Change. We're always looking for it, wanting it, or asking for it. As humans we have an instinct to want to improve ourselves, our circumstances, or our lives.
Oftentimes it’s because we reach plateaus with our career, we look for more fulfillment from what we do in life, or we just outgrow the place we’re in.
Other times it’s because like the universe, we feel a need to constantly expand.
This is all around us in nature too. If you ever look out into the ocean, you'll see an ever-expanding horizon so why wouldn’t we expect that for ourselves and our own lives?
But then, just when we're at the precipice of change our shoulders tense up, our head starts swimming with thoughts of worry, we get anxious, frightened, and overwhelmed leading us wanting to back down from it.
It’s what we do at that point that determines our future outcome.
Understanding the Anxiety
So many of us have been filled with anxiety before a change, time and time again.
I can remember beating myself up because once again here I was, wanting my life to be something different yet frustrated and stressed because it wasn't changing.
Working in a job that had worn thin with no chance of advancement and no pay increase in 6 years felt as if the wind had been taken out of my sails.
Living in a place that was growing and expanding itself but only with more people and traffic, making it more difficult to enjoy what the location had to offer, just left me frustrated.
And seeing the influx of more people from nearby states increasing the cost of living, in turn making it harder to afford our lifestyle, felt very deflating.
All these reasons plus more were why all I could think about was change.
Wanting a change didn’t sound like a bad idea, especially if I could break free from a job I didn’t like and experience a new way of living, but it brought about enormous feelings of anxiety.
You know, the feeling of the heart pumping a million miles a minute waking you up in the middle of the night. Your mind racing with all kinds of questions on how to make things work and what will happen if they don’t work out.
Will I lose everything I have now? What will my friends and family think? What about our bills?
Why was this anxiety happening?
Even with all that anxiety, life remaining the same wasn’t an option. Seeing colleagues get sick and even pass away before they got to retire and enjoy all they worked for wasn’t going to be my life!
This is when I realized that anxiety wasn’t my enemy. It was just my brain’s way of protecting me from the unknown.
Once this reasoning resonated, acceptance came rushing in and the answer of what to do next appeared.
Accepting the Anxiety
It's at this point of realization when we have a choice.
We can either work through the anxiety or back down from it. It’s the fight or flight mechanism in our brain. It's all up to us and only us who can make this choice.
This is where the rubber meets the road. The action we take at this moment will create our next reality.
If you choose to work through it, the change will happen. If you choose to back down, you'll find yourself back in the same spot again in the future wondering why you're repeating the same story, stuck in a pattern, like a broken record.
Eventually I recognized my own pattern was of backing down. This was what kept everything in my life the same.
I was running away from the change, rather than jumping all in.
That's when I realized nothing will change until my reaction to change changes.
Understand that this takes practice and some effort, but it IS possible.
Not only is it possible, but it’s also a new pattern you can adopt to keep growing and expanding your life.
Calming the Anxiety
Once you understand where the anxiety is coming from and make your choice to move past it, the next step is to create calmness.
Now, there are ways you can immediately calm yourself, like taking 3 deep breaths.
Yes, I know, not the age-old advice of “just breathe”. But the reason it’s age-old is because it really works!
Try it now with me.
As slowly as you can, breathe in through your nose until you must stop.
Then close your eyes and hold it for a quick count of 3-5 seconds, take in a little more if you can, and then release it all through the mouth.
Now repeat twice more and notice what you feel.
Did your neck and shoulders relax a bit? Has your heart slowed a little? What about your head? Does it feel as if it’s cleared a tad?
OK, great! We’re off to an excellent start!!
This breathing exercise is a great practice to take with you wherever you go and use whenever you need it. Especially to just clear your head and slow down those crazy thoughts that can get you all spun up.
Besides breathing, which is something we all instinctively know and do without being conscious of it, here’s another recommendation...
Be thankful!
No surprise here. It is very fitting that we just ended the Holiday Season full of giving gifts and thanks to all those around us.
However, if this becomes a daily habit during the entire year, you’ll notice changes happening in your life very quickly.
There’s a whole list of reasons gratitude makes such a big difference and creates magic in our lives. So much so that it’s fitting of a blog of its own.
For now, let’s leave it as something that’s just better giving in to rather than gaining a complete understanding of it.
I will say if you start this practice, you’ll quickly notice the anxiety calming, even if it’s just a little bit.
Daily Practice
Ok, so now we know anxiety can keep us from the change we seek in our lives. We also understand where that anxiety is coming from and how to calm it.
Our next step is to incorporate a daily practice to keep that anxiety from taking over our thoughts and actions yet again.
This is how we gain control of our future and begin to create the life of our dreams!
#1 - WAKE UP HAPPY
Make your first thought in the morning something that puts a smile on your face!
Whether it’s something as simple as being thankful for your pillow, like Esther Hicks recommends in her YouTube videos, or it’s being thankful for something bigger like the ones you love, start your day in a way that helps you feel happy!
I first learned this habit as well as others when I took a Success Masterclass to help me make the big change of getting out of my dead-end career and go full time as a solo entrepreneur.
In the class, the instructor explains why it’s important to catch our brains in between the sleeping and awake states.
Basically, we want to catch our brains coming into consciousness and set the tone for the day. It makes sense that if we start our day off with negative thoughts, we could go through the entire day with negativity and lack productivity.
So why not make sure we get started with happy thoughts and help ourselves put the change we look for into action?
#2 - SET REMINDERS
I don’t know about you but the older I get, the more I need to remind myself to do things during the day or they’ll never get done. It’s that old adage “out of sight – out of mind,” I guess. Lol!
That’s why I choose to set gratitude reminders that will pop up on my phone throughout the day.
This is another practice I picked up from the masterclass I mentioned earlier that helps to keep me uplifted so I don’t gradually dip back into that anxious, stressed-out state of mind.
To set these reminders up, my app of choice is the one that comes with my Samsung phone, but every phone has something you can use. Even if it’s just something you add to your to-do app and set times throughout the day so something pops up on your screen.
I even add little messages, so I don’t have to really think about what to say to myself. Be careful to not just say the words but really feel grateful in your heart when you’re saying them.
This way when you begin to feel anxious again, you can quickly turn that into more of a feeling of gratitude and overcome the stress. Then you’ll begin to notice more motivation to take action toward the change you want in your life.
If you’re not able to give yourself reminders during the day, you can also just try writing down 5 NEW things you’re grateful for right before you go to bed. Another perk of using this practice is that it can help you get better sleep too.
#3 – USE YOUR IMAGINATION
Ok, this one might sound a little strange to help with anxiety but hear me out.
Have you ever wondered how successful people become successful? I have! And from my research one thing they have in common is spending some time daily in the practice of seeing themselves successful.
If they wanted that home by the ocean, they could see themselves sitting in their living room staring out at the ocean. An entrepreneur would imagine their product all finished and helping to solve people’s problems.
Again, they wouldn’t just see it happening, they’d feel it happening too.
Our imagination can place us in different scenarios all the time, which might seem a bit confusing. But if we focus on the feeling of the achievement, instantaneously the tension can cease, and we become more focused with better energy to get to work on tasks at hand that will bring us closer to the change we’re hoping to gain.
#4 – HAVE FAITH
Things have a way of working out for us.
Whether we know it at the time or not, sometimes we just need to be patient and wait to see how events unfold.
After all the experiences I’ve had, the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that we aren’t really supposed to know how we’re going to get from point A to point B in our lives.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to plan and have some goals in mind, but once we start down the path opportunities that we never had in mind or expected can surprise us.
All I wanted was the freedom to quit my career and pursue the new adventure of being an entrepreneur but I had absolutely no idea how that was going to happen.
I just had to focus on my daily tasks and believe that it would happen.
I just had to have faith!
Thankfully that wish was answered in a way I never even considered. Some of it is revealed in my “Best Way to Start Living the Dream” blog, if you’re curious.
#5 – LISTEN TO OTHER’S STORIES
Find 5 channels on YouTube, or even Rumble now, that really speak to your heart.
Look for stories that motivate, inspire or even entertain you. Most days you can watch 20 – 30 minutes during a lunch break to free your mind from the stresses of work and the anxiety of feeling alone.
Once you start hearing other’s stories, you’ll find even the successful have struggled at some point to make big changes in their lives.
Trust me, you are not alone! You are really not alone!
Bottom line is if you're anxious about making a big change in your life and follow your dreams, you can begin practicing some of these techniques that will calm that anxiety so you think more clearly and can act with ease upon the changes you'd like to make for yourself.
Try these practices for at least one week and make note of any changes, big or small, that happen along the way. You can even incorporate just one new one each week until you’re doing them all regularly.
Once you have something to report, I’d love to hear what you have discovered. Be sure to post a comment below this blog or send me a personal note.