This post turned out longer than I expected so beware.
How do I stop setting excessively high performance demands on myself?
I dislike self diagnosing myself like this, but in order to describe my situation I'm going to say that I suffer from some kind of perfectionism. At least that's what I think. I have for some time now been setting unrealistic goals that I can never achieve and it's starting to get tiresome. I always have these thoughts in the back of my head saying that I need to do something productive all the time or to learn everything there is to learn, when I for example study a new subject.
A great example is collage. I take my studies seriously and I try do my best there, but I always feel like I'm never doing enough. I always compare myself to my peers and think less of myself when I don't perform as well as they do. It's kind of demoralizing for me because at collage, I'm constantly surrounded by these really talented people about my own age that know more and also have achieved so much more than me. Regular thoughts go something along the lines with: "Why haven't you also done everything that X has?", "How come that you don't know as much as X does?" and "Look how hard X is studying right now, why aren't you also studying equally as hard?". It's not only that I compare myself with my peers. I compare myself with different professors and Ph.D students at my collage as well, thinking to myself that I'm inferior for not being at their level. It sounds absurd I know, but It is what I do on a daily basis.
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Another thing that I also have noticed recently is that I freak out whenever I don't remember things that I have studied in previous courses, especially previous math courses. If I know that I'm uncertain of something, I get the thoughts telling me that I will never succeed in future courses and, if I even make it that far, my future work life.
I am aware of that I'm not really in the position of whining over the fact that I'm not smart enough or haven't achieved enough, when I don't have the self discipline to invest the time needed to do so. Even when I do decide on that I should learn something new, it doesn't take long before I lose all motivation to continue because "I will never become an expert at it anyway". It often results in me trying to escape reality by play video games, which makes the whole thing even worse. It's feels like I'm trapped in an evil circle very much like pic related and it has become really exhausting.
So all in all, how do I break this negative behavior?
Thank you in advance.
Hey OP,
My Psychologist told me to never compare to other people. Always compare to past yourself.
Stupid Cunt didn't tell me how to do that so I'm in the same boat as you.
>>17016570
Haha I'm sorry. I've heard people say that it is unfair to compare yourself to others because you don't have the same background and conditions. Skilled and talented people have devoted their entire life to doing that one thing they really love. Practice makes perfect, which means that it is only natural that they will be more skilled than you at their subject. That being said it is not impossible for you to rise to their level, it just takes time and devotion. I like to imagine it as an online multiplayer game. Say that you just created a new character, your stats are at the lower limit and you see a really high level player. I mean, it's illogical to think that you should just obtain that players stats in the blink of an eye without lifting a finger. No, it would take an immense amount of grinding to get to the point where they are at.
It's weird that I can reason like this and still struggle with these issues
>>17016612
Thats true. I think we all know the cold abstract theory but struggle applying it because we have expect us to be better than others. Could be form of narcissm. Do you also like to look down on people? I hate myself but still judge tiny flaws in people around me.
The first step of conquering this is accepting your own humanity. humans make mistakes and we should accept that.
>>17016702
>struggle applying it because we have expect us to be better than others
Yeah I mean it has to be something like that
>Do you also like to look down on people?
I'm not really proud of it but I also sometimes do that, fairly often now that I think of it. If it is for example a life choice they have made that conflicts with what I believe, I tend to judge. I think I also like to put labels on people, but they don't always have to be negative. I always keep my thoughts to myself and never say anything to hurt anyone.
And yeah, humans are error prone, but it seems like we are never allowed to make mistakes by society. I mean, to get into a decent collage are not allowed perform "average" on many subjects in senior high school. And if you would like to have decent job some day, so that you may live a some what of a decent life, you need that degree from that collage. We live in such a stressful fast paced world where every second of our time is so important that there can be no room for error. That's at least what I have been taught and learned through experience.
Sorry that I take so long to answer, I just want to make sure that I formulate me correctly.
