On: Pressure

the thing that drives us can also break us

It can motivate or paralyze.

“What a privilege it is to feel pressure to do better.”

I saw that on Instagram the other day.

“I can’t complain about having too much on my plate when the goal was to eat.”

Something else I saw on social media, same day.

Both of them stopped me. Because together they raised a question I haven’t been able to put down: why do some people work so hard, and why do others seem unable to shake the spirit of laziness?

There are so many factors that shape what drives a person. What motivates them. What makes you get up in the morning and decide to do. And on the flip side, why do some people seem content to just sit, scroll, play video games, and coast?

Throughout my college experience, I’ve been in enough rooms to see the full range, I mean I’ve lived with 9 different people in the past 4 years. I’ve spent time with the overachiever: honors student, five orgs, exec board in three of them. And I’ve spent time with the guy who smokes weed and plays video games all day, yet genuinely believes he’s going to be the next Jordan Belfort working at a Big 4. Here we are, all in the same institution of higher education, all walking across the same stage at graduation, but two completely different experiences. Why?

Pressure.

It does one of two things. It motivates you, or it paralyzes you.

I can almost guarantee that both of them felt pressure to come to college. For our would-be financial analyst, maybe it was simple: mom and dad went, it’s just what you do. You’re going to college, that’s how you get a good job. For our overachiever, maybe the pressure came from the opposite direction. No one in the family had gone before, and their parents needed them to change the trajectory. Same source. Completely different outcomes.

For one, the pressure was just to get there. For the other, the pressure was to get there and do more.

Here’s why: once they arrived, the pressure shifted. For the first, the original pressure was satisfied. He did what was expected. Now he coasts. C’s get degrees, he says. The pressure is gone, and so is the drive.

For the other, arriving only raised the stakes. The pressure didn’t disappear, it evolved. Now it’s peers, society, culture, family legacy. The weight of being the first. The need to be excellent, to be more. But how long can anyone sustain that?

You end up in one of two places. A person full of potential, burnt out, unable to use it. Or a person full of potential who never had to, because no one pushed them to.

A motivator. A paralyzer. Two faces of the same thing.

So how do we balance it? What does that actually look like?

The burnt-out person wanted to eat. Now there’s too much on their plate. The other wanted food but never moved toward it.

I’ve lived this firsthand.

There was a point in my college career where I was holding three significant positions at the same time. I was on the executive board of my fraternity chapter, serving on the IFC board, and holding a position in student government. On top of all of that, there was an expectation, one I shared, that I was going to run for a bigger position, that historically, I wouldn’t have won.. That was the plan. That was the pressure.

And it was a lot.

At some point I had to make a decision. I stepped back from student senate. Not because I was forced to, but because I was self-aware enough to know that spreading myself across everything meant showing up fully for nothing. Something had to give, and I chose what to give.

That decision cost me something. But what I gained in the spaces I stayed, the leadership, the relationships, the hard lessons, changed my life in ways I’m still unpacking. Some of it was painful. Some of it I wouldn’t trade for anything. I came out of that season a better man, a better leader, and a clearer version of myself.

That is what pressure, used correctly, can do. It doesn’t just push you forward. It teaches you where your limits are, and then it moves those limits further than you thought possible.

How do we use pressure in a way that’s healthy? That doesn’t consume us?

I want to be clear: I’m not a thought leader. I’m not a self-help coach. I’m drawing from the one thing we all share, the human experience, which in itself holds more wisdom than most of us give it credit for.

A few places to start.

1. Know where your pressure is coming from, and whether that source is even valid.

Not all pressure is created equal. There is a difference between a parent who wants you to be better in the way you want to be, who sees you, who is rooting for the version of you that you’re trying to build, and a parent who is living vicariously, projecting their own unfinished story onto yours. One is love. The other is weight disguised as love.

And then there’s social media. A highlight reel of curated ambition, people performing pressure for views. That is not a valid source. That is noise. Before you let something drive you, ask yourself if it’s even real, or if someone just needed content.

2. Examine how you’re interacting with it.

Here’s a simple way to know if your pressure is working for you: it pushes you forward without making you feel like you’re falling behind. There’s a difference between being driven and being chased. One feels like momentum. The other feels like panic. If every step forward still feels like you’re losing ground, the pressure isn’t motivating you, it’s consuming you. That’s worth paying attention to.

3. Ask yourself: is this pressure a privilege?

Sometimes the answer is yes. If you feel pressure because someone is genuinely rooting for you, a parent, a mentor, a community, that is a gift. Not everyone has that. Some people are out here with no one watching, no one expecting anything, no one who would notice either way. If someone cares enough about your life to put weight behind it, that pressure is a form of love. Receive it that way.

And so.

Pressure is not the enemy. It never was. The question has always been where it comes from, how you carry it, and whether you’re lucky enough to recognize it as something given to you by people who believe in what you can become.

The goal was to eat. Don’t let the plate overwhelm you. But don’t walk away from the table either.

Talk Soon,

Tyreke