[video available on spotify] i recently discovered that one of the most significant causes of emotional instability for me is being under the wrong kinds of pressure. i can think of many instances of pressure being beneficial, but the wrong kind of pressure can cause us to crumble. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What causes emotional instability?
I recently discovered that one of the most significant causes of emotional instability for me is being under the wrong kinds of pressure. And I say the wrong kinds of pressure because not all pressure is bad. In fact, pressure can be incredibly beneficial.
I look back at many high-pressure moments in my young adult life fondly because even though they were absolutely horrifying in the moment, uncomfortable, scary, honestly, even at times miserable, I came out the other side a better person, a more flexible person, a more confident person. It's almost like we're rocks. And the more good pressure we have on us,
the more that we develop into a diamond. Diamonds form when carbon atoms bond together under intense heat and pressure deep within the earth. Imagine that we are carbon atoms and imagine positive, healthy forms of pressure in our lives turn us into diamonds. Isn't that just a beautiful metaphor? Enjoy that metaphor. Take that with you. Good pressure can be really good.
Bad pressure, on the other hand, a type of pressure that I think we all tend to pay less attention to can be detrimental. And instead of turning us into a diamond, can cause us to crumble. This is something that I realized recently. I knew that I was under good types of pressure. I was aware of the benefits of pressure.
But for a long time, I was unaware of the dangers of the wrong kind of pressure. And so I wasn't really paying attention to the types of pressure that I was inflicting on myself that were damaging me. Because I want to be clear, there are pressures in our lives that are out of our control. That's not what I'm talking about today. What I'm talking about is self-inflicted pressures, okay?
The pressure that we put on ourself and also the high-pressure situations that we put ourselves in. I can think of many instances of pressure being incredibly beneficial for me. And I'll give you examples. To start, growing up, I was a competitive cheerleader, ages like 10 to 15.
And when I first started, the pressure was high, but just high enough to challenge me, but not so high that I had a mental breakdown. We did relatively competitive competitions. I was a competitive cheerleader, which meant that instead of cheering for football games and basketball games and stuff like that for sports teams at our school, we performed routines at competitions.
And the pressure came in when it was time to perform in front of judges and a bunch of family and friends and competitors. And at times, even in arena filled with people, That was really challenging for me. Luckily, when I first started, obviously I was a beginner and it just wasn't that competitive.
But over the course of five years, it got very competitive and even more stressful and even more high pressure. And I mean, listen, it's a cheer competition. A lot of people would look at that situation and say, that's not a high pressure situation. But everything is relative. And at the time, it felt like my entire world.
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Chapter 2: How can pressure be beneficial?
And then ultimately at the other side of that performance, feeling so proud of myself and proud of my team and just so fulfilled by it because I had conquered something that was challenging. That experience did so much for me. It taught me how to soothe myself in moments of immense pressure. Like I had to teach myself, you know, I had to learn to take deep breaths.
I had to learn talking to people really helps me like trying to take my mind off things by talking to people instead of, you know, going inward and being really quiet, trying to be silly with people, hang out with people. That really helped me. Letting myself go into autopilot when I was on stage and just enjoy the experience. That really helped me.
And accepting the fact that I might fail and I just am going to have to accept that and I just need to go out there and do the best I can. Like all of these micro lessons, if you will, had such a significant impact on me for the rest of my life. And to be honest, you know, I quit competitive cheerleading when I was 15. I never even got that good.
And honestly, I am so relieved that I don't experience that level of pressure anymore. Like, I'm so happy. I have no interest in ever putting myself in a position where I'm under that much pressure on a consistent basis because we competed, you know, almost year round, really. I mean, I guess there was a competition season.
But still, for at least half the year we were competing on a monthly basis, sometimes a biweekly basis, that was a lot of pressure all the time. And I have no interest in doing that again. However, however... what I learned from that was invaluable. I also, around a similar time, put a lot of pressure on myself to do well at school.
Now, this is a little bit different than the pressure that I experienced from cheerleading because I feel like the pressure I experienced from cheerleading, I put myself into that environment. Whereas at school, it's not necessarily a high-pressure environment. Depending on who you are As a student, it may or may not be high pressure. For me, it was because I decided that it was.
Teachers weren't putting pressure on me. My fellow students weren't putting pressure on me. I was putting pressure on myself. And to be honest, it was a little bit miserable. I had a terrible work-life balance. I barely slept my entire high school career. I barely slept. I slept like four hours a night. It was horrible. And I drank a lot of coffee, which is kind of beautiful.
That was when I really fell in love with coffee. But it was a bit extreme. I think I probably took the pressure a bit too far. But I still think that I learned a lot from it. I even learned that that was too much pressure and that I need to lessen it up a little bit and find kind of a happy medium where I'm not completely slacking in my life.
I don't want that to be my work ethic, but also that level of pressure on myself is too much and actually... It was, you know, pushing me to perform at a high level, but my actual quality of life was horrible and that's not good.
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Chapter 3: What is the difference between good and bad pressure?
Whereas with a creative project, it's less predictable. I don't know how much energy it's going to take to come up with an idea or to execute on an idea. I don't know how long it's going to take for inspiration to strike for a good idea. It could take an hour. It could take two weeks. It could take a month. It could take a year. I don't know when I'm going to have a good idea.
And the truth of the matter is like, deadlines are not going away for me, for anyone, right? I actually think deadlines are good. I don't think deadlines should go away. However, I was existing in this state where I had this constant deadline and I was trying to be creative because majority of my job is creative.
I was trying to come up with ideas, execute on ideas successfully in a very short window of time, okay? And I just thought that this pressure was inevitable. Like, this is just the way that it is. This is when the deadline is. I had only so much time to come up with the idea, execute on it before the deadline. And I can't tell you the emotional distress that this would cause for me.
Number one, constantly experiencing creative block. Why? Because pressure causes creative block. I cannot think creatively when I'm under pressure. I'm most creative when I have complete freedom. And I think most people are like that. But again, like if you have somewhat of a creative job, you don't get to have complete freedom. There are deadlines. You know, I do two podcast episodes a week.
Chamberlain Coffee, there are lots of deadlines. That's not gonna change. But what I was able to do was get ahead. And at the beginning of this year, I was like, I'm not messing around this year. I wanna be able to take a week just to think about an idea. I want to have a week of bad days where I can't come up with any ideas and where I just need to incubate on stuff. I want that freedom.
But I had to create that for myself by getting ahead and pushing myself to get as much done as I could in the beginning of the year so that I could basically be ahead indefinitely. If you can get ahead, then as long as you can somewhat maintain a decent workload, at least the pressure's off.
And ironically, what ends up happening and what happened to me was that I got so ahead that pretty much all the pressure just dissipated. And guess what? No more creative block, way less bad days where I like can't get anything done and I can't function creatively. Ironically, there's less pressure now to get things done quickly. There's no pressure now to get things done quickly.
I don't even need to come up with an idea. I could take a month off of everything if I wanted because I'm so ahead, but I don't even want to. I don't even want to because now I'm having fun because there's no pressure. You know, it's awesome. Like I get to leisurely work on things and it's awesome.
It was a lot of work in the beginning and now I'm getting to experience the fruits of that labor and the pressure is off and I feel incredible. And now I know, now I know. When it comes to creative stuff, I need zero pressure. Otherwise, I have mental breakdowns.
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Chapter 4: How did cheerleading teach me about pressure?
I didn't even go to college. Where is this coming from? Anyway, new episodes every Thursday and Sunday. Anything Goes is on social media at Anything Goes. You can stream Anything Goes anywhere you stream podcasts. But if you want to watch a video and see me talk, that is on Spotify and YouTube.
I'm on social media at Emma Chamberlain and check out my coffee company at chamberlaincoffee.com or at Chamberlain Coffee or at stores near you perhaps if you have like a Whole Foods or a Target or a Sprouts near you or at our cafe in Los Angeles. Check out Chamberlain Coffee if you like coffee and matcha and things of that sort. and that's all I have. Thank you all for listening and hanging out.
I love you all. I appreciate you all. It's always a joy and a pleasure to talk to you, especially because there's no pressure to talk to you. I'm prerecorded for like a month, so I'm just, you know, I'm talking to you right now from a month ahead, and there's something really beautiful about that. All right, I love you all. I'll talk to you later, and take the pressure off, okay?
But only the bad kinds. Keep some good pressure on. That's good. Okay, bye.