This is the story of how God helped me to break free from the life of constant demand and being hard on myself.

I’m a goal-setting person and a passionate keeper of what I want to do. From a very young age, I made sure to live the way I was supposed to. Yet, as I grew up a lot of people came to me and told me that I was very hard on myself. I had no idea what that meant. I took it as a compliment for having discipline.

As the years went by I noticed that I struggled to relax. With every year I struggled more in reaching a place of satisfaction with myself. The demanding nature made me forget what it meant to have joy and peace. To solve this problem I made more rules that would set me up for productivity and success. For some weird reason, it didn’t work.

The unexpected discovery

During one of my longer breaks, I noticed that I felt free to do whatever I wanted and was very productive. That was a huge contradiction that made me start to question the way I lived. I never thought that the freedom to do anything I wanted would lead me to act the way I was supposed to.

There was something in the nature of being relaxed that made me more productive than usual and, most importantly, happy. I came back from the vacation feeling excited to apply the mindset of rest.

It took less than a week to fall flat on my face. I started to expect myself to achieve great things even on my days off! The demand took rest and made it into a rule.

At least I knew that something was utterly wrong and I wasn’t living the way I should. Months of prayers went by until I finally understood!

The guilt

Imagine waking up later than you planned. A feeling of disgusting regret fills your heart. “How could I oversleep?! Now everything I do will be later than it should.”

What’s the first desire that comes? Most likely it will be the attraction to lay a bit longer because compromise has already been made. 15 extra minutes won’t make a big difference, will it? You’re already too late.

If waking up too late were the only compromise I could make. No, they were on every step. I made myself feel bad for every little mistake I made. I thought it was a good method to motivate myself to do the right thing. By doing all things right I wanted to be productive and achieve the goals I set.

The more I tried the more I failed. The more rules I set on myself the more compromises I was able to make. I was trapped in a constant feeling of not doing good enough.

What do you do when you know someone is going to point out your mistakes?You try to avoid that person. It’s a natural response.

We hate feeling guilty. Guilt doesn’t uplift or encourage anyone to live better. It desires that you admit your defeat and quit trying.

The internet has the biggest library of distractions from guilt. At least that’s where I found myself most of the time. I was looking for a way out of this nasty regret and trying to think of something good. That desire sometimes made me spend an entire day watching YouTube videos.

Guess what happened the next morning after a day of wasted opportunities? Yes, I felt disgusted with myself. The feeling of guilt was even stronger and I ended up wasting even more time.

Hidden self-punishment

I had to earn happiness by being productive. Sadly, every mistake caused intense regrets. They acted like obstacles on my run to the finish line. After every compromise, I felt bad about myself because it meant that I failed.

At this point, it became clear — feeling bad about myself was a form of self-punishment.

I don’t know when it started, but I was punishing myself by taking away the ability to feel joy and satisfaction every time I failed. This punishment was a negative motivation to become the best person I could be.

After God showed me this twisted view of discipline I made a promise to myself to not feel bad about any mistake I made. If God wanted to point out a mistake, I would listen but I would no longer blame myself for every little thing.

Hear me out, the wrong action is still wrong and wasted time is not productivity. But if I want to live right there’s no need to punish myself for failing while I’m on the way. The best thing is not to blame but to stand up, forget about it and continue on toward the goal.

The results

I found that letting go was the grace I always longed for. The peace that no matter what mistake I made I wouldn’t get punished.

It’s not that I want to make mistakes. No, I want to do right. It’s just that the fear of failure makes me stressed and the fear of punishment for every mistake was hurting me more than it helped.

Now, I live free from the dark side of the demand, which is being hard on myself. I wake up in the morning with joy and lay down in the evening with satisfaction. If I sleep in, I still have joy and jump out of my bed without bashing myself.

I don’t start my day anymore thinking about the responsibilities and burdens I have to carry that day. Instead, with true gladness in my heart, I thank God for the gift of a new day. Everything I get to do is a privilege and failure doesn’t consume my happiness.

Am I more productive? Honestly, I don’t ask myself this anymore. Although, if I were to judge myself according to the old set of requirements, I would say that I’m very productive. The best part of it is that this productivity is not forced by fear but it’s a natural response from a happy heart.

Let me ask you:

How do you see yourself when you fail?

For more useful insights and tips subscribe to my monthly newsletter.

You can read more on: 

• Medium.com (the place where I post my stories first)
• Vocal Media
• Abundant Life Chronicles Blog

The complete library of my stories (click here)