Stressing about things out of our control
Do you ever stress about things that are out of your control? I definitely do. It’s really hard to get out of that vicious cycle. I say it’s vicious because you’re putting energy into something you can’t change.
What can you do?
It’s cliche, but find the positives in the negative situations. I’m still trying to practice this. I’ve been reading the book, Good Anxiety by Wendy Suzuki and she mentions in one of the chapters how our brains have a “negativity bias”. This means whenever you accomplish something you still can find the negatives from that situation. Let’s say you get off stage after nailing a performance, but, when people congratulate you, you say things like, “but I messed up at this part”, and “I didn’t do this right”. The thing is, you’re going to be the only one that notices those little mess-ups. I used to be a dancer and mess up all the time on stage, but no one would know the difference because I kept going. It just looked like part of the choreography.
The whole book is all about channeling anxiety into good energy. When you worry about things out of your control, you have to shift your thinking into a more positive outlook. It depends on your situation, but instead of looking at a challenge as something that you should fear, look at it as a goal and something to overcome. If it’s something that’s out of your control, you need to just let it go. Trust me, I need to take my own advice. I won’t get into the details, but I tend to worry about health problems that arise. Lately, there’s been things wrong with me, but there’s nothing I can really do about it. Yet, I still tell myself that my body’s broken, or I’m never going to be “normal”. Those are all negative connotations. It’s really frustrating when negative things occur that you can’t have any influence over. You just have to keep telling yourself you can’t do anything about it, and that’s OKAY!
Being Carefree
I’ve always wished I was a carefree person. I wish I didn’t let things bother me so much or worry about things that I can’t change. Some of it is just the type of personality we have, but we can take action and make strides toward letting go one small step at a time. Sometimes I look at friends of mine and see how carefree they are about situations and I envy them. I try to react to situations how they would in an effort to be a little more carefree. Some may argue and say I’m trying to be someone I’m not when that’s not the case. I see someone’s good habits compared to my negative ones and try to improve my own actions. It’s okay to do that if you’re trying to change your reaction to stress.
It’s hard to recognize when your negative emotions are taking over when you’re reacting to stress. It’s a bad habit just like how smoking, alcoholism, and binge eating are. It’s really hard to break. You have to do a lot of self-reflecting and make yourself more aware of when negative emotions are taking over your decision-making entirely. Try and tweak how you approach situations and replace the negative words attached to them with positive ones. If you’re anxious about a job interview don’t say, “I have to do this job interview”. Instead say, “I get to do this job interview”. Just that one-word change alone completely changes the viewpoint from negative to positive.
Don’t stress
Saying “don’t stress” is way easier said than done. But taking small steps to manage how you react to outside stressors that you have no control over can make a big difference. It’s not going to be an instant change since breaking any bad habit takes time. Let’s work on it together. I mean, why worry about things when we only have so much time on this earth to treasure? So, don’t stress, it’s just life😉.