The question:
I’m a college student who works part-time while studying. I mainly work to stay busy and earn some money. But lately, I’ve been feeling really stressed about my KPIs. Even though the company isn’t putting any pressure on me, I still put a lot of pressure on myself. Sometimes I cry because I feel like I’m not hitting my numbers. I don’t even want to cry, and I’ve tried to hold it back, but I can only hold it in for a little while before the tears start flowing again. Sometimes, even when someone just says something gently to me, I start crying. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I hope someone can help me understand what’s going on.
The answer:
Hi there. Not being able to understand yourself — trying to hold back your tears but failing, and crying even when someone says something gently to you — must leave you feeling exhausted and confused. You might even be wondering if something is wrong with you. But don’t worry. This isn’t something strange or something you should be ashamed of. It’s a sign that you’re carrying a much heavier emotional burden inside than you realize.
Before we get into that mechanism, let’s take a closer look at you first.
You’re someone who thinks about the future and takes responsibility for yourself. Working part-time gives you practical experience and real-world skills.
But precisely because you’re always trying hard and setting high standards for yourself, you’re also more likely to get hurt when things don’t go the way you want them to.
You’re under pressure from your KPIs. Even though the company isn’t pressuring you about your KPIs, because you hold yourself to such high standards, you’ve created your own KPIs and put that pressure on yourself.
When you see that you’re not meeting the standards you’ve set for yourself, you become anxious and disappointed in yourself.
You’re anxious about being judged by other people. To avoid being judged, you’ve set high standards for yourself and tried hard to meet them.
But when you fail to meet those standards, anxiety starts to hit you. At the same time, you start becoming disappointed in yourself.
You’ve tried hard, but you still couldn’t reach your goal. So you feel helpless.
That’s why you cry.
This feeling of disappointment and helplessness isn’t happening for the first time. It’s something that has appeared repeatedly throughout your childhood.
It comes from harsh, belittling, and dismissive judgments from the people close to you.
They might have said things like:
“You’re useless. What are you ever going to amount to when you grow up?”
“You’re such a burden. All you do is waste our time and money.”
“Why don’t you try harder? Why can everyone else do it but you can’t?”
Words like these can feel like knives driven straight into your heart, leaving you hurt and disappointed in yourself.
Hearing these kinds of words over and over throughout childhood gradually created a strong neural pathway associated with the emotion of disappointment.
That’s why, now, you’re so easily pulled into that feeling of being disappointed in yourself.
That’s why even when you try to hold it back, the tears still come. That’s why even the gentlest words can make you cry.
In short, you’re dealing with anxiety about being judged and disappointment in yourself.
If this continues for several more years, these symptoms may gradually develop into an anxiety disorder or depression.
There’s something important you need to understand:
Anxiety is one of the major reasons you feel disappointed in yourself.
When anxiety appears, your intelligence declines, and your work performance declines along with it.
Not hitting your KPIs is a consequence of being in an anxious state.
Then, in turn, the feeling of disappointment — expressed through your crying — drains even more of your body’s energy, causing your work performance to drop even further.
In other words, anxiety creates disappointment.
Anxiety and disappointment together reduce your work performance.
So don’t be so quick to judge yourself as weak or useless.
What’s pulling you down isn’t your ability.
It’s prolonged anxiety.