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7 Habits Causing you Stress

  • Writer: Jennie Huber Charlton
    Jennie Huber Charlton
  • Mar 21, 2023
  • 5 min read

Updated: Feb 28

Hey there!



Are you stressed?


Do you feel like you’re maybe the one that’s actually creating more stress on yourself than others?


…..Like who’s giving you that to-do list?


Are you saying yes too many times?


Yes? Kind of?


Then we need to be friends and keep reading!


I hope we can both learn from each other…  because me personally?? I put stress all on myself, all on my own shoulders and it’s HEAVY!


I want to share with you 7 traits and unhealthy habits that I learned that are unexpectedly causing you stress. As a busy mom and cancer survivor, I’ve had crazy journey, a LOT of experiences and a LOT of therapy to get to the other side.


If you’re new here, feel free to check more about my cancer and now I’m through that, I’m in my survivorship and feeling really good. I’ve been consistently seeing my therapist and just bit by bit started making small changes within my life and have finally started to realize that like these small steps that I was making over time, have now been significant!


In looking back I’m like WOW! I am actually making some really big changes!


You hear about it everywhere….

  1. Just do one small step.

  2. The time’s gonna pass anyway.

  3. Blah, Blah, Blah……

WELL WOW, HELLO!


I have arrived at the feeling of TRUE CHANGE and the self-awareness that it has brought me and the empowerment I feel has been life changing in the way that I’ve been approaching my day to day and shifting my mindset.


I always made some things overly complicated and finally I feel like I’ve peeled the layers of the onions back, so to speak, and I’ve really gotten to see what it is that I’ve been doing to myself all this time. Through all the steps my therapist has helped talk and walk me through the dots have finally connected and that’s the reason why I’m sharing. So if you feel like you’re stressed, chances are that you’re doing one or seven of these things…  but the good news is that if you are??? … Then you can start to gain control of some of that stress.

So If you’re still reading and you feel like you’re a lot like what you’re hearing in me, you may actually have some perfectionist tendencies that could be a little over active.


So what are these traits? Here we go:

  1. Do you have an excessive need for control? I know as women a lot of us already have that thing where we NEED to control EVERYTHING but is it excessive? It might be. Be honest with yourself.

  2. Do you have really high or unrealistic expectations for yourself or even for others? Do you set really high, unattainable goals (for yourself, or expectations that others goals should be higher)? For me, it’s 90% of the time that all I put all of that on me, vs. others…. but when thinking about it… I do also expect this from others toooooooo!

  3. Are you highly critical of yourself and others… ALL.THE.TIME?

  4. Are you constantly seeking reassurance for the things that you are do, when you’re the one put those expectations on yourself? AND THEN… You want reassurance on those things that no one asked you to do?

Hi! Guilty!

  1. Do you have obsessive thinking patterns with extreme attention for detail and you feel like your thoughts are out of control, taking you into a tail spin?

  2. Do you procrastinate? Do you say to yourself, “I don’t have time to do it right, so I’ll do xyz first and then start.”? Surprise! That’s us procrastinating! If it can’t be done right, it becomes a huge barrier to get started. Are you always waiting for the “right time” to call a friend, to set time aside for yourself, to have date night with the hubby or partner? — PROCRASTINATION!

  3. Do you have an extreme fear of failure? …Failure to not meet any of the expectations we’ve put on ourselves or others? We don’t want to feel the guilt we might put on ourselves because that just creates more and more stress in itself?


If you’ve answered YES to many of these, you are NOT alone. It actually took a LOT OF TIME (and therapy of course) to even:


  1. Register what these things meant in terms of the day to day, in general

  2. Notice if I was doing them (spoiler: Yes, duh) 😉

  3. Understand what these things actually looked like day to day


Now I finally saw how all of this was showing up in my life. DAY AFTER DAY. (Minute after minute, hour after hour). 😉 If you see what I just did there, Yes that was SO fun (HA!), but I also mean it. 😉


Knowledge is power and having this insight within myself has be POWERFUL.


I can now take ACTION to make REAL CHANGE—A POSITIVE CHANGE, and YOU CAN TOO!


To start to let go of the crazy stress, let go of the unattainable expectations that is putting excess stress on your shoulders (not to mention how TERRIBLE it is for our health).

This stress that we’re carrying is just too great it’s not worth it. We have one life, THIS LIFE.

I’m going to tell you right now, here’s my mantra. It won’t be the last time you see or hear it.


I didn’t survive cancer to die of stress!


NOPE! Not happening!


If this sounds all too familiar and you’re carrying all this stress and you’re just freaking DONE with it…. and you are saying to yourself:


I just want to enjoy life with my kids, my family (and anything else)… and feel like focus seems everywhere else (or maybe there isn’t focus)…


I’m so glad that you’re here and know that you’re in the right place. I will continue to share my journey and what I have and continue to learn along the way, so please stay tuned for more content like this. Please also consider subscribing to my YouTube channel. That’s where you’ll get the fastest updates, the newest content and where you can be a part of the community I’m building there.


Please let me know in the comments below which of these are the hardest for you?

Which do you resonate with the most?


We’d all love to hear because you’re not alone and we can all help each other grow for a life that’s balanced together.


Thanks for reading!


~ Jennie

The perfectionist personality type, Detail oriented perfectionist personality, Perfectionist personality traits, What is the root cause of perfectionism

Stressed mom with walking mom shirt
Stressed? 7 Habits Causing You Stress

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