Understanding and Tackling Anxiety

Setting Goals for This Course

• Paid Course Attendees: Write goals in your workbook.
• YouTube Viewers: Write goals in the comments section.

Course Approach

• Not a Coping Mechanism: Focus on taking radical responsibility for anxiety rather than coping with it.
• Changing What You Can: Learn skills to change things within your control.

Initial Story: The Impact of Anxiety

• Many try to eliminate anxiety which often backfires, causing more stress.

Common Misconceptions

• Reducing anxiety often leads to a shrinking, more miserable life.
• True happiness doesn’t come from eliminating anxiety entirely.

Research Study: Anxiety in 8th Graders

• Researchers interviewed 8th graders auditioning for plays, trying out for sports, and running for school positions.
• Kids rated their anxiety (7, 8, 9 on a scale of 0-10).
• Two groups: those who auditioned despite anxiety and those who didn’t.
• Group 1: Faced anxiety to accomplish goals.
• Group 2: Didn’t try out to make anxiety go away.
• Avoiding anxiety restricts life and increases anxiety.

Managing Relationships and Anxiety

• Difficult relationships often lead to avoidance or cutting someone out.
• Healthy relationships involve learning communication, setting boundaries, and problem-solving skills.

Course Goals

• Primary Goal: Make life awesome by reintroducing joys, experiences, and accomplishments previously cut out due to anxiety.
• Secondary Goal: Learn to better understand, tolerate, and reduce anxiety.

Anxiety vs. Reaction to Anxiety

• Attempting to eliminate anxiety worsens quality of life.
• Real issue: Attempts to escape anxiety harm your life more than anxiety itself.

Common Examples of Anxiety Impact

Social Anxiety

• Avoid parties to prevent feeling anxious, leading to loneliness and constant worry.

OCD

• Engaging in behaviors like hand-washing repetitively to avoid feeling anxious about germs, leading to quality of life decline.

Constant Reassurance

• Seeking reassurance to avoid anxiety about relationships, which escalates anxiety.

Personal Reflection

• Write down what you have cut out of your life due to anxiety.
• Reflect on missed opportunities and people avoided.

Course Structure

• Learn various skills to decrease and understand anxiety.
• Change how you think and feel about anxiety.
• Prepare to face discomfort and make space for anxiety to improve overall life quality.

Dead People Goals

• Trying to completely eliminate anxiety is unrealistic.
• Focus on living a meaningful life with anxiety rather than trying to not feel it.

Visualization Exercise

• Write or Imagine: Pursue activities you love without letting anxiety control decisions.
• Envision a day where anxiety has no control over your choices.
• Reflect: What kind of person do you want to be? What character traits do you admire?

Course Resources

• Spend time on visualization and goals exercises.
• Workbook provides space for further exploration in the full course.

Conclusion

• This is just Day 1 of a 30-day anxiety skills course available on the website.

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