How to Reduce Struggle In Your Life and Produce the Results You Want

Allowing struggle mode to affect my health

The struggle you wrestle with while undergoing a circumstance can be debilitating and cause even more damage than the situation itself. I remember when I was grappling with having a very critical boss who was hard to please. I had not had that experience before, and eventually, it became a health condition. Struggling daily with the situation gave me a severe case of anxiety.

The condition affected other areas of my life, such as time with my family. While enjoying a movie with my husband, I would start shaking and crying while images of doom would rattle in my brain. I remember thinking, “Am I going crazy?” “What is going on with me?”

How can a confident, focused, and easy-going person be shaken in such a debilitating way? I was also not getting enough sleep (staying awake thinking), working too many hours, and worry, doubt, and fear crept into my life more often than I care to acknowledge.

How to reduce struggle in life

At the time, I didn’t have the tools to manage the situation. Instead, I consulted my doctor, who prescribed medication and suggested I take more time for self-care. He encouraged me to have a balance in life and work fewer hours. I didn’t take the drug but did take his advice and created a routine of exercises that would engage the ‘Zen’ part of my brain.

This is one of the things you can do when facing situations that tend to engage struggle mode in you. Realizing that you would benefit from slowing down and honoring yourself will bring balance into your life and allow you to perform better in other areas. I know it seems counterintuitive to stop pushing to get things done.

What we want pushes us to create results

We are likely using ‘push’ energy in struggle mode. You want a specific result and are ‘pushing’ to get it done. You want that relationship; you want to lose weight, the promotion, you want, you want, you want. The ‘want’ is the driver to accomplish it, which is a good thing. You have the drive to keep moving; the struggle is displayed when you are on overdrive.

In my case, the need to please my boss, create good work, succeed and once again be confident in my abilities was my driver; the problem was that I was on overdrive to achieve it. The health condition alerted me to the problem.

To better understand why it’s essential to indulge in practices that create a calm state in your body, it’s valuable to learn more about the autonomic nervous system. This system in our body controls our responses. The autonomic system’s sympathetic nervous system is what, when it senses danger, sends signals to the other parts of your body and engages in the fight, flight, and freeze response.

In my desire to get what I wanted, I was on overdrive which caused my sympathetic nervous system to become exhausted and reveal symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, and palpitations. I was not giving my tense system time to rest and was continuously employing a fight, flight, freeze response.

Resting to create and produce results

The doctor encouraged me to participate in tasks to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This part of our nervous system forms the conditions of rest, digest, and create in your body and mind.

Driving for results is facilitated by the sympathetic system’s reactions that motivate us to act and do what is required to accomplish our goals. And when we want to originate new ideas or work products, the parasympathetic system supports us by allowing our body to relax and create.

Feel supported to live a balanced life

What an incredible genius body we have! Both systems support us in experiencing life and help our desires. It is key to creating balance in our lives so we do not tax our bodies and develop the illness. We can reduce struggle in our lives and produce the results we want by engaging both sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.

So, think again the next time you say that you do not have time for that walk, yoga class, or downtime because you are too busy driving your results. Know that you are accomplishing your goals by taking time to nurture your body; you will be generating new ideas and ensuring you remain in good health.

Balance leads to prosperity. The more balance you have in your life, the more able you will be to generate the thoughts and actions that will lead to the life you want.