Using Baby Steps To Overcome Anxiety
Do you often feel stressed, rushed, overwhelmed, and anxious? Beat up on yourself for not having all your shit together? Feel like you're failing at life because you haven't been able to emulate what some bozo on the internet says should take you no longer than a day? Wonder what the fuck must be wrong with you that you haven't been able to relieve all your stress and anxiety in exchange for perfect harmony?
If so, maybe what you need is to cut yourself some slack.
I think it's safe to say that everyone struggling with anxiety would collectively agree a cure would be preferable. And by cure, I mean a time machine so you can rewind the clock and undo all the shit that's been done.
While I'm hopeful we'll get to fly a car in this lifetime, I, unfortunately, do not share the same optimism for the time machine. So, you'll have to make do with reality. Yuck!
Much advice for dealing with anxiety is to rip the plaster clean off. As Nike would say — Just Do It!
If you're terrified of public speaking, get up in front of a crowd and speak. And — hey, presto — you'll be cured!
Terrified of approaching that guy or girl you can't stop thinking about? Approach them with your chin in the air like a lady or a lord, suck it up, ask them out, and boom — abracadabra — you'll be cured!
Even if they reject you, your anxiety will be gone, and you'll be able to approach whomever whenever without fear. Everybody will love you because nothing is sexier than confidence, and before you know it, you'll be crowned King or Queen of the world.
That's what's known as the flooding technique. Basically, repeating something that scares the crap out of you over and over until you feel calm as a clam and fear it no more.
Unfortunately, more often or not, when dealing with an anxiety disorder, it rarely works and can actually make things significantly worse.
While some people certainly take the piss, many more don't credit just how debilitating anxiety can be. It doesn't just magically come undone.
The Elusive Time-Machine. If only...
What does work for anxiety are baby steps!
When Neil Armstrong first stepped foot on the moon, the words "that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" echoed across our airwaves. But it wasn't one small step. It wasn't one giant leap either. It was the culmination of something like a gazillion baby steps.
I think we forget this often: overcoming any adversity or accomplishing anything worth accomplishing takes time. Many people with anxiety I have noticed try too hard. And that only makes things worse.
If you suffered from a spinal injury today, would you run tomorrow? Course not. So why approach an anxiety disorder differently?
When you try too hard, you'll only overwhelm yourself and likely make things worse. You'll also miss out on the important lessons and learnings along the way.
It's a constant push-pull with little progress because you're always at war with yourself. There's no self-compassion. And when you jump on the internet to find more things to try, you'll feel like a failure because whatever his name is? Yes, him. He said it was easy. So it must be your fault.
It's almost as if society is designed for us to fail and not be happy. Shock-Horror!
Tony Robbins once said, "Most people overestimate what they can do in a year, and they underestimate what they can do in five." I love that quote because it reminds me we are human.
The paradox of it all is that if you give yourself permission to be human and slow down, you'll likely find you'll speed up. When you slow down enough to understand the problem (anxiety is not the problem; it's the symptom), you can develop an appropriate solution to execute.
One. Baby. Step. At a time.
That's when you'll begin to see real progress. And when you see progress, you'll gain momentum. When you have momentum in the right direction, everything will get better and easier. You'll also feel softer and lighter. And as if by magic, it will trickle down to all areas of your life.
Then one day in the not-too-distant future, you'll look back and ask yourself: Was that one step, a gazillion steps, or did I just land on the fucking moon?