Fear and Anxiety: Problems and Solutions
Let’s talk about fear, and anxiety today!
I will begin by telling you about my experience. Until 10th Std, I was the most confident, fearless, challenge-loving girl. Only after 10th did I start realizing that I wasn’t the same kid anymore. I was thrown into the harsh practical world full of fears and doubts. I was thrown into a group of LOG jo KYA KAHENGE. I started to lose my confidence slowly. Things began changing. I wasn’t the same during competitions, presentations, seminars, and speeches. I had started to doubt my self-esteem. My confidence was at an all-time low. I thought maybe the adult phase was new for me so it would take time for me to get comfortable and fearless. That did not happen. I started fearing my challenges, competitions, academics, public speaking, etc. I dug deeper into my problem. I thought that maybe the environment I am in at present isn’t motivational or challenging enough to push me to face and rise. So I tried changing groups and locations. Still the same, until I realized that it wasn’t the sudden change in my professional life that was affecting me. It was my inner fears, negative thoughts, and me listening to some unsuccessful idiots that were programming my brain to become intellectually dead. It was all in my head. None but my inner pessimism and overthinking fear had led me to depression and low self-esteem.
You are dead the moment your fears and anxieties stop giving you motivational orgasms
- Sara ki Bakwas -
There are only 3 types of fears in life. Not more, not less:
1. Fear of starting something new and challenging; a task or a mission whose failure rate is very high among common people.
2. Fear of failing at something important in the first place thinking, “LOG KYA KAHENGE”.
3. Fear of getting up after failing badly at the first attempt itself thinking, “I won’t ever be able to achieve something extraordinary again”. That fear of starting from ZERO again.
Let me tell you; every fear is in your head. Your outlook is what matters. Your angle and perspective of looking at it is what makes a difficult situation simple and a simple one, well, impossible. Imagine a plank on the ground, 30 ft long and 2ft wide. And you are said to walk on it. You will be able to do so without even looking down. That easy and that casually like you always walk. You can jump up and down, dance, and lie down. Imagine now the same plank being put 300 ft in the air and you are told to walk on it 300 ft above sea level. You won’t even go near it in the first place. Forget about being casually walking on it. The plank is the same. You are the same. What is different is the condition you are in. You are accustomed to walking on the ground ever since you remember. But walking in the air is not something you do every day. That is why you have anxiety and fear issues in the first place. And it is perfectly normal. It is nothing to be embarrassed by. Intense fear paralyzes you. It affects the way the brain works. But this is the exact anxiety and fear when used productively, helps you focus on the challenging tasks. It causes you to be what is called “Depth-first processing”; to focus, not to be distracted. And for the plank 300 ft in the air, some can force themselves across, some cannot. The ones who force themselves either are familiar with the concept or have a tremendous power to manipulate their fears, anxiety, and doubts. The second concept is what exactly you and I need to adapt to. The ability to transform and bend our fears and doubts for our benefit. Not facing fears, but just acknowledging them and using them as planks towards success is what we need to do. This idea changes the way you think. If in the first place, you don’t think at all that the plank is in the air, walking on it would be simpler. What if someone blindfolded you and did not inform you whether you were walking on the plank that was on the ground or that was in the air? You would subconsciously think that the plank is on the ground and walk on it successfully. Exactly my point. The success rate of your difficult situation depends on what you feed your brain and how much you believe in the outside noise which is mostly rubbish. Your brain just needs to navigate through the difficult tasks. It doesn’t see your fears, anxiety, doubts, and panics until you show it. It has a natural algorithm fitted into it; IDENTIFY THE TASK, LOOK FOR STRAIGHTFORWARD SOLUTION AND MOVE TO THE NEXT TASK. Our thoughts and negative fears are what create hurdles in the algorithm.
Research suggests that when you handle any problem with anxiety, it makes you a depth-first solver i.e thinking of conclusions and planning everything almost fearfully before even executing it. On the contrary, being a breadth-first solver is when you keep a happy mood and a chilled-out attitude towards your problems. You tend to solve problems more quickly when you look at them with curiosity, not fear and anxiety. When you decide to enjoy every step of the challenge is when you solve it more quickly without much fear of conclusions. You enjoy the journey. And that is what is the most important thing in this stressful 21st century. You need to keep experimenting without the fear of failure. You won’t always be allowed to walk on the paths that you have planned. Some situations force you to change your plans abruptly and make you feel like you won’t succeed. That is when you are very near to success. Change of paths due to odds doesn’t mean you failed. It just means you took another road. You will always need to jump, trip, wait and rest in your journey. Success won’t feel worth it otherwise.
You don’t walk in the first attempt as a baby anyway. It would be so stupid to imagine a baby walking perfectly, speaking fluently, and acting like a perfectionist at the age of 1. You lose your fears and anxieties eventually as you challenge yourself and practice relentlessly every day.
- Sara Ki Bakwas -
It makes a lot of difference in how you picture things in your mind about a particular situation, problem, task, or fear. The anxiety that stops you is nothing but an illusion. If you consider every difficult task or challenge as a casual chore or errand you have to run normally every day, your brain will program itself to put that difficult project into the box of everyday things. Gradually, anxiety and fear about that challenging task will fade away magically even without you knowing it. It will become another of your habit once you change your perspective. You just have to be brave for that ONE SECOND when you have to begin that task. The pull is that the more you become conscious, anxious, and pessimistic about a challenge, the more it comes to haunt you even if it isn’t scary. Because your brain then programs itself to classify that challenge into the impossible box. You don’t have to let that happen. Simple.
You have to be the boss. Your boss.
Hacks to kill fear and anxiety:
- Control your mind. Don’t let your mind know that it is a challenging task. Convince the brain that it is as simple and casual as brushing teeth every morning. Brushing teeth is what you can do even half asleep.
- Train your mind to change its outlook towards difficult tasks as casual everyday chores.
- Plan, Prepare and Practice. This is what makes a mediocre person a legend. Practicing beforehand and not waiting until deadlines build confidence, fearlessness, and self-esteem. You know long before the deadline what exact potential you have and that you can cross every hurdle easily.
- Practice, practice, and practice some more. Repeat every task until OTHERS compliment you that you have become perfect.
- Watch any motivational video with solid background music first thing in the morning. Make it a lifelong habit. I listen to this video every day. This will give u a boost.
- Plan just the 3 most difficult tasks or projects every day and work on just those. Nothing else.
- Don’t work on 1 topic for more than 60 minutes. Keep switching between the 3 tasks you planned.
- Meditate for 20 mins 3 times a day. Listen to some TED talk while breathing.
- When you feel exhausted after 8 in the evening, go out and lie down. Begin COUNTING STARS until you have freed yourself from the stressful tensions and doubts of the day.
- Become a morning person. That is the right thing to do.
- Stop the Social Media addiction. Get addicted to books.
- Face every task with a smile. Whether you are excited or not.
- When was the last time you woke up before sunrise, closed your eyes, and listened to the birds chirping, leaves rustling, cool breeze touching your body? Experience it without fail.
- Be prepared mentally that being punctual, hard-working, consistent, sincere will be very difficult for you to follow initially. Don’t QUIT
- Repeat the above steps for 90 DAYS straight. No excuses.
In the end, fuck fears… Suck success out of anxieties… Fear will then automatically die of malnutrition once you suck negativity out of it.
- Sara Ki Bakwas -
