Laura L. Smith - Anxiety For Dummies

Clearly, no one likes feeling anxious, tense, and nervous, and sometimes anxiety climbs to such heights that it overwhelms personal resources and the capacity to cope. Chronic, severe anxiety not infrequently serves as a prelude to serious depression. Obviously, anyone experiencing this torment would jump at the chance to do something about it.

With good intentions, people buy self-help books, attend workshops, and even seek therapy. They fully intend to make meaningful changes in their lives. But have you ever gone to a health club in January? It’s packed with new, enthusiastic members. By mid-March, health clubs return to normal. Like so many New Year’s resolutions, the initial burst of resolve too often fades. What happens to all that determination? Folks generally think they’ve simply lost their willpower. Actually, interfering thoughts creep into their minds and steal their motivation. They start to think that they don’t have the time or the money or that they can get in shape later. Such thoughts seduce them into abandoning their goals.

Thoughts about abandoning your quest to overcome anxiety may disrupt your efforts at some point. If so, the first step involves identifying the thoughts that are streaming through your mind. The next step is to fight off these counterproductive thoughts; we give you strategies for doing just that in the following section. But first, here are our top ten excuses for staying stuck:

Number 10: Anxiety isn’t really that big a problem for me. I thought it was when I bought this book, but my anxiety isn’t as bad as some of the people I’ve been reading about. Maybe it’s not that big a deal.

Number 9: If I try and fail, I’ll make a fool of myself. My friends and family would think I was stupid to even try.

Number 8: My anxiety feels too overwhelming to tackle. I just don’t know if I could handle the additional stress of even thinking about it.

Number 7: I’m afraid of trying and not getting anywhere. That would make me feel even worse than if I did nothing at all. I’d feel like a failure.

Number 6: Feelings can’t really be controlled. You’re just fooling yourself if you think otherwise. You feel the way you feel.

Number 5: I’ll do something about my anxiety when I feel the motivation. Right now, I don’t really feel like it. I’m sure the motivation will come; I just have to wait for it.

Number 4: Who would I be without my anxiety? That’s just who I am. I’m an anxious person; it’s just me.

Number 3: I don’t believe I can really change. After all, I’ve been this way my entire life. Books like this one don’t work anyway.

Number 2: I’m too busy to do anything about my anxiety. These activities look like they take time. I could never work it into my hectic schedule.

And the number 1 reason people stay stuck: I’m too anxious to do anything about my anxiety. Whenever I think about confronting my anxiety, it makes me even more anxious. Why bother?

Look over our preceding list several times. Mull over each excuse and circle any that seem familiar or reasonable to you. Agreeing with any of these will hinder your progress. Now, we have some ways for you to challenge these excuses, no matter how reasonable they may seem.

If any of our top ten excuses for staying stuck (see the preceding section) resonate with you, then your decision to overcome anxiety is not stable. Those thoughts can sabotage your best intentions. Don’t underestimate their power.

The next two sections show you a couple of strategies for helping you turn your intentions into actions.

If you start losing your motivation or your belief in your ability to do something about your anxiety, come back to this section! It can help you get back on track.

Consider starting a notebook or keeping a file for carrying out various exercises in this book. Whether you use a notebook, your phone, or another device, divide a page into two columns. Label the left column “Excuses” and the right column “Arguments Against My Excuses.” Under “Excuses” write each of the top ten excuses (see the earlier section “ Having Second Thoughts about Change”) that apply to you. Then, as a way to come up with arguments against your excuses, ask yourself the following questions:

Does my excuse presume a catastrophe is coming?

Am I exaggerating the truth?

Can I find any evidence that would contradict my excuse?

Can I think of people to whom my excuse doesn’t apply? And if it doesn’t apply to them, why should it apply to me?

Am I trying to predict the future with negative thinking when no one can ever know the future?

Using those questions to guide your effort, jot down the best arguments you can for picking your excuses apart. The following example of Miguel shows how he attacked his most stubborn excuses for not changing.

Miguel suffers from anxiety and has resisted dealing with his problem for years. He lists his major excuses for not doing anything and uses the preceding questions to develop arguments against each of his excuses. Table 4-2shows what he came up with for what he considered his most compelling excuses.

TABLE 4-2Miguel’s Excuses versus Arguments Against His Excuses

Miguel discovered that arguing against his excuses finally gave him the courage to start making changes. You can do the same. Spend some time looking at your excuses that cause you to delay or put off working on your anxiety. Realize that working on your anxiety will pay off over time.

If you find that the idea of dealing with your anxiety is just too much to handle, you may be struggling with excuse number 8 for staying stuck (see the earlier section “ Having Second Thoughts about Change”): “My anxiety feels too overwhelming to tackle. I just don’t know if I could handle the additional stress of even thinking about it.” In this case, it may help if you start by putting one foot in front of the other — take baby steps.

Stop dwelling on the entire task. For example, if you thought about all the steps that you’ll take over the next five years, you’d be envisioning an incredible amount of walking. Hundreds, if not thousands, of miles await you. The mere thought of all those miles could stress you out.

You may, like many folks, wake up early in the morning on some days facing huge lists of things you need to do in the coming week. Ugh. A sense of defeat sets in, and you feel like staying in bed for the rest of the day. Dread replaces enthusiasm. If, instead, you clear your mind of the entire agenda and concentrate on only the first item on the list, your distress is likely to diminish, at least a little.