What is your brain telling you? Are you being productive or just being lazy?
It can be common for people who have anxiety, depression and lean more towards perfectionistic tendencies for the line between these two phrases to be blurred. When feeling anxious/depressed our thoughts become dark and everything seems to be an emergency. During that time your brain may be telling you that you aren’t working hard enough and that you should be working harder.
Everyone is different so it only makes sense that the concept of hard work would be different for everyone. Society in general has an idea of what hard work is (long hours without rest and success being measured by wealth and material things). That is usually the expectation most of us carry with us… but let's break it down a little and figure out what it means to you.
I created these questions to help me and others reflect on what hard work means. You can use them to meditate on, journal or just contemplate for a little while...
What does it really mean to be working hard?
Does working hard mean forgetting about my mental and physical well being? Or am I avoiding working hard by using the excuse of self-care?
How can I create a balance between hard work and self-care?
How would I know if I have been working hard?
What does success look like for me?
I hope the questions were helpful! Feel free to like, comment, and share!
Thanks to @ludoviclufor for letting me use this fantastic fanart of Superman!