reason may be, being overwhelmed leaves you burdened mentally and emotionally – stressed, anxious, irritable, or sad – and unable to cope with daily demands. There can be physical repercussions talking a toll on your body too, look out for headaches, fatigue, or changes in appetite.
The good news, overwhelm is a mental mess that can be untangled which gives an individual the ability to feel more in control, and strong enough to stand firm in amongst the chaos around them.
