The Best Way To Overcome Anxiety
Don’t kill me. If you’re reading this, you probably won’t like this answer. I first want to validate you and your feelings. Anxiety is real, it is a barrier to a lot of things in life. But, it isn’t permanent, at least not if you fight it.
I am speaking from experience and numerous books on self-development and human behavior.
The best way to overcome anxiety is to face it.
Please, before you brush me off, let me expand. I don’t think that it’s healthy to try and overcome anxiety all at once. There are levels to anxiety and each situation is unique. However, if you want to get passed the fear of something, the best way is to acknowledge your fear/anxiety and chip away at it by making yourself uncomfortable. One way to do this is putting yourself in the fire but with tempered and realistic expectations. Your not going to magically overcome anxiety after one try, usually. It’s going to be a process and just like you, I struggle with anxiety still.
For example, I struggle with publicly speaking. I could never figure out why because as you can tell, I enjoy speaking to people. But when it was my turn to stand in front of a class or my colleagues I would become someone else completely. I would lose confidence, I would start to shake, and I would literally forget everything I planned for that presentation. Nothing seemed to work because I would just try to avoid public speaking at any cost. Sorry classmates, you usually would need to step up in my defense. Now though, I have grown a ton. I still have public speaking anxiety and I think I always will but now I have a process of facing it rather than running away from it.
I audibly say, “I am afraid of public speaking.” Then try and figure out what is making me scared of public speaking. In my case, I care too much about what others think and I am afraid to fail. Validating my anxiety allows my mind and body to breathe and accept the facts. The next thing I do is practice and prepare. One aspect of my anxiety comes from not knowing everything I need to know and therefore fumble my words or ramble on about nothing. Once I am prepared, I go into the situation looking to get just a little bit better instead of all the way better. This relieves the pressure of being perfect and gives room for failure. And what I’m realizing more and more is that failure is good. It’s how you learn. But that’s another blog.
My voice may shake, my armpits may sweat, I may lose all the moisture in my mouth at the worst time, BUT, when I persist and push through I have a little less anxiety and the next time I have more confidence.
The more you push through uncomfortable situations, the stronger you become.
There are definitely other ways of overcoming anxiety like therapy or some sort of course but for me and a lot of others, the best way to overcome anxiety is through facing it head on and chipping away every time you try it.
In what areas in life do you have anxiety and what is your first chip that you want to knock off the feeling of anxiety?
