The Best Ways Teens Can Put Less Pressure on Themselves
For teenagers, this is a particularly difficult moment. Teenagers these days are under incredible amounts of strain. Over the past ten years, there has been a severe decline in the mental health of young people, with despair and sorrow on the rise by 40% and suicide plans on the rise by 44%.
Teenagers and young adults are anxious because of what they hear in the news about sexual assault and harassment as well as gun violence, political unrest, climate change, and global warming.
The extremely high standards that many teenagers have for themselves are internal forces. The goal to be “the best” often causes youth to be ruthlessly hard on themselves, which can result in feelings of worthlessness and sadness.
Examples include the desire for flawless skin or stardom. However, it can be incredibly soothing for teenagers to know that there is a way out and that they don’t have to constantly criticize themselves in order to succeed and be happy.
Many teenagers believe that they can’t be considered successful unless they are the best in their class, dominate in their chosen sport/activity, are the best at the instrument they play, have a large number of friends, and have hundreds of “likes” on everything they post.
A portion of this sense of not being “good enough” stems from social comparison or comparing oneself to others. Although comparing yourself to others is completely normal and stems from our innate desire to fit in and be accepted, doing so isn’t always beneficial for our mental health.
The reason is that we get caught up in an impossibly difficult dilemma where we feel unworthy until we’re superior to those we’re comparing ourselves to and—wait for it—we must.
With grades and GPAs, which make it simple to evaluate exactly how you stack up to your competition, schools continue the practice of encouraging kids to determine their value by comparing it to that of others. Social media encourages comparison because your popularity is easily determined by the amount of “likes” you receive. Therefore, there is no hiding or pretending; if you just receive a few “likes,” it is obvious to others that you are a social failure. And everyone can see it because it is public.
Perfectionism and comparing oneself to others is a recipe for mental health issues. Perfectionism that leads to melancholy and anxiety is the kind where you have high expectations for yourself and judge yourself when you don’t meet them, where you dwell on your mistakes and continuously doubt yourself.
This type of perfectionism differs from “personal standards perfectionism,” which is not linked to depression or anxiety and merely refers to setting high standards for yourself without critical self-talk.
Research has shown that people with the negative form of perfectionism worry and brood even on weekends and vacations when they should be unwinding, whereas others with the positive form don’t and, as a result, have better moods all around.
How can we help? How do we show teenagers that they can hold themselves to high standards while also being kind to themselves? That in order to do well in school and get into a decent college, they don’t need to constantly criticize and berate themselves?
Perhaps they can uplift themselves by being kind to themselves the way they are to their friends, preventing anxiety and despair in the process.
Teens’ perfectionism: prevention strategies
Teenagers can develop greater self-compassion. Self-compassion encourages us to be nice and encouraging to ourselves. Self-compassion is the ability to recognize when you’re having a hard time, accept that unpleasant feelings like hurt, anger, disappointment, and loneliness are normal human reactions, and then actively support and console oneself.
In other words, teens can motivate themselves by using rewards rather than punishment. And what’s this? The carrot is more effective, according to research.
The teens with perfectionist inclinations were really kept from falling into depression by practicing self-compassion. Self-compassion mitigated the negative consequences of pathological perfectionism on depression, and those who exhibited it were less likely to suffer from depression. In order to be compassionate towards oneself, one must first be compassionate towards others.
This is known as a “U-turn,” or turning compassion that we readily show others onto ourselves. There is no reason why we cannot also be sympathetic towards ourselves if we are capable of being compassionate towards others. Simply put, we’re not used to it and we don’t know how.
Numerous self-compassion programs have been created and evaluated, and self-compassion can be fostered and promoted. Teens who participate in the self-compassion program discover that they don’t need to be harsh with themselves in order to inspire themselves.
For teenagers who believe they won’t succeed in life if they are kind to themselves, this is pretty illuminating. Second, they discover that all people have a common humanity and experience similar difficulties. Although this may seem clear to adults, teenagers frequently believe that they are the only ones going through difficulties while their friends seem to be carefree, self-assured joy seekers.
Teenagers can learn quick meditation techniques they can use whenever they feel sad or anxious, as well as longer meditation techniques they can use whenever they have the time. Teenagers most importantly learn that they possess the capacity within themselves to treat themselves with compassion and that they are not dependent upon the generosity of others.
Additionally, they are reminded that they are imperfect, just like the rest of us who live on this earth, and that this is absolutely OK. They are also told that they don’t need to be flawless to deserve to be treated properly.