We’ve all seen those motivational posters, they sprung up in offices during the 80’s featuring wild animals looking magnificent with a motivational tagline below and 
now they are shoved at us in the form of Instagram and Pinterest pins. Y’know the ones about always pushing ourselves to be better. You should never stopping long enough to even think about giving up, right?
The problem with this kind of mentality is that if we constantly did this without a break and with all of the mental pressure which that entails, we would probably reach a mental or emotional breakdown – faster than a physical breakdown or our actual goals. Everyone has their own personal limits. Whether that’s in the form of patience, strength, confidence or even just being around people without wanting to run away to get some space.
This brings me to why I started writing this. As a fairly young blogger (fairly meaning I’m in my 30’s) and living in a big city with bar openings, boutique launches and blogger meet-up’s happening every week, I sometimes feel a great pressure to be sociable. That’s what people do isn’t it? They meet strangers other bloggers, have a drink and a laugh, Instagram themselves doing this and then do it all over again – the next night possibly. It’s not always for me I’m afraid. In fact I passed up going to a popular blog conference the night before it happened. I actually felt guilty that I’d passed up the opportunity to work with brands and meet bloggers I’ve ‘chatted’ to loads on FB and their blogs and 
mine. What was wrong with me? Anxiety at meeting new people? Well partly, I think most people are a little nervous if they’re honest but it wasn’t specifically that. I was getting a lift down and back so travelling wasn’t the problem. Depression? No I’ve that and this wasn’t it. Was I just giving up and not pushing myself. Was I taking the easy way out? Hang on! This is meant to be enjoyable and exciting not an awful endurance test! Then I realised the truth. I just really didn’t want to go. That’s it. I feel guilty it took me this long to be honest with myself as someone could have had my place but I felt really relieved also.
I can sometimes feel fatigued easily, physically, mentally and emotionally. It seems to require quite a bit of thought and concentration for me to do things without messing them up or just going blank and staring into space, like my brain has gone onto stand by. ‘Brain fog’ they call it. This usually involves my mouth hanging open slightly and a glazed look on my face – so glamorous! The conference would be eight hours long, starting at 9.00am. I’d already felt ‘off’ for two days. I was more lethargic than normal and rather apathetic to things that I 
normally love doing. I was also having an emotional wobble for various reasons I won’t go into. All of these things tend to get rapidly worse when I ignore them and try to plough on regardless. I can be on the brink of tears one minute and snapping at people the next for no discernible reason. Kinda like when a kid gets ‘over-tired’ ha! How many times have you pushed yourself to do something you feel that you ‘should’ do even though you know, deep down you need a rest or that, if you’re being honest it’s just not quite you? How many situations have you got yourself into because you thought you were ‘supposed to’ and then realised you had those nagging feelings of doubt for a good reason? Why do we put this pressure on ourselves? Is it because we think we have to have lives brimming with masses of fun experiences and if we slow down, we are a few steps closer to the Grim Reaper? Maybe it is just plain old FOMO and that feeling of regret when seeing peoples cray cray selfies the next day on social media. Personally, I think it’s the constant pressure which modern society puts on us to push ourselves and to achieve more because now we have many more opportunities than the previous generation had. It’s our duty to achieve (and to attend) it all! So here’s the sort of ‘motivational’ quotes which I’ll be paying attention to in the future.
Chrissie xx
Vamp It Up 