10. Fix Your Anxiety

Are you constantly anxious about gaining weight? Well , You can keep being anxious

Or

Try this - take stairs instead of elevator today and try to skip or skimp on one of the meals of the day or least skip the dessert.

And I guarantee, you will instantly start feeling better.

And that is not just with weight related anxiety, it is applicable to any anxiety you have about any of the pending tasks or conflict, stress, public event, public performance which are some of the triggers for anxiety in today’s day and age.

Taking actions towards fixing the cause behind the anxiety - however tiny, those actions could be - would instantly transform the state of anxiety into state of work in progress. It gives you a sense control as you are working on the issue instead of getting stuck in it.

In fact, taking action actually should be the standard operating procedure on any problem you have. If you want to improve something about your life or achieve a goal the best way to do that is taking tiny steps towards your goal.

Keizen refers to a Japanese approach of small, ongoing positive changes that can reap major improvements.

If you want to start waking up at 4 am every day and you currently wake up at 8? start by waking up at 7:55 am tomorrow and then keep improving 5 or even 2 minutes at a time every subsequent day till you reach your goal of 4 am.

If the amount of time you spend on social media or phone bothers you and is affecting your quality of life, count how many times you check your phone in a day (average varies between 80 to 150). And if you check your phone 50 times a day limit yourself to 49 times today and keep improving by 1 every day till you feel your phone addiction is wearing off.

If you are anxious about public speaking, well the only way to relieve that is by actually doing something about it and you can take really tiny steps. May be you could start by imagining yourself speaking to a large crowd till it stops being scary, then go an stand in an empty conference room build your confidence. One step at a time with small but ongoing steps.

Today’s quote is attributed to Walter Anderson an American author. Not a whole lot is known about him apart from some of his books however this quote really encapsulated so much wisdom into so few words.

And now for the picture behind the quote. Anxiety exhausts us. It stunts our progress. When anxious we go into our shell or just gaze at the abyss. The dogs in the picture are certainly not anxious but represent some of the postures we assume when anxious.

All that we need to do is to take some action …however tiny it may be.

Break the anxiety trap. act now. However small. Take the first step.

Thanks for reading through,

-Nikhil