The Real Anxiety Solver
The Real Reason You’re Creating the Problems You Fear
“It’s fascinating how hard our brain works to self-sabotage us.”
That’s what I heard from my CEO recently.
Great guy. Poor guy.
He’s trying to manage 22k people, the majority of which are disengaged and misaligned with his goals. He is so smart and so powerful. Yet failing in the face of the crowd and defaulting to survival mode tactics that only make people more disengaged, scared even.
“You should not tell him this” - That’s what I keep hearing from other leaders. But I tell him anyway, and that’s what he values in me. Transparency.
I do that because I don’t care if he fires me. And it’s not because I have something else. I don’t. My little newsletter business can’t cover my lifestyle (yet). I just got rid of false subtle fears.
You also know them as anxiety. It’s the survival mechanisms that make us act against our interests. It’s when you constantly think “what if something goes wrong”.
Guess what?
It will.
Because it’s you manifesting it.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And it’s very real.
It works like this:
You consciously think of what can go wrong
Subconsciously you start preparing for what can go wrong
Unconsciously you start doing what’s necessary for that event to happen
That’s how you make it happen. And when it happens? It only confirms your initial fear.
“I knew it” - that’s what you say to yourself.
What you can’t see is how you made it happen. Because it’s an unconscious process. You can only play the victim.
In the above example: most people don’t want to tell the truth to my CEO, because they can see how they fires them. But this only makes their situation worse, because eventually he learns the truth from somewhere else and guess what? He fires them. Because he loses trust. And they think “I knew it”. But it’s not my CEO firing them, they did it to themselves and he has no choice. Who wants to work with unreliable people?
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So what to do?
Simple.
Stop solving problems which are not standing in front of you.
Act on your values, not fears.
Forget about your past problems. They’re gone.
Forget about other people’s problems. They are not yours.
Forget about potential future problems. They are not reality. And might never become.
Focus on what’s in front of you.
Focus on what you want to achieve.
Act on it.
And in the meantime?
You’ll lose any anxiety you might have.
You’ll also have some GUT time ;)
Yana