5 strategies that can decrease anxiety and increase confidence to help you move forward.
Do you experience tunnel vision when it comes to thinking effectively and in a way that benefits you most in moving forward? Can you see the bigger picture or perspective in any complicated situation in life?
If you continually limit your awareness of your thoughts and feelings you disable your ability to evaluate internal and external information. Blocked self-awareness decreases self-confidence leads to poor decision making and fuels high anxiety.
Here are five strategies you can use to help you get in touch with your feelings and emotions increase your self-confidence and awareness and help relieve issues with high anxiety so you can keep progressing in life.
1. Embrace your faults and flaws
Acknowledge your imperfections and mistakes rather than trying to deny or distort them. Hold yourself accountable for the outcome of your choices no matter what even when things don’t go to plan you will always learn from mistakes and having the courage to live bravely and admit them is much more commendable than running away and hiding due to the fear of judgement.
People will always judge you no matter what you do in life so accepting this reality is an important life skill in developing a coping mechanism to control how you respond to it. When we try to be a perfectionist, we can fuel our high anxiety due to our never-ending fear of being wrong or not fitting in so what! Love yourself in your entirety including your flaws and faults and learn to feel secure in the knowing that life does have a way of trying us at times but getting back up owning it and moving on is fundamental to decreasing anxiety and enabling success in life.
2. Display your emotions accordingly
Learn to express your feelings calmly and confidently and where appropriate to particular situations in your life. Develop your personal boundaries and know what you are prepared to tolerate from yourself and others so you know how to show up emotionally competent and avoid overreactions caused by anxiety.
Emotional intelligence is an essential life skill and is becoming more and more standard practice in schools, workplaces and everyday life. I highly recommend reading Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence to help you recognize, understand and manage your emotions. Learning how to handle emotions both our own and others is key to decreasing anxiety especially when we are under pressure.
3. Acknowledge your individuality
Be secure and confident in your uniqueness and embrace individuality. We all acquire different skills and learning in life, yet so many try to change and shape themselves on others and end up losing their sense of authenticity.
Your uniqueness is what makes each and every human being distinct in their way and you should embrace this instead of trying to put a mask on and eliminate it. As the quote by John Mason goes
“You were born an original don’t die a copy”
4. Be direct in your communication
Don’t get in your way by talking jargon. We have a tendency in human nature to distort reality by wandering in our language and communication style. I was a rambling professional, and as a result, it created a sense of mistrust in myself and a lack of confidence in my ability all this led to high anxiety in social settings and networking.
Learning to slow down and make the connection with my mind and my mouth has enabled me to become less anxious. When I was indirect in my communication, I frequently over complicated my life, and when my rambling language led to questioning of my beliefs and opinions, it ironically left me speechless because I lost my confidence in my ability to respond. Learn to use simple, clear, direct language and train yourself to catch jargon using your self-awareness by reading other people’s responses to your style of communication.
5. Be Optimistic
Focus on the solutions and not the problems. There is always a solution if you seek to unlock it and not block it. Be prepared to work through matters that arise in your daily lives with family and work colleagues by collaborating with mutual respect and a wider perspective.
Being an optimist will help you to find the answers which help you and everyone concerned to move forward with confidence and decrease anxiety about the desired outcome. People who look on the bright side of life have a lot more to look forward to not to forget to mention increased health and longevity in life.
In light of practicing the above strategies if it is a case that feelings of high anxiety and insecurity are constantly consuming your daily life and thinking it may be time to consider a more structured plan of action from a suitably qualified professional. Most importantly the focus of emphasis should be on healing the underlying cause and nurturing a growth mindset to enable a forward focus. Take action now.
“Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than taking action” — Walter Anderson
Originally published at medium.com