Do you wonder how to find inner peace? 

Should you start a meditation course, take a break from social media, or spend more time in nature?

Those are good ways to cultivate inner peace.

But if your daily habits keep you constantly stirred up, peaceful activities only function like a bandaid that never sticks very long.

If you truly want inner peace, you have to remove the habits that block it. Otherwise, calming pastimes won’t even stand a chance.

I’ve been a busy bee most of my life. So, I can share three habits that blocked my inner peace for years and years.

Are they running your life too?

1. Feeling you always have to do more

Do you have a persistent inner voice that constantly pushes you to do more?

I did.

I now call her my “inner driver.” She’d ply me with messages like:

• “ You must keep going. You have so much to do.”

• “Come on! You can work another hour or two.”

• “What a wonderful new idea! It won’t take much time at all. Let’s do it.”

An inner driver likes to influence athletic pursuits, volunteer efforts, and social commitments too. You should bake the cookies, train another thirty minutes, and be seen at the gala affair, right?

Once I started questioning this inner driver, I realize this need to do more stemmed from my own unresolved issues. 

If you’re like me, you may feel the need to prove yourself. You may feel you need to go the extra mile to demonstrate you’re really okay. If you can just do enough, maybe you’ll finally be accepted, appreciated, and loved.

Workaholism can also stem from a mental health disorder.

In her article, “Workaholism: An Overlooked Sign of Mental Illness,” Athena Milios identifies several ways a mental illness can cause you to overwork. 

Milios says you might stay busy to squash anxiety, spend more time inspecting your work to make sure it’s perfect, or have an ADHD ability to hyper-focus that makes it difficult to step away from your work.

Once, you’re aware of this tendency, you can take steps to re-route it.

Because over-doing rarely brings inner peace. It’s more likely to bring stress, fatigue, and burnout.

You might look for solutions like meditation. But adding on peaceful activities to an overly demanding schedule can be difficult. Even if you manage them a few times, they probably won’t stick.

Take meditation as an example. 

When you’re driven to always do more, your time mindfulness meditation will mostly be plagued by thoughts of all you should be doing. You’ll wonder why you’re wasting time sitting still. You’ll find it difficult to resist the urge to get up before the timer goes off. You probably won’t.

After a few days, meditation becomes just a good idea you once had. But, it never really worked for you.

If you truly want inner peace, you’ll need to capture and examine the false beliefs that keep you in the loop of always having to do more. 

Once you actively work on countering those beliefs, on your own or with a coach or therapist, and begin to limit your workload and commitments, you’ll gradually have the time and space to add peaceful activities into your life.

Won’t that be sweet!

“If we keep doing what we’re doing, we’re going to keep getting what we’re getting.” — Stephen Covey

2. Setting unrealistic deadlines

Most people have an unrealistic idea of how much time a particular task or project takes, even the ones we’ve repeated hundreds of times.

Therefore, we set unrealistic deadlines. Unrealistic deadlines can lead to stress, mistakes, and even conflicts with colleagues.

If you’re in the habit of setting unrealistic deadlines, you undermine your own inner peace.

But you can change this by learning how much time it takes to complete your most commonly recurring tasks.

Assign a block of time to each task on any given day. At the end of the day, check in and see how much time it actually took to accomplish each task. 

Do this for a week, until you have a clear view of the typical amount of time you need to allocate for your various tasks.

For example, I set my iPhone timer to 59 minutes when I start writing. At the end of 59 minutes, I take a break. I set the timer for another 59 minutes when I sit down to write again. 

I now have an accurate idea of how long it takes me to complete an article. It’s considerably longer than I would like it to be. But I can’t fool myself into thinking I can churn one out in an hour or two.

I often add a time cushion to my deadlines—from fifteen minutes to a day depending on the complexity of the task. Don’t use a time cushion irresponsibly or no one will trust you. But used in a reasonable way, a cushion can help you be more realistic and protect you from unnecessary stress.

You might feel like you have no control over work deadlines. But consider this. If your project manager approaches you with a job and an unrealistic deadline for its completion, you can counter with an alternative deadline. 

I know that’s not easy, but remember, your peace of mind is at stake.

The extra day or two you suggest will determine if you have to stressfully scramble to complete the deadline or can go about it in a calmer way.

A deadline is a useful tool. Set realistic ones so you can live with more inner peace.

“Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.” — Joan Borysenko

3. Weak boundaries

Inner peace depends upon strong personal boundaries.

Healthy personal boundaries draw a line between what enhances your life and what detracts from it. Boundaries sort people, activities, experiences, places and even your own internal beliefs.

Personal boundaries protect your time and energy. If you always give your time away, how will you achieve your own goals and dreams? 

Strong boundaries can also make you less susceptible to people who attempt to control, manipulate, and harm others.

Weak boundaries never bring inner peace. 

They can make you over-schedule, over-promise, and excessively over-deliver — leading to stress, burnout, and frustration. You silently feel mistreated, taken advantage of, or disrespected, which does not lend itself to inner peace. 

But you keep getting caught in the same vicious cycle because you have weak boundaries.

Setting and upholding clear boundaries is a skill that can be learned. It will take some trial and error over a period of months. But once you have your boundaries in place, your reward will be greater inner peace.

“You best teach others about healthy boundaries by enforcing yours.” — Bryant McGill

Closing thoughts

We live in chaotic times. The last three years have been an inner peace disaster with the pandemic, the war, and more school shootings.

We all need inner peace, now more than ever.

Peaceful activities like walks in nature, meditation, and breaks from our devices can help. But they can be hard to fit in if your habits keep you in a continuous whirl. 

That’s why you need to address the habits that block your inner peace.

I’ve shared three common ones that have plagued me:

1. Feeling you always have to do more

2. Unrealistic deadlines

3. Weak boundaries

You can definitely change these habits if you’re willing to look within and start setting limits. But these aren’t the only habits that can bar your inner peace. 

So it’s important to sit with yourself and ask the question, “What blocks my inner peace?” Then work on transforming it.

Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious!  Don’t forget to  sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self. 

You might also like to check out my  Living with Ease course or visit my Self-Care Shop. May you be happy, well, and safe – always.  With love, Sandra