Anxiety Doesn’t Dictate Your Reality

Summary

• If you feel anxious, lean into it rather than avoiding it. Avoiding anxiety makes it scarier.
• Your brain associates avoidance with danger; to reverse this, you need to face your anxiety.
• Use the mantra, "Do the opposite." When anxiety tells you one thing, do the opposite to counteract it.
• Remember, your brain is wired for survival, not success, so it often misguides you.
• Understand that feelings and thoughts of anxiety don't reflect reality.
• Despite anxious thoughts, taking action against them can lead to success.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing these strategies to manage anxiety, whether you're a small business owner, an entrepreneur, or focused on personal growth. These steps are low-cost and high-value, making them easy to integrate into your daily routine.

Face Your Anxiety:

• Instead of avoiding situations that make you anxious, lean into them. Avoidance only makes your brain think these situations are dangerous.
• Seek out small, manageable ways to confront your anxiety daily. For example, if you fear speaking in public, start by speaking up more in small groups.

Do the Opposite:

• When anxiety tells you to avoid a challenging task, do the opposite. If a project feels overwhelming, break it down into smaller tasks and start with the easiest one. This helps counteract the fear.
• If your brain encourages isolation, reach out to a colleague or friend.

Reality Check:

• Remind yourself that anxious thoughts and feelings don’t reflect reality. They're a product of your brain trying to keep you safe, not necessarily guiding you toward success.
• Write down your anxious thoughts and challenge them with facts. For example, if you think, "I'll fail if I try this new strategy," list reasons why this might not be true based on past experiences.

Mantra Repetition:

• Use the mantra “Do the opposite” whenever you feel anxiety trying to control your actions. This helps create a mental habit of confronting rather than avoiding.

Daily Practice:

• Dedicate a few minutes each day to practice these strategies. Over time, the accumulated small steps will make a significant difference in your anxiety levels and overall confidence.

These simple but powerful strategies can help you manage anxiety and make better decisions for your personal and professional life.

Full Transcript

if you really are struggling and battling with feeling anxious you have to go into a period where you're like I'm going to make it worse so a lot of people prolong the cycle of feeling anxious because they avoid it when you avoid something it makes it more scary it teaches your brain that it's bad if you want to undo it then you have to go into it and so you have to actually find ways to provoke your anxiety and this is a phrase that I have for myself that I've shared with M multiple people but it's like do the opposite like whatever your brain is telling you to do when you have an immense amount of xiety do the opposite of what your brain is telling you to do because your brain is trying to keep you safe it's not trying to help you succeed our brains are wired to help us survive not succeed when people have immense feelings of anxiety and I would say like distorted thoughts you know they tend to believe their thoughts they tend to think that their feelings mean that something bad is going to happen when the reality is just like neither of those things dictate reality if every thought I had directed my reality I would not be here on this live right now because I thought I was going to fail like every time I started a business so