crumbling under pressure
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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

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. This episode of Anything Goes is brought to you by ChatGPT.

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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. 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 regularly.

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 because

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, the pressure was at times almost unbearable, especially towards the end when I started to get more competitive and

and started going to bigger competitions, you can imagine what would make this so stressful, right? Like I'm in front of a bunch of people. So I'm performing in front of a bunch of people. That's number one. Number two, I want to win. It was what we were working towards. It was why we practiced multiple times a week. It meant something to us. And, you know, it was a team sport.

We all had to pull our weight and perform properly, you know, in order to have the best performance possible and hopefully win the competition. But if one person even messes up, we could lose. Because sometimes it would come down to one small mistake that one person made, and that would be what lowered us to second place, lowered us to third place. One small mistake could impact the way that we were scored. And it felt like the world was on my shoulders. It felt like the world was on all of our shoulders. And it was...

so uncomfortable. And to be honest, I fucking hated it. It was horrible. I remember being backstage at competitions, literally the nervous sweat smell that was wafting from my armpits was unlike anything. It doesn't even smell human. It smelled like some sort of gasoline mixed with like

I don't know, like a new strain of onion that like had never been like a new GMO, genetically modified onion, right? Like it was this insane putrid nuclear radioactive smell on like anything.

You know, my knees would be weak. I would have like have knots in my stomach, butterflies in my stomach. Butterflies isn't even enough. I had like fucking pterodactyls in my stomach. You get what I mean? It was just so uncomfortable physically and psychologically. But I had to go out there and perform and perform well. And for the most part, I did. I mean, listen, I made a few mistakes over the course of my cheerleading career. But, you know, I always did pretty well.

And that challenge of being in a high pressure situation and then figuring out how to manage it and go on stage and perform. 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 how

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 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. 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. Yeah.

I mean, I guess there was a competition season, but still like if for at least half the year we were competing on like 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. Like 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. You know, I had a terrible work-life balance.

I barely slept my entire high school career. Like I barely slept. I slept like four hours a night. It was horrible. And I drank a lot of coffee, which is, you know, 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. You know, I even learned that that was too much pressure and that I need to lessen it up a little bit and find, you know, kind of a happy medium where I'm not completely slacking in my life. You know, that I don't want that to be my work ethic, but also that level of pressure on myself is too much and actually, you

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. So I sort of learned from that what my strengths are when it comes to my work ethic, what my weaknesses are, and that I need to find sort of a healthy balance that allows me to also have a good quality of life.

Not only did it help me develop my work ethic, but it also helped me build confidence, which I don't think I mentioned about cheerleading. Both of these examples helped me gain so much confidence. Putting yourself in a high pressure situation and then coming out the other side help you build confidence, as long as they're the right kinds of pressure. And those two examples are great ones. More recently, I have participated in some public speaking over the last

three, four years. And it's funny because when I was younger, I loved public speaking. Like to me, public speaking was not high pressure. It was chill. I was not afraid of it. It was actually really fun for me. Like when it was my turn to present in front of class or even like in front of the school, I was like so stoked and so excited and so cocky. Like I had so much confidence in

Not about all things, let's be clear, but about public speaking for sure. And I don't know, I like unfortunately developed a fear. And over the last few years, I've sort of forced myself to public speak anyway when the opportunity is inspiring to me and I know that it's going to ultimately be satisfying for me to do it and I'll learn something from it. And that I have, that I have. Every time I public speak,

I want... Sorry, trigger warning. I want to die. I want to die. I'm not kidding. Like, it literally makes me feel like my world is crumbling around me. Before I go on stage, I'm like...

I want to disappear. Like I cannot handle this. I'm beside myself. I'm shaking. I feel like, you know, a knot in my stomach. I convinced myself that I'm going to say something weird. I convinced myself that I'm going to forget how to speak. I, which like literally has only happened to me one time. I remember one time, sorry, brief side note.

One time I was in a meeting with like three people. Okay. It was like a super intimate meeting. It was like low pressure. And I started to get a panic attack randomly out of nowhere.

And I actually wasn't really getting panic attacks very often at that time in my life. And I wasn't even really sure what they felt like yet. So I was very jarred by this panic attack because I was like, why do I feel like I can't breathe? And why do I feel like I can't think? And anyway, I was in this meeting having this panic attack. And one of the guys in the meeting asked me a question. And I

I kept trying to talk and I was like stuttering. Like I couldn't get words out. Oh, it messed with me and it continues to mess with me ever since. I've never recovered. Okay.

Okay. Like every time I'm about to public speak, I think about that one time that I actually couldn't speak. It was really weird, but I think it's just one of those weird things that happens to you when you have a panic attack, like weird shit happens when you have a panic attack anyways, but the confidence and in the fulfillment that I experienced after facing that fear, going on stage, you know, performing well or to the best of my ability and

giving a good speech or whatever, it's incredible. And you know what? It does get easier every time. I am actually learning how to better public speak. All of these things are good. Long-term, they lead to beautiful things. Confidence, character development, the list goes on. And for a long time, I perceived pressure as being a good thing for the most part. I was like...

Most people probably need to put more pressure on themselves rather than remove some pressure. That was always sort of how I saw pressure. And I...

I've noticed over the course of my life that I do have a tendency to put a bit too much pressure on myself, but it's always ended up resolving itself in a way that was ultimately positive. So I don't know. I just never taken a look at my own life and been like, what pressures am I creating in my life that are not serving me, that are not turning me into a diamond, but are instead causing me to crumble. I've never done that. I,

I kind of ended up alleviating pressure in my life on accident. I realized that being under the wrong kinds of pressure was making me emotionally unstable once I had eliminated the wrong kinds of pressure in my life and then felt really good. Like that's when I realized, oh, you know what I mean? Like I realized after the fact. Okay, so let me tell you how I came to this conclusion. The most significant life change, success,

started at the beginning of this year. I decided I wanted to change my work strategy, literally how I work, okay?

And not to break the fourth wall here, but like how I record my podcast, film YouTube videos, how I come up with photo shoot ideas, how I come up with Chamberlain coffee ideas, how I do everything in my work life. Up until recently, I had...

functioned very close to deadline. Not like, you know, turning stuff in late or submitting things late, but for the most part, like being like right on time. Like for example, with my podcast, I was recording an episode that was going to go live a week, a week and a half before it'd go live. Sometimes even like a few days before it would go live. With a YouTube video, you know, I used to upload, this was a long time ago, but I used to upload on a weekly basis.

Well, Instagram, more recently, I started posting little videos on Instagram. But prior to that, like I was constantly like, oh God, I need to, I need to be capturing content. I need to be capturing content to post. Now I know what you're thinking. Emma, your job sounds like a joke. I totally get that. Just humor me because it's all relative. Okay. It's all relative. You know, when it came to Chamberlain Coffee stuff, it was like always down to the wire. You know, the second I had a photo shoot idea, it was like, okay,

okay, we're sending this off to the team. They're going to start developing it. It's going to happen in a month. And this is like, it was always very quick turnaround. And that's like a summary. Obviously there's exceptions. There would be moments where I'd get ahead. There'd be moments when I was extremely behind and like I functioned in this state for a long time. I briefly paused this episode of Anything Goes to let you know that this episode of Anything Goes is brought to you by ChatGPT.

If you're a college student, ChatGPT Plus is free now through May. So during the worst part of the year, you can ask it to help you in unlimited ways, like getting ChatGPT to quiz you on your notes or explaining a problem in a way that works for you, maybe with extra graphs or charts. You can even ask it to help you with your meal plans and workout schedules. ChatGPT Plus is a game changer, and it's free for college students through May.

Get it now at chatgpt.com slash students. Restrictions apply. Now let's get back to the episode. I think that this state of working, right, where you like complete your tasks, right,

as the deadlines come up, is a bit healthier when your work is not creative. Like when I was at school, when I was assigned a math assignment, I knew how much time and how much effort it would take to complete that project. 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. Like, 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 going to 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 want to 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, 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

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

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, I'll

Otherwise, I have mental breakdowns. And, you know, I was putting all this pressure on myself to like be turning around crazy

creative ideas and concepts like in retrospect, in an unrealistic amount of time, it was completely unrealistic. But to me, I was like, well, this is my job, so I should be able to do it. So I didn't take control of that situation and acknowledge the fact that I was creating this high pressure situation when it didn't need to be. And it was only becoming more high pressure because it was high pressure.

Because it was high pressure, I couldn't be creative, which made it even more high pressure because I didn't have any ideas and then I couldn't hit a deadline. Do you see what I'm saying? So now that I'm so ahead, it's like, oh my God, let's just sit back and relax.

And this sort of happened on accident. Like, I think I subconsciously knew that there was too much pressure and that that was, you know, ultimately harmful. But I don't think I realized when I first sort of made the decision to change my work style, I didn't realize how significant the wrong kinds of pressure are in my life.

By making this simple shift in my work life, I am a more patient person. I'm an even more generous person. It's made me a better person. Not that I was mean or not charitable before, but it's given me the space to be a better person. It's also made my overall quality of life stronger.

so much better. Now I'm not like constantly stressed, constantly, you know, feeling this weight, this pressure, like, oh my God, I need to perform well tomorrow. I need to perform. I need to have a creative day tomorrow because there's all this pressure. That's all gone. So not only am I not like existing in that state 24 seven, but also when I sit down to work in the morning, I'm like, it's all fucking good. Let's just have fun today.

And I get so much done and I have fun and everything's good. And that really woke me up. I was like, when I started to feel the shift and I experienced the relief from that pressure, I was like, oh, that was definitely the wrong kind of pressure. You know what I mean? Like that wasn't turning me into a diamond. That was causing me to crumble.

You know what I mean? I, for so many years have existed in that space where I was dealing with these really intense deadlines, whether they were deadlines from companies outside of myself, or there were deadlines from me because there have been many times in my career where nobody has put a deadline on me, but me. And,

that has caused me so much stress that the same thing has happened. Creative block, not being able to get anything done, complete overwhelm, you know, and now realizing, oh, all I need to do is just get ahead. It's changed everything for me. Realizing that putting that type of pressure on myself completely freezes me. You know, now I know that that's the wrong kind of pressure. That's not making me a more productive person. It wasn't having a net positive effect. It was having a net negative and it,

and it never got better. That's been an issue for me for years. And I just recently was like, I need to work really hard to get ahead and see what happens, see how it feels.

But I think that the reason why I never did it sooner was because it was so much work. You know, it was a lot of work. So that definitely sparked the realization like, oh, being under the wrong kinds of pressure, not good for me. But there were a few other things that happened in my life, a few other shifts that happened that also led to this realization. Another one being, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to be a people pleaser, to be everyone's friend, to...

be liked by everyone. And over the last few years, I've slowly but surely sort of released that pressure. And it's taken many years to fully...

And I'm still working on it, but like to fully let go of that pressure because I used to like respond to every text, be friends with everybody who wanted to be friends with me. When people would, I don't know, like disrespect me, I wouldn't confront them. I was always saying what I thought people wanted to hear. And it sort of just felt like everyone else had control over me. And I was just sort of at everyone's mercy in a way. You know what I mean? That's how it felt to me.

You know, it started a few years ago where I was like, all right, I can't just be friends with everybody anymore. You know, like I really had to put my foot down with quite a few of my friends a few years ago and I really had to cut them off. You know, there was a few people, like there was a bunch of people actually. There was quite a lot of friends that came and went over the last few years. But I remember there was like a few friendships like in my teenage years where I was like, okay, this is not a healthy friendship. You know what I mean? Like this is not working.

I need to end this. And I did. And it was scary. And they were angry at me. And they probably still are. But I was like, you know what? This is not a friendship that is healthy for me. This is stressful. This is like, you know, somewhat codependent, even toxic. It's overall unhealthy for me. I don't want to do it anymore. And so I put my foot down.

and I ended the friendship. And I remember it was so terrifying for me, and I didn't do a good job. I didn't even tell them really that it was ending. It was a mess, right? But I felt so much better. I had no regrets at all. I was like, oh my God, this feels amazing. That sort of made me realize in that moment, I was like, huh, that feels good. Like my life feels better. Okay. But I still didn't really connect well

the dots. I didn't look at the pressure I was putting on myself to sort of be friends with everybody and maintain friendships and be a people pleaser. I wasn't necessarily connecting that pressure that I was putting on myself with the feeling of relief that I got from not being friends with those friends anymore. Like, I think...

at the time, it felt like more of an isolated incident. Like, oh, those friends in particular were not good for me. And so not being friends with them anymore feels really good rather than like this larger issue. You know, the larger issue being there's a lot of people in my life

that I shouldn't be friends with. There's a lot of people that I'm giving my time and attention to that I shouldn't be. I'm putting all this pressure on myself to be available to everybody, to be friends with everybody, to please everybody. And it's exhausting for me and it's horrible for me. You know what I'm saying? I didn't necessarily realize the bigger picture yet.

And I didn't until recently. You know, I can't tell you how many friendships I've gone through in my life that I've had to ultimately end because they've had a net negative impact on me and I like ultimately had to end it. But I also can't tell you how hard it's been every single time. But every single time got me a little bit closer to realizing, wait a minute,

How am I even getting into these friendships? You know what I'm saying? Like, why does this keep happening? Well, it kept happening because I felt this pressure to be friends with everybody. I felt this pressure to be close with everybody, to respond to everybody. And that was leading to me developing friendships that I probably shouldn't have developed. I did not critically think when I got into the friendship. Do you see what I'm saying?

So, you know, this applied to friendship, but it also applied to even just like acquaintances, people maybe that I had budding friendships with. And I cannot tell you how exhausting this was for me. It was so exhausting. Constantly feeling like, oh my God, I have to respond. And sometimes like somebody inviting me to something and me being like, oh my God, like

Like, I don't want to go to this. I'm exhausted. I don't want to do this. Or like, I don't want to be friends with this person. Like we don't click. I don't like their company. I'm sorry. That's just the way that it is. But feeling like, oh my God, I have to respond. This constant feeling of that was so heavy. It was so much pressure. The pressure of people pleasing was so exhausting to me for so many years. And now I have a very, very small, close-knit group of friends that

I'm not in any codependent friendships. I'm not in any friendships that haven't been deeply thought about. But, you know, in addition to that, I'm also not available over text all the time. You know, I used to be constantly available over text. The second somebody would text me, I was responding. And now sometimes I won't respond to somebody for six months because I just don't have it in me. And guess what? Sorry, that's the way it is.

That's just the way it is. We're not supposed to be available all the time. That's a pressure that we put on ourselves, but I also think it's put on us societally to constantly be available. And I've talked about that before on the podcast. I'm sorry. That is unrealistic and it's ridiculous. If I text somebody and they don't respond to me, guess what? That's totally fine. I'm not a priority for them and I shouldn't be. I shouldn't be because there are very few people in my life that are a priority. That's all I have time for. A handful of people.

And if I text somebody and they don't respond to me, that just means that I'm not in their little group of priorities and they'll get back to me eventually. Or maybe they fucking won't. And guess what? That's fine. It's fine. We can't all be available to each other all the time. 100%. It is anxiety inducing. It's psychologically painful to spread yourself that thin across that many people. And you know what? If I see that person...

out that I haven't responded to in a while. And they bring it up. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I'm literally, I, I cannot go on my phone and I cannot respond to texts right now. Like, I don't know why it's just, it's exhausting for me emotionally. I'm, I'm don't take it personal. Like you're awesome. It has nothing to do with you. I just am not in a place where I'm able to like

be on text. I just can't do it. And guess what? Some people are like, that's pretentious answer. Or like, well, nobody says that to my face. But like some of you might be thinking to yourself, well, that's ridiculous. Like we're all on our phones all the time. We all have. Yeah, but I don't have the energy to respond all the time. And that's true. I sometimes don't have energy to respond and that's okay. And so I tell people that and if they have a fucking problem with it, I don't care because this is for my own well-being.

I also experienced for many years the pressure from myself, self-inflicted, well, actually...

Maybe it's not just self-inflicted. It is also sort of like the situation that I'm in as a public figure. But for many years, I really struggled with this pressure from myself and from the internet to be morally perfect, to always say the right thing, to always do the right thing. It's tough, right? Because, you know, do I think that the internet, and when I say the internet, I mean like the collective audience on the internet, do I think that the internet should

shut their mouths and not say anything if somebody that they're a fan of does something that they don't agree with? No. You know, like I think people should speak their mind if they want to say like, I say what you say, what you think, you know what I mean? Somebody who's putting themselves out on the internet knows what they're getting themselves into. You know, if they don't, as if they as a public figure don't want their actions to be judged, then they probably shouldn't be on the internet.

So like, I can't say that the pressure from the internet is like the internet's fault because I put myself in the position to experience that pressure. But also, in addition to that pressure from the internet,

For many years, I was experiencing pressure for myself. I don't ever want to mess up. I don't want to ever slip up. I want to be morally perfect all the time and say everything perfect and do everything perfect, but also be funny and have personality and be a little bit edgy, but not too edgy. Be like the perfect amount of edgy because if I'm too edgy, then I'll get canceled because I said something that was wrong. Even if

I didn't mean it like that or wait, but I, or I did mean it like that actually, but it was wrong. And now I regret it. Now everybody's saying that I'm this or I'm that, but I didn't mean it like that. And then, oh my God, now I'm getting canceled for this other thing that I actually fully didn't mean.

Like what has happened? Like it was constant fear and overwhelm. And I'm not, again, I'm not saying this to be the victim. This is strictly like, I'm not the victim. You know, I put myself in this situation and it's uncomfortable, but it's also the way that it is. Fair enough. I'm just sharing my experience. Okay. I was putting this immense pressure on myself and

to never fuck up again in the public eye. And to be honest, like I have, like, of course I fucked up in the public eye, but a lot of times in the public eye, when I've been canceled, if you will, canceled, a large portion of the instances were complete accidents or things being taken out of context. Okay. That is my experience, right? Is that to say that like down the line, I won't say something fucked up and be called out for it? No, that could happen tomorrow. And I'll, I'm ready to apologize and learn from it and grow from it.

Okay? Amen. But, you know, I've experienced in the past many times where I've gotten in trouble, but I actually didn't do anything morally wrong. And there's something about that that, fuck.

fucked with me. It fucked with me. Like, you know, being judged based on something that either I completely didn't mean or didn't understand or like something was taken out of context. And again, I didn't mean it or it wasn't meant in the way that it was whatever. And those specific instances have traumatized me. The instances where people have been like, Emma, you can't say that. That's disrespectful. And I've been like, oh, fuck. Okay, sorry. That's one thing, right? That's

somebody said, you shouldn't have said that. And I said, that's valid. And I'm sorry. That's not really traumatic for me. The instances where something I didn't necessarily do, but then I got in trouble for it, that fucks with me. That fucked with me. And that's what created this sort of irrational pressure on myself to be morally perfect all the time. But it was like this sort of

insatiable desire to be perfect because there's no such thing as being so perfect. Number one, there's no such thing as perfection, but there's no way to be so perfect that people can't even take things out of context that you do. Like that's impossible. There's also no way to be so perfect that somebody can't just come up with a lie or a rumor about you. It's impossible. So I was like putting this impossible pressure on myself to be as morally perfect as possible.

as possible. But it was like, I couldn't even live up to that level of perfection because number one, it didn't exist. But number two, what I was afraid of and what I was trying to avoid couldn't even be prevented by any level of perfection. It was a nightmare. Okay.

I've talked about this before. So if this story sounds familiar, it's because it is. I've talked about this before, but this is another example of me putting pressure on myself that was ultimately harming me. I was putting myself in this high pressure situation. Listen, being a public figure on the internet is inevitably a high pressure situation for a lot of reasons.

But I was making it even more high pressure and it didn't need to be. And so more recently, I sort of had this like mental breakdown once again, because that's what pressure seems to do to me when it's the wrong kind. And I was like, I am dealing with all these weird side effects from this pressure. You know, I talked about in the past how I used to rerecord my podcast intro. I still do it sometimes.

But it used to be worse where I would rerecord my podcast intro like 5,000 times trying to get it perfect because I was dealing with this like weird OCD almost where I kept recording the intro and then being like, oh, that one wasn't right. That wasn't right. That wasn't right. And then I'd delete it and then I'd start again and then delete and start again and then delete and start again. I'm still like working through these like weird behaviors that have come as a result of this pressure.

But it's getting better. It's getting much better. And it's a relief to be aware that this pressure is unnecessary. It's not benefiting me. It's not making me a better person. And I need to let it go.

And I've been really working on that for months and months now, coming to accept that I'm on the internet. I'm a public figure. I choose to do this. So guess what? If I get canceled, if like whatever, this is, it is the way that it is what it is. I'm not going to be perfect.

And people aren't always going to like me on the internet. I might get canceled again. This all could happen. This all probably will happen. This is part of being on the internet. And there's nothing I can do to prevent it. And the best thing I can do is just be the best person that I can be. And if I fuck up, I apologize because I genuinely will mean it. You know what I mean?

That's what we do as human beings. We make mistakes, we get confronted, and we apologize. That is a normal part of life. To avoid that is to not exist. And that's what happened to me for many years. I didn't exist. I was too afraid to do anything. I didn't want to post on YouTube. I didn't want to post on the internet. I didn't want to do anything. I couldn't do anything. I literally had a complete mental block and I'm still dealing with it.

I'm still dealing with it, but I'm coming out the other end after months and months and months of really working on it and being hyper aware of the problem. But it's tough, you know, but I realized that that pressure I was putting on myself was destroying my quality of life, making it not fun for me to do what I once loved, which was, you know, making shit for the internet.

in one way or another. Okay. And it made it not fun because I was so obsessive about being perfect all the time, you know, in a weird way. It wasn't even like perfect in like a, I need to look gorgeous. I need to look pretty way. It was perfect in like a, I don't want to say anything that could ever offend anyone or ever be taken out of context. And I completely lost my sparkle as a result.

And ironically, I think it made people hate me more. So anyway, isn't that just funny? Anyway, here's the moral of the story. I wish that I had paid attention to the pressures I put on myself sooner because I was so aware of the pressures I was putting on myself that I thought were ultimately making me a better person. And I think a lot of them were.

but I was completely neglecting the pressures that were damaging me, that were making my quality of life worse. A lot of times we have to discover things as life unfolds, and that's what happened in this case. But now I know like, oh, I need to be checking in on all the areas of my life that I'm feeling pressure and decide if it's actually helping me grow into the diamond that I wanna be.

Take this home with you. Ask yourself when you're under immense pressure and it's uncomfortable and it is challenging to deal with, ask yourself, is this pressure turning me into a diamond or is this pressure just causing me to crumble into dust? If I had asked myself that sooner, I think I would have been able to focus my energy towards finding a solution sooner to a lot of these things.

And I only mentioned like three real examples here of, of areas where, you know, I was putting the wrong kinds of pressure on myself and I realized it and I fixed it, you know, or I'm working on fixing it. This is just the beginning. You know, I'm already starting to uncover other areas of my life where I'm like, wait a minute, again, that's the wrong kind of pressure. This is not good for me. You know, this is not healthy for me. The

The main reason why I wanted to talk about this is because I wanted to plant a seed in your head if this is something that you haven't really thought about because it can be so life-changing and it has been for me. Taking these bad types of pressure off of myself, literally, my life is so much better. I'm so much happier. I'm so much more productive. My quality of life is so much better. I'm like, what the fuck? It's incredible.

I wish I could have figured it out sooner because I bet I'd be in a very different place in my life and career. Like, who knows? I mean, I would be unstoppable. I would have saved myself years of agony, but unfortunately we can't go back. But we can move forward. And my God, are we. We are moving forward. Pay attention to the pressure. And yeah, I think that's it. I think that's it. Well, you all.

It was delightful as always. I feel like this whole episode, I was like talking like a professor. Sometimes I do that and it's not like me being fake. Like that's just like who I am sometimes. And I just realized that I just did it for like an hour where I was really like,

Well, perhaps it is. I sounded a little bit like that for the last hour. You know what I mean? And it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But you know what? That is the nature of posting onto the internet.

I was just talking in sort of an annoying way for the last hour and we'll see what people think of it. That is how this works. Anyway, as always, it was a pleasure. New episodes of Anything Goes every Thursday and Sunday if you want to tune in and hang out. I don't always talk like a professor. That was just today. So, you know, go check out other episodes where I talk maybe a bit less like a professor. That might be of interest to you. See, there I go again.

That might be of interest to you. Very professor speak. I didn't even go to college. Where is this coming from? Um, 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.