Why does my life feel so hard?

I’m sure you’ve had those moments when you’ve felt like life is way too hard. It might not be massive incidents that cause these thoughts to pop in. It could be something as simple as forgetting an appointment, being late on a task, or letting someone down. But when it happens, you suddenly feel overwhelmed and feel like you are failing at life.

What is wrong with me?

Why can’t I do this?

Why do I keep failing?

As a solo parent trying to rebuild my family’s life after losing my wife to cancer, I know I’ve had those moments and asked those same questions many times in my life. Where I couldn’t shut off that voice of doubt, and all I could do was sit for a few minutes, just letting those negative feelings wash over me, acknowledging how hard it really was.

Sure, times have been tough. I’ve endured a lot of trauma, loss, and transformation. Interestingly, those thoughts often don’t come in during the hardest moments. They come through when I fail at the little things. Missing one of my kids’ scheduled appointments. Forgetting to call a friend. Something that broke in my house and needs repair.

And when I suddenly feel like a failure, and it feels like life is way too hard, it’s not because the toilet broke; it’s because that little thing was the straw that revealed how much I was carrying and how hard it all was.

I learned something interesting in those experiences that I’m sure many people can relate to, which is why I’m writing this article.

Why life can feel so hard:

The broken toilet wasn’t what overwhelmed me; it was the culmination of the weight of the hundred different things I was carrying. It was the time I would have to find to repair it, taking me away from other priorities. It was knowing I was the only one who could fix it, the painful reminder that I was so alone. It was the bleak symbolism that my life was also broken. It was the worry about what else would break.

It took me way too long to realize that I wasn’t feeling so overwhelmed because of what had happened to me. I was feeling overwhelmed because of what I was doing to myself.

I was putting so much pressure on myself to be perfect, to bounce back, to keep functioning at the level I was at pre-loss that it became impossible to live up to the internal standards I had set for myself. I was literally setting myself up for failure, and it was reinforced every time life didn’t go the way I expected.

As I reflected on where all that pressure was coming from, I began noticing a pattern. The pressure wasn't coming from life itself. It was coming from a handful of internal habits that were amplifying every challenge I faced.

Pressure Cookers:

We all do this. We develop an internal identity, hold beliefs about how we ‘ought to be’, and set expectations on how we ‘should behave’. I like to call these internal expectations the “Pressure Cookers” because we put so much pressure on ourselves, and when we fail to live up to the high standards, we create a spiral where no matter how well we are doing objectively, it’s never good enough.

Expectation Overload:

I call these the “Shoulds” because these are the things that we feel we should be able to do. I should be able to do everything for everyone. I should be able to maintain a healthy and fit body. I should enjoy my work. I should do more chores. And so on.

The problem with The Shoulds is that they never end. We will always have things we should be doing or improving. Left unchecked, the list grows so large that we forget to recognize the things we are already doing and doing well.

Fear Filter:

These are the “Worries,” where we fixate on the worst-case scenarios. We think things like, if I miss this appointment, that means I’m a terrible parent. If I forget to message my friend back, they will hate me. If I am not perfect with this presentation, people will think I’m a fraud.

This is an evolutionary response that helps with self-protection, but nowadays, it often translates into protecting status and stability. And there are unlimited potential threats. But at some point, we have to accept that things are rarely as bad as our thoughts would suggest.

Doubt Distortion:

These are the “Doubts” that we all have about our ability to deliver. These thoughts appear in the form of: I’m such a failure. I don’t know how I can do this. What will people think of me? This is too much for me to handle.

The challenge with the doubts is that high performers are often our own worst critics, and in our quest for self-improvement, we are much harder on ourselves than we’d ever be on others. I’ve learned that action precedes validation. It requires acknowledging and then ignoring them as you proceed, regardless of the irrational doubts.

Why does this happen?

One thing you might notice about this list is that the pressure cookers are all internal. They are placed on ourselves, by ourselves. A self-imposed punishment that never ends, until we decide to end it.

We often suffer not only because of what life asks us to carry, but largely because of the additional pressure we place on ourselves.

It took me too long to learn that power isn’t control over our circumstances; it’s control over choices.

We can’t control what life throws our way, but we can control our inner state. We can look inward and identify what pressures we are unfairly placing on ourselves. We can release some of that weight, so that we have more energy to deal with the situations in front of us.

Life is hard. It will always be hard. Loss, uncertainty, setbacks, and adversity are part of the human experience.

Struggle is inevitable, but suffering is optional. When you relieve the internal pressures, you release weight that isn’t yours to carry. You stop making life harder than it needs to be. And that is what turns pain into purpose.

Our goal isn’t to eliminate hardship, but to stop adding unnecessary suffering on top of it.