Anxiety is crippling me!

Hey readers, welcome to another mental training session. Today, we are going to take a deep dive in what we call "anxiety". In more recent times, we have seen more and more people of influence open up about anxiety. For those who may not know, anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, and uneasiness. Everyone at some point in their life will experience some form of anxiety and that is okay. People often experience anxiety when they're about to take a test, speak in public, perform a routine, and pretty much anything that requires some type of execution of your preparations.

Why do people experience this anxiety you might ask. From my own observations and hearing other people's stories, anxiety usually stems from not wanting things to go wrong, not wanting things to repeat themselves, and doing something that looks scary. Truth be told, anxiety often lies to us. Things are rarely ever as bad as they seem once it happens or is done. That's the worst part of anxiety, it lies to us and causes us to be paralyzed by fear something that may not even be real.

On social media, I plenty of comments of people saying that they battle some form of anxiety to the point where they didn't go after dreams or perform as well as they would've liked to. The unfortunate part is that most people are more capable than what they think but it's the anxiety in their mind that is playing tricks on them. Take a moment to think back in your life where you were anxious about something. It probably wasn't as bad as you thought or maybe it was but guess what, you got passed it.

One of the biggest cures for anxiety is action. Anxiety doesn't want you to take action because it knows it'll be defeated if you do. Think about a time where you were super anxious, had butterflies in your stomach, heart racing, and sweaty palms. BUT when you take action, most if not all of it goes away. It's liberating to know this however, it's still annoying to have those anxious feelings before an act. No matter how good you get at something that nervousness or anxious feeling is always there right before you take that step into action.

Here are some ways to beat that anxiety:

1. Learn to be an observer of your thoughts. Notice your thoughts and let them come and go. Every thought isn't yours nor is it real at times. Thoughts aren't even real sometimes so learn to observe them and not identify with them.
   

2. Recognize those nervous feelings. Recognizing that your nervous is a good thing because it shows that you care. Remember that it is an opportunity for you to show up and show out.
   

3. Focus on your senses. Studies have shown that when you are able to focus on your senses, it can take some of the pressure off of whatever it is that you're feeling.
   

4. Know that you will NOT die. Sometimes knowing that someone doesn't have a gun to your head can make things a whole lot easier.
   

5. Some of the people you admire most have performance anxiety. This one is important because we look at superstars in media and think they don't have any anxiety but TRUST me, they do. They just know how perform with it and you can do the same.
   

Thank you for reading this and let's all kick anxiety's butt. Remember, if you find yourself with butterflies in the pit of your stomach, let those butterflies fly in formation. You will be fine in whatever you do, you got this!

Until Next Time,

E. Ibadin