Rejected before anyone has said no, shut out before the door has closed, paralyzed with fear before the threat exists. You are being lied to. Manipulated, gaslit, and humiliated — all by your own doing — with vitriol you wouldn’t dare think of others, others who don’t think of you enough to do to you, shaken by a threat that doesn’t exist. Your anxiety is a liar. It is not you, it is a cognitive bias. Your thoughts are an unreliable narrator. You reject yourself before opportunities and others do. But our minds hold both the lock and the key — anxiety just convinces us the cell is inescapable.
Anxiety is a lying unreliable narrator that wrongly rejects yourself before opportunities and people do.Anxious thoughts aren’t reality, they’re cognitive biases — a distorted lens — adopted from external factors. Through cognitive reframe we can identify and correct irrational thinking to change our lives. Thoughts become neural pathways/beliefs which become actions which become outcomes which reinforce thoughts. We can silence the anxious narrator by building confidence from slowly doing things that scare you and proving it wrong.
Here are 12 tips that help kickstart the journey out from the hold of anxiety:
1. Exposure therapy – the only way out is through. Repeated exposure makes it easier and builds confidence by slowly proving your anxiety wrong.
2. Anxiety is a liar — a cognitive bias that wrongly rejects yourself before the world does.
3. Stop rejecting yourself before the world does. The world doesn’t see you through the hyper-critical lens you see yourself. Never be the first person to say no to yourself.
4. Assume friendship when meeting new people. Instead of putting on a customer service friendly voice and overly formal air, project comfort, act like you’re meeting an old friend.
5. Detach from external validation, be so focused on you that neither positive or negative opinions are of your concern. Never take criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from.
6. Courage is more important than confidence. Everyone goes through a learning curve. Be fearful and do it anyway — that’s how you grow. Shortcomings and anxieties are the driving force behind tremendous growth that boosts confidence
7. Everyone is too busy thinking of themselves not criticizing strangers. You are not the subject of everyone’s lives
8. Treat yourself with the compassion you’d treat a friend — argue against your negative thoughts like you’re defending a loved one.
9. No one knows your behind the scenes, show up as the person you want to be. People are not seeing through you. Own yourself.
10. Mirror energy & ask questions. Curiosity about others, lets them open up the conversation and lead while you get more comfortable.
11. People care about how you made them feel, not whatever awkward thing you said that only you noticed. The only thing that actually makes things awkward is reveling in it, or highlighting how “awkward” or embarrassing something was. Confident people laugh things off, so laugh.
12. Humor eases social situations — make fun of awkwardness. Humor is transformative and honestly changed my life. Take your work seriously, but never yourself.
Anxiety will try to make you seem like everything about you is wrong, when it isn’t. You don’t hate yourself, you hate not being yourself. You don’t hate life, you hate not living your life. So don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. The world needs people who have come alive—who dare embrace themselves and not listen to anxious lies.
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