6 Mental Shifts That Will Help You Defeat Anxiety
Train your mind to stay focused in the face of adversity
Anxiety is an omnipresent force in modern society.
We often hear and use the word, but what does “anxiety” mean in the real world?
In the words of the American Psychological Association,
“Anxiety is an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts, and physical changes like increased blood pressure.”
Consequently, anxiety is an accumulation of worries that negatively impact your mental and physical state.
The causes are manifold.
Whether it’s your professional situation, your relationships, or the world around you, there are many sources of worry.
Certain mindsets, however, can quell your anxiety by calming your thoughts.
Once you fixate your mind on anxiety-reducing thought patterns, you prevent worries from taking over.
On this basis, here are six mental shifts that will help you defeat anxiety.
Confidence isn’t an innate quality — you have to train it
Many people assume that you either have or don’t have confidence.
However, like any other quality, you have to train your confidence. People aren’t born confident. They build it by cultivating certain core habits.
In this context, Forbes describes confidence training in the following terms:
“Confidence […] is built on choices and accomplishments that feed your passion, and that make you feel happy and proud of who you are.”
Consequently, to train your confidence, you need to make decisions that fuel your passion and pride.
Here are some of the most effective confidence-training habits:
- Long-term thinking: by forming a vision for your future self, you’ll become aware of the fact that success is nothing but an accumulation of small, daily habits;
- Compounding accomplishments: start small and focus on one project at a time. Once completed, today’s success — like a finished work assignment — can breed motivation for your next project.
- Physical exercise: the connection between physical health and confidence is indisputable. Numerous studies — notably research by the Cleveland Clinic — illustrate how 3–5 weekly workouts can boost your self-esteem and lower the risk of depression.
- Set priorities and stand up for them: acting according to personal rules — not external cues — will create a strong mental foundation against anxiety and pressure.
- Journal and chronicle your progress: by breaking down your endeavors into small steps, you’ll always know where you started and how far you’ve come — a surefire way to increase your self-confidence.
These habits will gradually feed your confidence and give anxiety less room to breathe.
Don’t make things worse than they are
I am a big fan of languages. As such, I am always on the hunt for quirky proverbs and sayings.
I recently came across a Russian idiom translating into “don’t make an elephant out of a fly.” It means that you shouldn’t exaggerate or make things worse than they are. The saying makes perfect sense in the context of defeating anxiety.
If you want to release tension and ease the pressure, avoiding exaggerations is crucial.
When facing an adverse situation, ask yourself the following:
What’s the worst possible outcome?
When assessing the potential consequences of a particular event, you can determine whether you’re making an elephant out of a fly.
As an example, I once missed a package delivery at home. It was an expensive camera lens, and I became hyper-worried.
What if they don’t send it to the right post office. What if I lose the money?
I then analyzed possible scenarios and realized that the worst that could happen was a delay. If they didn’t send it to the right post office, I would have to contact them. All in all, my worries were excessive. In the end, I went to pick up the lens at a post office a few days later and noted the event as a “typical case of making an elephant out of a fly” in my journal.
Change is the only constant in life
Anxiety is often the result of uncertainty.
We don’t know what will happen in the future and envision negative changes to our lives.
However, as Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said:
“Change is the only constant.”
Nothing lasts forever, and changes to our personal and professional situation are inevitable.
In this context, the secret to defeating anxiety lies in celebrating, not dreading change.
When facing a novel situation in your life, ask yourself what kind of opportunities hide amid these changes.
If you’re anxious about transitioning into a new career, determine which lessons will ensue in that career. Look for the advantages compared to your previous professional path.
Most changes have both positive and negative components. Once you start looking for opportunities — instead of focusing on obstacles — you’ll adopt a more neutral approach and see change for what it is: an unavoidable part of life.
Live according to personal values
Strong personal values are a great antidote to anxiety.
By defining principles — norms that guide our decisions and shape our priorities — we reduce external influences and stop pondering every decision.
As an example, if your cardinal values are freedom, adventure, and entrepreneurship, you won’t choose a profession that provides neither. Your principles will decide for you.
Because your decisions rest on personal principles that ensued through experience, reflection, and prior mistakes, you’ll decide with a clear conscience. And these decisions will reduce your anxiety by feeding your mental satisfaction.
In other words, value-driven decisions offer fewer opportunities for anxiety to grow.
There will always be uncertainty, but personal values will prevent this uncertainty from creating chaos in your mind.
Throw perfectionism out of the window
The next mental shift that will help you defeat anxiety is the utter rejection of perfectionism.
The problem with perfectionism is that it will fuel your anxiety by highlighting every possible flaw.
You’ll never feel “good enough,” and you’ll always look for negatives.
As such, adopting an anti-perfectionist mindset will defeat your anxiety in several ways.
First, after recognizing the inexistence of perfection, you’ll start to concentrate your energy and creativity on making progress, not attaining an impossible goal. This progress-oriented attitude will reduce your anxiety and put realistic pursuits into the spotlight.
Secondly, accepting mistakes and failures is a powerful tool against anxiety. Write down what kind of errors you made in your past endeavors.
I didn’t study enough for that test. That’s why I failed.
Once you’ve written down a mistake, you give your thoughts room to breathe. The space in your mind will enable you to identify lessons for the future and utilize them.
Next, reduce your commitments and don’t try to be everyone’s darling. By saying no to more invitations, work-related projects, and other engagements, you reduce the number of situations in which perfectionism could take over.
Consequently, you need to put yourself in a position where flaws are acceptable and where you carefully curate your commitments. Once achieved, this state of mind will lower your anxiety by decreasing the number of anxiety-furthering situations.
Find opportunities to be happy in everyday situations
Finally, many people win the fight against anxiety by finding little surges of joy in mundane situations.
Mindfulness is an effective weapon in this regard.
By connecting to the present instead of pondering over an uncertain future, you’ll find small activities and situations that create joy.
As an example, a while ago, I used to listen to the news during breakfast. At some point, I realized that this was a toxic habit. It was feeding my anxiety by adding negativity to my morning routine.
I became more mindful of my breakfast sessions and decided to focus on eating while listening to nature sounds. The first meal of the day became much more enjoyable and helped me start my days in a calm and serene state. And this brief surge of morning happiness became a small part of a larger anxiety-defeating strategy.
As such, small acts can add up and form a mental fortress against anxiety.
The challenge resides in finding little rituals that will you provide daily does of happiness.
