Hello Everyone! Mindset Mondays is a new blog thread that is going to be based on simple mindsets that have helped people become happy, healthy, wealthy or even just a more productive member of society. Every Monday we will dissect a mindset that is expressed in an easy to remember and conceptualize “one-liner”.
This week we will explore the notion that anxiety and shitty things in life are just:
“Something to THINK about, nothing to WORRY about.”
The Problem:
In the age of anxiety being romanticized and becoming something that everyone thinks they are plagued with and use it as an excuse for not doing the simplest of things, it is important to keep our wits about us.
Sure, there are millions of people that suffer from debilitating clinical anxiety which is terrible and should be taken seriously. But chances are, your “anxiety” is the normal stress everyone else has to deal with, or is completely made up altogether in order to get sympathy or excuse your laziness.
Saying this is not offensive to the ones with a diagnosable condition. You are the one offending them if you are saying you struggle with exactly what they are crippled by, when in reality you are just being a little wuss. It is like breaking your toe and saying you are now a quadriplegic.
Anxiety is common. Stress is inevitable. But it's part of being an adult to learn how to deal with these things in a constructive way without the use of drugs that a doctor will happily prescribe you after talking to you for 10 min.
The Solution:
First, determine what you are feeling. Is it fear, discomfort, anxiousness, overwhelming anticipation, dread, feeling lost, behind, angry, frustrated… get descriptive about your feelings.
Next, find out what is causing this. Is it because you have never done this thing before, you don’t like small spaces, it didn’t go well last time, other people will be watching, what if I fail…?
Don’t just say that this presentation gives you anxiety. Say this presentation makes me extremely uncomfortable because I don’t like being the center of attention with something I have never done before.
Lastly, determine if it is going to help you in any way by getting worked up about this. Has getting worked up ever helped the situation or just make it harder to deal with? Sometimes it even helps to think about the absolute worst case scenario from the perspective of 3-5 years later. You bombed that ONE presentation out of years of presenting? You took an extra weekend to deliver that report to make sure it was perfect? So what, right?
Outline the things that consistently give you “anxiety” and try as hard as you can to define them and the reason they exist. This action alone is like bicep curls for your brain. It allows you to think about and navigate the things that upset you or disrupt your flow instead of letting them stop you.
Why it is important:
It is very easy to get caught up; to enter into an unhealthy cycle that seems like the problem is just you and your stupid brain and that there's nothing you can do internally to fix it. It very easy to take a pill and never fix the part of yourself you can actually control and use to make yourself better.
When you realize that the stresses of the world are just things to THINK about, and nothing to WORRY about, you will be able to guide yourself through treacherous waters with greater ease and immunity.
Next time something sucks, figure out why it sucks and your brain will naturally find a solution when it is not being clouded by your emotions.
Like, dislike, disagree? Comment below!
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