Why You Should Climb Off Your Pedestal

There is something I call “the pedestal.” You get an expectation set on you, and then you do what you can to meet or exceed it. Great. Everyone’s happy. But because you just did so well, they raise the expectation. You do what you can again, and everything is fine. Everyone’s happy. Then they go to raise those expectations again… It turns into this awful cycle of these expectations, sometimes unrealistic, being placed on you, then you having to meet them. It’s like being on a pedestal that keeps getting taller and taller each time, and you start to become so fearful of it and question what happens if those expectations aren’t met.

I lived in fear of this for a long time. It got to the point that I was so afraid of not meeting all the expectations that I would spend all my time working on different things. I couldn’t even sleep at night because my mind would be racing with all the things I “should” have been doing instead. For me, it became so much that I couldn’t even function anymore. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I had to do something about it.

Basically, I climbed down. It took a long time, but when I made it to the ground, I felt so much better. It’s not an easy climb either. Once I got off, I sometimes missed the view; it was really hard to not get sucked into letting myself get to that place again. I had to learn to pay attention to how I felt about things and I learned my limits. I can’t do everything; nobody can. Despite this, everyone is of value for everything they can do. Try not to forget that when you make that climb because there’s so much you’re capable of that you shouldn’t have to worry about falling.