Under Pressure and Not Knowing Why

Photo by Paul Harris on Unsplash

Twenty-nine minutes into our first official call, my coach says the thing that stops me in my tracks.

We were talking through my resistance to writing. I was explaining how I felt stuck creatively, emotionally, and in building Chasing Maximus. The external demands were gone. I finally had the freedom to build what I wanted.

Then he said it.

“You’re almost filling that space with pressure you don’t need.”

That one line lingered. I felt the need to give a list of all of the reasons he was wrong. But he was right. It was pressure.

I had removed the external expectations. But the internal ones? Still fully intact, subtle, automatic, unquestioned, and constant.

Pressure to prove I’m qualified. Pressure to get it right. Pressure to say it perfectly. Pressure to say something worthwhile. Pressure to know what I’m doing. Pressure to make it worth it. Pressure to matter. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

That call helped me finally see it. The pressure isn’t new. It’s not circumstantial. It’s not about deadlines or to-do lists. It’s deeper than that.

It’s a pattern, a default setting, a BS story, and it’s been running my life for too long.

The Loop I Didn’t Know I Was In

For most of my life, I’ve carried a sense of not being enough.

Though I wouldn’t have said it like that, I didn’t walk around feeling broken or worthless. It was more subtle than that. More acceptable.

It showed up as comparison.

I would size up others and determine how far along they were, how successful, or how confident they appeared, and I would feel bad. I didn’t feel envious on the surface. I just felt behind, like I needed to catch up. Like I wasn’t doing enough, moving fast enough, or well enough.

From that comparison, judgment would rise.

I’d judge them quickly, silently. I’d label and find reasons to discount them. I didn’t realize I was reacting to how they made me feel about myself.

But that’s precisely what was happening.

Judgment became the cover story for my discomfort, and the discomfort came from comparing myself to others and believing I wasn’t doing enough.

Judgment → Pressure → Performance

What I see now is how judgment always led to pressure.

If I judged someone as being ahead of me, I had to respond.

The response wasn’t conscious. I didn’t say, “Well, time to prove I’m enough.”

But that’s what I did.

I’d feel like I needed to write something smart, say something useful, do something big, move faster, and get better.

It wasn’t always loud. It wasn’t some inner critic screaming at me. It was a quiet pressure. A weight I didn’t know I was carrying.

That’s the danger of unconscious patterns. They don’t announce themselves. They keep us stuck in the same story.

But they’re just old stories, playing out in the present.

Judgment Is a Signal

This shift in perspective changes everything for me. Judgment used to run my life. Now I see it as a sign to tune in.

When I catch myself judging someone, I stop focusing on them. I look inward and I ask:

What is causing me to feel the need to judge?

Because judgment is rarely about the other person.

For me, it was the default response to a perceived threat.

It says: “You’re comparing again. You’re scared. You feel threatened and you’re trying to protect yourself by putting others, as well as yourself, down.”

Judgment is not a flaw. It is wired into us as ultra-social beings. The problem is not the feeling itself. It is what we make it mean. For me, judgment shows up when I am trying to protect a part of myself I do not even realize I am protecting.

Pressure Isn’t Purpose

For a long time, pressure felt like purpose, drive, or ambition. But it’s not.

Pressure isn’t bad on its own.

Aligned pressure moves me forward. It keeps me focused.

But misaligned pressure, the kind rooted in comparison, approval, and performance, pulls me away from myself. It arises when I feel behind and driven to perform, when I chase approval, mistaking performance for alignment.

It fills the space when I drift from authenticity and start trying to be someone I think I should be: an expert, a leader, a polished voice with all the answers.

But that’s not the role I want to play. I’m not here to pretend I’ve got it figured out. I’m here to share what I’ve experienced, what I’ve lived, and what I’m learning. I’m not here to teach the way. I’m here to share my way. In case it helps you find yours.

The Work Is Noticing

What I’m learning now is simple, but hard:

You can’t change what you don’t notice. But once you see it, you can’t pretend it’s not there. Noticing is the beginning of the self-renewal process.

Not when you stop judging, but when you finally see what judgment is trying to tell you. Pulling on these threads is how we unravel the patterns keeping us stuck. That’s the work. That’s the path back.