10 Ways To No-Stress Awesomeness For Ambitious Overthinking Perfectionists

No meditation, feeling zen or bubble baths involved

If you looked at the title and thought, “Ha! This isn’t possible”, this post is exactly for you.

I hear you though — I firmly believe that a lot of my achievements in school, college and career happened because I wasn’t happy with status-quo and always wanted to be the best.

At the same time, I drove myself crazy with my self-critical-ness, insanely high expectations and cycles of elation and dejection which led to burn out, health issues, weight gain and mostly living life like an (excited) zombie.

Why I Finally Decided To Change (& You Should Too)

For the longest time, I was too scared to change the way my brain worked. Maybe you are too?

• You are afraid to fail.
• You are to be just ordinary.
• You are afraid of settling for banality.
• You are afraid of losing your edge.

I, more than anything was afraid of losing myself — for who was I, if not this person who always pushed herself to do better ?

• I was skeptical of the woo-woo-ness around being calm and collected — honestly it wasn’t appealing to me at all.
• I tried meditation which worked until it didn’t.
• I didn’t want to sabotage my chances of achieving my potential. After all, I knew how to succeed, so why would I change it?

But when I thought of what my ideal life would look like, I always saw myself successful — in a quiet, confident, relaxed sort of way. In control, not manic. Happy, not cray cray.

So, it was important that I design my life to reflect my ambitions. And not let my fear of failure stop me from becoming even more successful.

How To Be Awesome

I love being effective, efficient and getting-things-freaking-done well.

I love to just breeze through my day and relax in the evening, content that I accomplished something meaningful today.

If this is you, here are 10 ways to make life more sustainable and awesome.

1. Stay hungry, stay foolish but please also rest

Exhaustion is not glamorous. Neither does it help with creativity or being effective.

Doing a bunch of stuff sleeping 4 hours a day is nothing to be proud about. Challenge yourself to do it in half the time and get 8 hours of sleep instead.

It’s a chicken and egg thing — the more rested your brain is, the more effective and efficient it is the next day. But you already know this.

Instead of assuming this isn’t possible, use your ambition and drive to find a way.

2. Push yourself to be better, just not immediately.

No, you’re not going to build the body of your dreams by staying an extra hour at the gym.

Get comfortable with getting a little better everyday, instead of just being perfect today.

3. Don’t hate yourself to get stuff done

Are you a self-critical bitch? Do you push yourself using negative reinforcement? Do you criticize yourself for not living up to your crazy expectations?

Why punish yourself when you can reward yourself instead?

• Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done
• Give yourself a day off for finishing that project (cue point 1)
• Motivate yourself with a spa day (or a gaming day) instead of negative self-talk

You’ll still get things done, but you’ll be happier at the end of it instead of feeling wrung out and exhausted.

4. Stop squeezing too many things into one day

Yes, you’re human. Yes, you have only 24 hours a day. No, you need to sleep too.

Get over the “everything must be done today, or I’ll stay restless and mad” mindset.

Be okay to progress slowly on some things than others.

Patience, my friend, patience.

5. Ask for help

When you’ve done smart research and still can’t find a way to do something, ask for help.

It’ll save you time and energy which you can actually use to be more effective.

Don’t let your ego get in the way.

6. Create activity zones

Club things which require similar energies together —

• Do all your meetings back to back.
• Do your writing all together.
• Set aside time to brainstorm separately. Don’t combine it with reading, writing and researching.
• Want to learn something? Don’t squeeze it in between meetings.

This will help you get into “flow” — because we are doing tasks that require us to think and feel a certain way all together.

7. Perfectionism? Lose it. Fast

You can save hours just from this. 80:20 is good enough.

You don’t have to care about what others think of you.

Certainly it says nothing about you.

P.S.: You might actually be a little insecure for wanting to be so perfect, because otherwise why would you?

8. Know what you’re after before you do it.

Anxious to get an item of your checklist so you just sit down and will yourself to do it?

• Take a few minutes to clarify exactly where you’re going and what you’re after.
• Write down the list of tasks to help.
• Have an outline.
• Can you summarize what you’re after in one simple sentence? Yes? Now, go kill it.

The upfront investment is worth hours of struggling, confusion and constant stress when you are running out of time later.

9. Aim for effective and efficient

In everything that you do, listen to Tim Ferriss and

“Test-drive the path of least resistance”.

It’s about achievement. It’s not about activity or effort or how good you feel during the process.

10. Get your ego out of the way.

So much time is spent focusing on ourselves — why is it taking so long? Why is it so hard for me? Ugh, I wish I could be like this other person….But no, I need it to be perfect.

The more we can get ourselves out of the picture and focus on the task at hand, the better we can get things done.

TL;DR:

• Don’t lose the ambition. Use it wisely.
• Ditch the perfection.
• Channel your overthinking to important activities (not your ego) and at defined times.

Will you do actually do something about this advice? I don’t know. I just wanted to plant a seed in your head — after all you love thinking, don’t you? 😉

Want to stop stressing right away? Check out this Medium article.

Go from JUST reading to taking ACTION — start with these free resources to discover your passion, quit procrastin-eating and say bye-bye to stress.

Any awesomeness that you experience as a side effect is completely intended.