I started this post at the beginning of the month knowing days would fly by and I’d be scrambling to finish. It’s the last day of March and time to post. I’ve learned to recognize that this internal pressure is healthy and worth some study.

This pressure, pushing myself to focus and write with purpose, is something only I experience. Nobody is asking me to do this. Writing one blog post a month is a goal I’ve set for myself as a way of developing my writing skills and contextual intelligence. The pressure I put on myself to do this I call Positive Pressure and in this post I share what I’ve learned about it and why it’s important to recognize.

The Origin of Positive Pressure

The term “Positive Pressure” came out of my experience with a mentor many years ago who challenged me to have conversations about my career with two people above my manager.

At first thought, the idea of having conversations about my career with leaders higher in the organization was intimidating. It wasn’t something I’d done before. My mentor encouraged me by saying there was nothing wrong or inappropriate about requesting a 30 minute conversation every few years with upper management to talk about my career. I knew it would be difficult and felt a certain pressure until I had those meetings.

After learning about positive pressure, and noticing when I was feeling it, I continued to think about what it meant and the value of seeing it for what it is. But what is it exactly?  

Recognizing when Pressure is Positive

I used the idea of positive pressure as a topic of a guest talk I recently gave to a group of first year graduate students. I told my mentoring story and how I was challenged to do something uncomfortable that could be good for me in the long term. I talked about learning to see those uncomfortable feelings as signs of positive pressure. No one in the class had heard the term before, so we talked about it.

Using their situation as an example, being graduate students, they had a lot of pressure on themselves. The pressure to meet with groups, complete assignments, take exams, complete their courses of study…was it positive pressure? Whether self-motivated or encouraged through friends or family, an education is an investment in oneself. The reason they endure the pressure of going to class, group work, writing papers, was for their future.

A student raises a hand and asks how someone who is shy or introverted can know when pressure they feel is positive pressure and not just anxiety at the thought of doing something uncomfortable or that they don’t want to do?

It was a good question and part of the reason I’m writing this. I didn’t have a good answer at the time and said something like, “whatever it is that is causing the feeling of pressure should not be unhealthy, harmful, or otherwise destructive to you.” I admitted to needing to think about it more. After some time, and while working on this post, an answer worked itself out.

In order to understand whether the pressure one feels to do something is considered positive or not-positive, it is necessary to think in terms of short and long term consequences. What might happen as a result of me writing this blog post? If nobody reads it, there aren’t any. But if somebody reads it and finds a new way to think about dealing with pressure we have in life, that would make it positive. It already has value in helping me distill ideas and improve my writing.

Reflections and Final Thoughts

Learning to recognize whether the pressure one feels to do something is positive pressure or not requires reflection and consideration of the circumstances. This reflection and thinking through possible positive and negative outcomes is a powerful and useful way to recognize if pressure one’s feeling is positive. Doing so also helps develop contextual awareness which is critical to effective decision making and can help build relationships and cultivate trust.

When you recognize the pressure you’re feeling as the positive kind, that the consequences aren’t harmful to yourself and have the potential to be of value to others, it can give you energy to empower your actions. In this way others develop respect and trust for you by seeing you push yourself to grow and learn. You also learn to trust yourself and your ability to execute on a vision. These are valuable things.