Feeling Squeezed?

We work with a lot of men who come to us feeling, what we call, squeezed.

You’re ‘squeezed’ if you feel like you’re constantly running on a treadmill and can’t see a way to get off, so you keep going.

On the surface, you have good job, own a nice home (avec hefty mortgage) and probably have a decent car. Maybe you’ve a loving partner or maybe you’re divorced. You have children. You go on a couple of holidays per year and have an active social life with similar minded families and friends. But despite this “he’s got it all” veneer, underneath you feel pressure from all angles – especially from yourself - and, it doesn’t feel good. At all.

You’re feeling squeezed.

It’s likely you have a hardwired drive to provide and feel a responsibility over everyone and everything. You need to make money to sustain the life you’ve built, to live up to the ideal of success that you’ve been brought up to strive for. With that comes stress, pressure and a very busy mind.

Your phone constantly pings you with plans, demands, conversations and ‘banter’ filled video shares, and scrolling has somehow become your escapism. You never switch off.

A lot of men we meet in this position have a young family at one end of the spectrum and aging parents at the other, and so a push-pull anxiety can creep in where they feel a need to be there for everyone, but there’s just not enough of them to give out, and not enough time.  And that’s where feelings of guilt can creep in.

On top of that they’re concious of their own mortality and with that comes pressure to be healthy, fit, strong, capable.

These men feel in a constant hamster wheel of life, unable to do anything to the standards they expect because there are not enough hours. Because their batteries are running on empty.

And the result? They feel lost, perhaps depressed, helpless and despondent with a numb sense of self. And they can’t understand why - because surely they’ve got everything they’ve always wanted, and surely this is just the way life is when you have a family?

The problem is, none of this is being vented, shared, or acknowledged, and instead of challenging this way of life, they just keep going, juggling it all, physically and mentally.

Why are so many men feeling so squeezed?

Part of the issue is the impact of gender conventions. To generalise, a lot of men in their 40s and 50s that we work with have followed a path that they feel has been written for them.

Professional success, being strong and providing for family = what it means to be a man = happiness. 

Go to school, work hard, do sport, go to uni, work. Climb the ladder. Make sure you have fun with mates but typically this should involve alcohol and minimal DAM’s (deep and meaningful conversations), work harder, get more money, meet someone you love and get married, have kids, get a bigger house, provide, go on nice holidays, work harder, be a good father, fit it all in, show up, keep going, work harder.

And during this (here it comes) “journey”, what many men don’t do, is interrupt the cultural expectation of what it means to be a man and instead ask themselves what they actually want; who they are, what’s important to them, how they want to live our lives, and what success looks like to them.

So how do we get unsqueezed?

Ask yourself what the long-term impact of feeling squeezed is? Is it sustainable? Does it fulfil you? How’s your wellbeing doing?

Assuming it’s not what you want and that you want something to change, we’re not suggesting you run away, find an island, and spend a year reflecting and completely U-turning on life (although for some of you, that may be what you need). But, if any of this resonates, what can help is to look at your priorities and see where you feature in amongst them. Our guess is that you’re fairly low down there.

So, the first step is to spend some time thinking through what prioritising yourself looks like for you.

Maybe it’s doing exercise 3 times a week, or meditation each morning. Maybe it’s signing up for an ironman and training for that (good luck). Maybe it’s urban fishing or painting. Maybe it’s doing a round of 18 holes, maybe it’s wild swimming. Maybe it’s seeing friends. Maybe it’s sitting in silence for 30 mins a day and just listening to your thoughts.

Next, it’s scheduling the above into your diary, into your routine. We’ve found that trying’to change or incorporate any new healthy habit is pretty difficult without a) intrinsic motivation (truly deciding – from within – that you want to make the change) and b) a plan. By scheduling in time for you, each day, in whatever shape or form that takes for you, you are commiting to it and making it as much as a priority as you would attending an important work meeting. Commit and turn up for yourself.

Then, create boundaries. You’ve got time in the diary each day / week, for you. But what about the rest of the stuff that you’re doing? What could you be saying no to, instead of yes. Because if we carry on being pulled in all directions (and sometimes this is self-inflicted), there’s not going to be any of us left and the reality is, it results in some form of burnout.

Think about your priorities and your values. Who and what matters to you? How do you want to live your life? Who and what re-energises you and powers your battery? How can you make those things / people a priority?

It’s also about knowing when enough is enough for you. If you’re parents are poorly, you’ve got a full time high pressured job and you also have a young family and the beautiful havoc that comes with that, something is going to have to give.

Ask yourself what needs to be put down the list of priorities, for now (fyi that can’t be you), and communicate that to whoever you need support from.

In short, to get unsqueezed, we need to pause, focus in on what we’re feeling and what we need, and then take control rather than unconsciously following a roadmap that isn’t fulfilling us and that is eventually going to crack.

If you’re feeling pressure from all angles, if you’ve noticed you’re having more bad days than good, if you’re feeling that life is non-stop with no respite, if it all feels too much, try the tips above and see if they give you some room to breathe.

Perhaps 2024 is the year to take control, put yourself first and start to build the life that you want for you, and the people that matter to you.