Ever since I can remember, my mother always said that people in our family were known for being stubborn. "It's a Jasso thing", she used to say. Little did I know that this "Jasso thing" came with a few other surprises. Along with being extremely stubborn, I realized that I also can be way too hard on myself about anything and everything. Whether it was with school, sports, or any type of responsibility I can be so unnecessarily hard on myself. It has gotten so bad to the point where recently I've gone to one of my roommates pretty much crying and venting only for her to tell me that I was stressing over nothing. So when I finally heard her out she looked at me and said, "Krista I'm pretty sure you're just being way too hard on yourself and that's why you're stressing so much." Welcome to my entire life.

There was never really a dire reason to be so hard on myself except that I just genuinely wanted to do better. Being hard on yourself does have its ups and downs though. One of the good things that can come out of putting this pressure on yourself is that you always strive for improvement. You feel like no matter what you can always do a little bit better each time. So this motivates you to push yourself harder, get over your fears, and set your mind on completing a goal. But the not so good side of this whole thing is that sometimes you think you've just had the greatest failure when in all reality its not even close to being true.

For me one of the biggest struggles can sometimes even be when I dwell on things for too long that don't even matter. For example, say you're captain of a team and you feel like you have a responsibility to always show your best and you feel as if you don't really have room to fail. Well that isn't all entirely true. Just because you have a duty or obligation or responsibility doesn't mean you are going to get it right 100% of the time. We are all humans who make mistakes but take those as a lesson. So trust me when I say that I know exactly how it feels to be extremely hard on yourself because I do it all the time. But the lesson to be learned here is that it can be good but it can also have its downsides. You just have to know when to take it to heart and push yourself but you also have to know when to take it with a grain of salt and take on the new day.