If you’re like most college students, the weight of academic stress might be overwhelmingly all too familiar. When stress and anxiety begin to form due to the nagging need to meet both school and personal expectations, self-control and precision might be something you immediately fall back on.
Maybe you’re in the midst of figuring out how to pay for school, filling out internship applications, or simply feeling the anticipation of finals. It’s only natural to resort to a routine that ensures your ability to get things done. And, although this can combat the daunting feelings that arise from uncertainty, it can also add onto initial worry or stress.
It can be a sensory overload to navigate through environmental change with school, along with independently dealing with the number of responsibilities you might still be adapting to.
Manageable levels of stress are healthy, and maybe even essential for keeping yourself focused and motivated to get things done, but it becomes unnecessary when deadlines and perfectionism are the only things on your mind.
In the case of needing everything to be exact and on time, the levels of self-control begin to become unrealistic, intruding on the natural drive to experience the pleasures and fluidity of life. Although high self-control is perceived as the key to achieving short and long term goals, it may not always be a good thing when it comes time to take a break and recoup.
While low self-control is often talked about in the context of laziness or lack of self-direction, its opposing traits, persistence and reliability, are highly appreciated in today’s world. This means high levels of self-control automatically fall into the assumption that it can’t be equally as damaging to certain areas of life as having lower self-control.
Having good self-control doesn’t mean you’re in a constant battle against temptations, especially those that allow you to relax and give yourself some breathing space. However, having too much of it can deter you further from making that time for yourself, essentially narrowing the space you have to grow and adapt to the changes you’re currently experiencing.
According to Harvard Business Review, the “dark side” of self-control can be seen through the willingness to take on excessive amounts of workload, restricting yourself from having emotional experiences, and developing a form of bias.
To illustrate, one of the reasons those with high self-control resist temptations is because they experience less tempting desires, as most of what they strive for is to live their lives around them and not indulged in.
According to psychologists Rebekah Layton and Mark Muraven, this can also mean that experiencing emotionally deep scenarios may not be in the cards for individuals with high self-control, as they generally respond to situations outside of their day-to-day in neutral or unconcerned ways.
It’s also common for others to rely a bit more on those with high self-control as they seemingly have no difficulties with a busy and strict lifestyle. In turn, this can create unnecessary amounts of increased workload, and pave the way for a type of bias known as puritanical bias.
There’s often a one-sided emphasis on different levels of self-control; that is, the ability to get tasks done and have a sense of direction over one’s life is solely dependent on the individual. This eliminates the potential social, economic, or cultural influences one might run into when it comes to societal expectations.
Instead of viewing the problems of high-self control from a broader perspective of the self, it’s often we treat it as the ultimate indication of achieving happiness. In turn, this can distort underlying social issues and morph them into simple self-care barriers.
The ability to stay focused on pressing responsibilities is a crucial skill, but it simply lays down the foundation for everything to seem urgent when uncontrolled.
If you find yourself rarely coming up for air during a particularly difficult week, gaining perspective by aligning yourself with the present moment can help you reconnect with your overall mission.
With emails, assignments, and deadlines, or the continuous need to stretch your schedule past work time and into your evenings, it isn’t hard to disconnect with the broader context of your short term goals without jumping right into the flow of your everyday routine.
While stepping outside of your mundane stream of work to refocus, you might also reflect on what you find awe-inspiring, utilizing the power of accepting concrete reality, or noticing when and how the tendency for perfectionism manifests into your day-to-day.
Awe is defined as the staggering feeling you get when you’re in the presence of something greater than yourself, as it often leads to a heightened awareness of countless possibilities, and the connection between you and everything else.
Whether you’re seeking awe by taking a walk in nature, engaging in meaningful conversation, or taking time to notice the small things, this can broaden your perspective beyond the urgency of what you’re currently facing.
The best way to go about regulating self-control comes down to stepping out of your comfort zone and being open to all different angles of a situation. According to the Greater Good Science Center, making an effort to be certain at all times doesn’t necessarily mean we’re alleviating the scary feelings of an unknown future.
Instead, it just means we’re weighing ourselves down with more redundant planning and preparation. As mentioned, self-control is a valuable skill, but integrating the ability to check in with yourself and recall the bigger picture is just as important.