The family: a traditional source for love, advice, kind words, emotional support and apple pie. Also, quite often, a real pain in the ass when it comes to living the life you want. Let’s face it: you probably owe your family a lot, but at the same time, there are at least one or two big ways you feel it’s sabotaging your dreams.
I know in my family, I constantly felt pressure, especially from my dad, to live a certain way. The more I found out what I really wanted, the more I discovered it was not that way, and the pressure grew. Until at one point, I decided to move out of the family house completely, set some firm boundaries in the relationship with my parents and live exactly how I wanted.
My dad is still not very happy with how I spend my time, what I eat, the fact I have my own business instead of a regular job. Despite that, we now get along pretty well, and at the same time I don’t succumb to family pressure. This is how I do it and what I also teach others.
Most of the time, close family members like your parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters have positive intentions in trying to push you in a certain direction. They mean well, they do it out of love. But, this doesn’t mean they also do the right thing for you. I think there are 2 major problems with how families often guide their children.
- They try to keep them in the safe zone. They don’t want them to do anything risky or unconventional. They encourage them to choose the career filed in which you can find the biggest salaries, and you can get a job even if you’re half retarded, ignoring what the children really want, can and like to do.
- They spread out-of-date wisdom. Because our society has changed so much in the last decade, it’s very probable that older family members like parents in their 50’s or 60’s have understandings of things which no longer applies. Yet they continue to believe in them firmly, and to guide their children using these understandings.
The results you get is a lot of family pressure directing you in the wrong direction. And this doesn’t apply just to teenagers, who are still kind of immature and financially dependent on their parents. Most mature, experienced and financially independent adults I know also get this kind of pressure from their families, and they often give in to it.
Family pressure can be a powerful, hard to ignore factor for most people, applied with incredible skills. The good news is there is way to effectively deal with family pressure and live the life you want. Here are the main things which can help you:
- Put some distance between you and the rest. If you’re living in the same house with your parents or grandparents (which in today’s world is common even for married people) and you see them every day, it’s hard not to succumb to their pressure. Make moving out at priority, save the money it takes and do it.
- Realize you don’t need to please your family. There is this false belief that because you family is, well… your family, you must get along perfectly with every family member. You don’t. It’s a myth. There’s nothing wrong with upsetting dad once in a while or not living up to mom’s dream for you to be a doctor.
- Learn to communicate assertively. Assertive communication is one the most valuable people skills you can have. It allows you to express yourself in a clear, direct way, but from a position of respect for others, and it’s a great way to deal with all the criticizing and negative comments you can get from family members which are not happy with your actions.
But these points are really only a frame to set for rising above family pressure. The most important thing is action. This is YOUR life, not your parents’ life. And while they’re not to be completely ignored, it’s only naturally to live the way YOU want.