This is a short transcript excerpt from a YouTube video by Ashok Gupta titled "Are You Putting Too Many Expectations & Pressures On Yourself?" The speakers discuss how stress and anxiety are often caused by a gap between perceived demands and perceived abilities, and how perfectionism and unrealistic standards across areas of life (work, children’s performance, household tidiness, finances) increase that gap. The primary recommended step is to become aware of and reduce these unconscious expectations to support mindfulness and lower stress.
Chapters
A lot of our stresses are related to something I talk about on page.
132, which is the difference between the perception of demands and the perception of our abilities.
Yeah.
Does everyone remember that little diagram? And this is so crucial to why we're stressed, why we feel anxious, have.
You know, there are people in your.
Life, you know, they're so happy.
Go lucky. Nothing seems to stress them. They just get on with things. They're still productive. And you think, you know how you know those people, you look at them and go, what's their secret? Right. And something to observe here is those.
People who just are naturally seem to.
Just get on with things.
There is a smaller gap, I observe.
Between the perception of the demands placed on them and the perception of their abilities. Let's just have a deeper think about that. Because the gap between that often increases stress and anxiety, but also decreases our ability to be mindful. If we have learnt as children and.
Teenagers that there are very high standards expected of us.
Yeah.
Dare I say it, perfection expected continuously.
Remember Jean Charles, a French chef, and his perfectionism? Yeah. Then what happens is we are living or attempting to live up to an unrealistic standard. How can your nervous system not be stressed? Constantly chasing something that is unachievable, which is perfection. And therefore we have to recognize that are we chasing perfection or unrealistic standards? And those unrealistic standards can be anything.
From a project you're working on, right through to how well are the children.
Doing at school and things you can't even control, right through to how tidy.
The house is, right through to, you.
Know, how well are we doing financially. All of these things are pressures and expectations we put on ourselves up here. So the first secret of becoming more mindful and reducing our anxiety and stress is to reduce, first of all, just become aware of what realistic or what unrealistic expectations, what ridiculous expectations have we set for ourselves in life. That is an unconscious pressure.
