Don’t Compare Yourself
Mental health – good mental health – is one of your greatest assets as a writer. Did you know the stresses and the perceived demands and competition associated with being a writer equal those of the most powerful company executives or political leaders? According to a study I read, stress makes no exception to professions. And, in all cases, stress makes you less effective, less creative, and less healthy.
Stress is what happens inside your own head. With this being said, it can be managed. I’ve noted two major causes of stress for writers.
One of the greatest stressors is comparison. Don’t do it. Don’t compare yourself to someone who you perceive is doing better than you; don’t compare yourself with someone you perceive is doing less well. I’ve talked to many famous writers. They all have bad days. We perceive things are easy for them. They are not. Everyone has setbacks, challenges, and disappointments. The pros just smile when the world is crashing down around them.
The second stressor is the rat on the treadmill. Don’t feel like you must accomplish everything in a week. You’ve got a lifetime. Seriously. Take it one step at a time, stress free, and enjoy each step. To this second issue, there was a study conducted by the Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco that found, interestingly, that Type A personalities most often did not rise to the top. Surprising? Type B personalities, with their more laid-back persona, were healthier and more likely, because of their general non-aggressive personality style, to rise to the top of their professions.
So, as we compare, stress ourselves out because things are not going fast enough, and feel like we are never doing enough, and other people have it so much easier than us, then it might be good to note that sometimes, what we do is indeed enough and, in fact, all we really need to do. In fact, what we think we might see may indeed be a fallacy. Let’s look inward, instead, for setting our pace and our own personal bar, not outward at what we think is going on around us. The latter only stresses us out.
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