Overcome Anxiety

Do you ever get the sense that we are sitting on the tipping point…our society, economy and personal psychology all seem to be charging toward a giant waterfall and sometimes it all feels overwhelming.

Anxiety is a state that many of us have to one extent or another at points in our life, the challenge is when anxiety becomes chronic impacting our thoughts, beliefs and actions into a spiral of negativity.

Like anything else, before we can deal with something we need to understand what it is and why we are seeing higher levels of anxiety than ever before.

Anxiety = Fearful Uncertainty X Lack of Control

When we see news stories each day of people losing their houses (a fundamental symbol of security) AND we lack the control to do anything about it (because we work for someone else and do not take a proactive role in the economy), tremendous anxiety is the result

Similarly, as a parent, we see one case of something bad happening to a child that is not raised properly combined with lack of control over one’s schedule to spend the time you want to learn and deal with your child’s needs leads to anxiety.

Breaking highly emotional responses down into simpler equations is important because it allows us to recognize and understand why we experience that emotion and how we can manage its impact on our life.

One way to reduce anxiety is to write down a list of things you DO control…and if you are particularly anxious about something you do not control in your life (Ex. your job), then take a small action toward taking back control (start a part-time business, come up with a financial strategy where you can save for a “rainy day”, etc…)

A second way to reduce anxiety is to focus on the fearful uncertainty.  We tend to build up fear in our minds well beyond anything realistic…techniques outlined in Attracting Greatness taken from high achievers help to quickly manage unrealistic fears, substitute objective analysis and detachment as methods for reducing fearful uncertainty replacing it instead with certainty and positive (excitement) uncertainty.

Is anxiety ruling your mind, body and actions?

Take back control and lower your level of fearful uncertainty…leave us a comment and let us know how this helped you.