The Invitation to Stay Put
You wake up one day and ask yourself, “What do you want to accomplish today?” You start writing a to-do list. When you’re all set to begin, you’re suddenly met with an old familiar voice.
Every time I try to grow, there’s usually someone waiting at the door with a clipboard full of reasons to stay where I am. Around here, I call him Dr. Anxiety. His automatic answer is no. He starts asking troublesome questions. What if you fail? What if people judge you? Maybe tomorrow. You’re not ready.
This post is about learning to go anyway.
Anxiety Isn’t Trying to Be the Villain
Whether or not we like it, anxiety is a part of ourselves. It was created many evolutions ago so our ancestors could survive. In modern days, we aren’t necessarily battling wild animals to survive. But we still have anxiety. I also like to think of it as the fight, flight, or freeze response. It’s automatic.
These days, more and more people are finding anxiety difficult to deal with. Many are spending lots of money and time investing in therapy, self-help books, or apps that are supposed to make life easier. Yet we’re probably the most anxious our species has ever been. Some blame social media. Others blame the internet. Personally, I’m not convinced they’re the whole story. Anxiety has always existed. What has changed is the world we’re asking it to navigate.
I don’t think anxiety is a bad thing, though it can be crippling to a certain extent. I think it helps us decide if something is too dangerous to do, or if it’s just making us feel uncomfortable. If it’s discomfort we are feeling, we can explore what it is that makes us feel uneasy about this task.
The Cost of Listening Every Time
Lately, I’ve been finding it difficult to find the motivation to do some things. Some days, I struggle with making my home environment clean. Occasionally, I avoid my email, just scanning headlines for possible job opportunities. There have been a day here or there where I don’t even have the motivation to job search and feel that sense of discomfort.
The more I avoid doing the thing I need to be doing, the more anxious I wind up feeling about not completing it by the end of the day. It almost feels as though anxiety feeds itself. The more I avoid the thing I’m worried about, the bigger the worry becomes.
Sometimes it feels like you’re in the centre of a tornado. A constant list of things left undone swirling around me. That haunting voice echoing in the darkness that it must be done, but then you hear the excuses not to. The next thing you know it’s the end of the day, and you didn’t do the thing you needed to do, so you think to yourself, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Only tomorrow’s tornado is even bigger. And the cycle continues.
Going Anyway Doesn’t Mean Fearless
My job coach asked me something that completely reframed the situation.
“What if you hear what anxiety is telling you, acknowledge it, thank it for it’s concerns, but do it anyway?”
Boom.
So what does it take to get started on tackling that mountain of to-dos on your agenda?
You just start.
That’s it.
Not perfectly.
Not confidently.
Just…start.
Break things down into manageable small tasks and just begin. Set a timer and work on it for a certain amount of time, say 40 minutes. Then take a 20 minute break. See how much you can accomplish in those 40 minute stints. When you take a break, really rest. Sit down. Get some fluids in you, or eat if you’re hungry. Scroll your phone or play a game. Then begin again as soon as the phone alarm goes off.
Of course, I know all of this logically, as I’ve written about this method before. But what I haven’t really touched on is the courage to go ahead anyway.
The Tiny Victories Matter
First I had to determine what my biggest anxiety was. That was hard as I find it equally difficult to determine what needs my attention the most. Of course, the job hunt is very important… but, the thing is… my brain finds it hard to focus when my place is a mess.
Today I woke up with a goal to get as much cleaning done as I could muster. As with most mornings, I was beginning to find it hard to get going. I wrote a to-do list, and began tackling a room in a spurt. However, as it’s summer, I’m finding when I do work on cleaning, I get overheated quickly, even in a basement. So I was finding the 40 minute stints to be unattainable. That didn’t stop me, though. I just decided to do as much as I could for however long I could do it, then rest.
By lunchtime, something interesting had happened. The apartment wasn’t perfect, but it felt lighter. More importantly, I felt lighter. I got the bedroom, bathroom and living room tidied up. I was working slowly at it, and took breaks here and there to rest.
Then the idea of writing a blog post came up, so here I am. I’m not finished cleaning for the day, mind you. I just needed to get this blog out of the way. Us creative types really need outlets for these things.
SuperMell Doesn’t Wait for Perfect
The goal here is to make my environment more relaxed so I can focus more of my attention on the job searching, and any upgrading of courses through LinkedIn Learning I might be considering. I noticed a long time ago that I tend to feel more relaxed and less anxious when my home is at least livable. If it’s chaotic, I find myself feeling that huge sense of urgency, then I get distracted, and the tornado begins again.
SuperMell is the hero of my own story. It’s high time I began to think of myself as a superhero. Not a perfect hero. More like a hero in progress.
SuperMell is slowly teaching me something I need to remember:
Courage isn’t the absence of anxiety. Courage is deciding that anxiety doesn’t get the final vote.
What if… I hear this doubting voice and just decide to go ahead and do it anyway? I’m working within my bounds, but not to the point where I’m scheduling certain time slots per day, as I find that not at all helpful. SuperMell just needs to find the courage to acknowledge the discomfort, and decide she’d rather just go ahead and do it than avoid doing it altogether again. At some point, the tornado has to dissipate, right? Right?!!
Right. I think I’m slowly finding my way out of the centre of the funnel cloud and clear skies are starting to form.
Even Heroes Hear That Voice
Even superheroes aren’t fearless. Tony Stark’s anxiety after the Battle of New York shaped much of his story. Steve Rogers experienced fear too, but he kept choosing to move forward anyway.
Honestly, it’s not like Captain America never experiences fear. He just learned what I’m trying to learn. To forge ahead anyway and tackle each situation in the best way he knows how. That’s why I’ll always be Team Cap. I mean, what if Captain America became over-anxious after he was frozen in ice for 70 years? He had no choice but to adapt to the new reality.
I also like how they focus on mental health and meet in small groups with people dealing with the losses they had to deal with. Talking it out helps. A lot. If I hadn’t brought up my problem, I wouldn’t have heard myself say things that I know are true logically, but anxiety is making it more difficult to listen to that logic. It does help sharing these things with another person. Also, this urge to write this blog post came up because long ago I discovered how healing writing it out of my system can be.
Diana’s Opinion
Cats don’t overthink. They see a bug. They investigate. Then they hear a noise. They check it out. There’s no committee meeting. No existential crisis.
Diana has never spent forty-five minutes wondering if she should chase a toy mouse. She just does it. For maybe five minutes. Then it’s time for another nap. She knows how important taking naps (or breaks) are.
Final Thought: One More Step
I’m learning to stop waiting for permission.
If I want to do something, I merely have to start.
Maybe courage isn’t taking a giant leap.
Maybe courage is taking one small step while Dr. Anxiety insists I shouldn’t.
Dr. Anxiety will probably always offer his opinion.
He just doesn’t get the deciding vote anymore.
What’s one small thing you will start doing right now?
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