The struggles caused by anxiety and stress are experienced by many millennials on a regular basis. Some of us are rarely able to relax. Anxiety causes us to hide away from the world. It de-motivates us and significant stress can even cause physical pain. Feeling overwhelmed by stress causes people to want to stay single if they can’t deal with their anxiety.

Anxiety can manifest as those knots in your stomach, a thumping heart, clenched fists and the inability to feel calm or at peace. Feeling incapable of relaxing is the worst, but what if all we need to do is dig a little deeper to find the root of the problem? Here are 5 reasons why you might be having difficulty relaxing:

1. You feel that your life lacks stability

Perhaps you’re on thin ice at your work, you are not in a stable relationship, or you don’t have an established career where you really see a future. Perhaps your finances are not stable, or your friendships aren’t as close as they used to be. Maybe it’s even all of the above.

A lack of stability in your life is guaranteed to cause you stress. The best solution is to write down all of the things in your life that lack stability and map out a plan for each – a success plan and a vision. What would you need to change?

2. You are not where you want to be yet

If you are not anywhere close to where you want to be, or far from where you thought you would be at your age, don’t stress out too much about it. Chances are, if you aren’t where you want to be it is because you have failed at something down the line at some point – but failure is a great thing. Failure is what sets apart the mediocre people from the great people.

Oftentimes, the people who failed the most gained the most motivation to succeed and therefore became far more successful than anyone would have expected. That woman who was once on critically thin ice at work was just promoted, and that man who lost everything due to his gambling addiction is now a successful entrepreneur. Hitting rock bottom is a good thing, and might have been what you needed, so just remember that.

3. You keep getting rejected

The root of your anxiety could be due to a series of rejections that have caused you to second-guess yourself. Don’t ever second-guess yourself to the extent where you doubt your capabilities. Perhaps you even feel fearful that you’ll deal with rejection all your life, and that the pattern will never change.

Rejection always happens for a reason. That job simply wasn’t what you were meant to do. He wasn’t the one for you. She wasn’t the one for you. Not yet. You’re not ready yet. One day you might look back on someone who rejected you for a job or a relationship and realize that you would never be where you are today if that hadn’t happened, and guess what? You’ll feel grateful for that rejection.

4. You wish you had more control

It’s normal to feel stressed when you don’t have enough autonomy. It is substantially easier to feel relaxed when you have more freedom. For example, unless you work for yourself, you must show up for your scheduled hours at work and you likely can’t take more than two weeks of vacation per year. If you’re not very financially stable, you don’t have the freedom to even take a vacation. The good thing about this lack of autonomy is that it helps motivate you to achieve your goals. If your goal is to work for yourself one day and therefore work your own hours, you must find the self-motivation to build your side business from the ground up, or follow through with a plan to achieve the freedom you desire. It certainly won’t be handed to you on a silver platter, but it can feel relaxing to do something as simple as design a vision board of what you want.

5. You lack patience

Going back to feeling as though you aren’t where you want to be in life yet, sometimes the key to relaxation is patience. You will get there, so why feel stressed that you aren’t there yet? Similarly, it can be tough to follow through with a success plan if you are not patient.

Anxiety due to uncertainties such as “will it work?” or “will this plan succeed?” needs to be changed to a calm, patient mindset. You’ll soon find out whether your plan will work or not, and if it doesn’t at least you’ll have learned something.