Many women are feeling the pressure to have it all together. This can mean different desires for individual women and everyone’s list may look different. However, most women want to excel in every aspect of their life and chase success.
After speaking to women working in investment banking, full-time mothers, students, entrepreneurs and friends, they all have a common denominator - they were all striving for this high level of perfectionism in their lives. Not only were they juggling their roles as full-time mothers, students or employees, they had many other goals and dreams too, which is excellent!
However, many women are not content, they are searching for the next ‘thing’ or person to fill that void and to tick off this imaginary list most women refer to globally. Spending day and night feeling anxious and stressed about hitting the next target has resulted in feelings of misery, worry and nothing ever feels like ‘enough’.
The pressure develops from an unspoken list of:
1. Finding a fulfilling job that we love with supportive colleagues. Not to mention, a job where they offer a long maternity leave period and have our jobs to come back to…with a promotion!
2. Finding ‘The One’.
3. Figuring out if ‘This One’ is the person you would like to have a baby with.
4. Figuring out if you actually want a baby.
5. Gone travelling.
6. Completed and fulfilled all dreams and aspirations before you have a baby and that can’t be done when we are older.
7. Get a mortgage and have a sufficient amount of savings.
The implications of perfectionism from incredibly high standards has a detrimental impact to women as they may engage in self-critical thoughts and feeling panicky as their vision and timetable in their mind do not match their reality. As a result, we criticise our circumstances as “not being enough” and so we never feel content.
Life is not a standardised procedure, there is no rule book or list written specifically for you to have a deadline to meet this. By embracing life, slowing down and being more present on your journey in life, you may find that you feel more
relaxed and your anxiety decreases.
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Deshara Pariag MBACP
Counsellor
My Life Therapy Essex
Facebook and Instagram: MyLifeTherapyEssex
www.mylifetherapyessex.co.uk