Thankfully, I quickly recognized this old subconscious strategy of mine: Using stress and anxiety as a way to motivate myself.
Before I let it have too much power and ruin all my excitement, I paused, took a deep breath, and did 3 things that I'm sharing with you today to shift out of it.
First, I'm going to ask you a tough question that I want you to answer honestly, First name / friend: Are you the reason you're not enjoying your life right now?
Maybe you're using stress and anxiety as a way to keep yourself motivated.
Maybe you're letting fear run the show because you're not sure you'd work as hard if you let it go.
Or maybe you're afraid that if you allow yourself to enjoy where you are, you'll become complacent and settle in your life.
If your answer to that question is, “Yep, that's me.” I want you to know that these are incredibly common (and sneaky) ways we forbade joy in our lives.
Stress and anxiety will keep us motivated for a while, but they're terrible strategies for the long haul. And if you want to be wildly successful, you're going to need to play the long game.
So now that you've taken ownership, let's do something about it so you can really thrive in your life while going after your goals.
Here are 3 ways you can release the stress, fear, and anxiety WITHOUT becoming lazy, unmotivated, and complacent:
1. Shift Your Beliefs
We do this by first paying attention to how we feel. Are you stressed? Anxious? Fearful? What beliefs are those feelings tied to? Dive in and see what comes up.
Imagine you can simply flip a switch to where all of a sudden you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that your wildest dreams were going to come true.
Your needs will be met abundantly and you'll be fulfilled in the process.You don't know how or when, but you have full confidence that you are going to accomplish your biggest dreams and then some.
You fully believe you are capable and that everything always works out for your highest good. All of a sudden, you're full of faith, curiosity, and confidence.
2. Find Positive Motivators
Negative motivators mean we want to avoid something. This is what we're doing when we use stress and anxiety as motivation to avoid pain or undesirable circumstances. It works for a time, but because of the negative implications stress and anxiety have on us long-term, it does way more harm than good.
Plus, our brains will search for more of whatever we focus on. I don't know about you, but I want to find proof of abundance, opportunity, and success.
Which is why it's important to have positive motivators. What DO you want to experience? What will accomplishing your goals allow you to do? Keep those things top of mind and tap into that positive motivation.
3. Take Experimental Action
When I was training to become a coach 8 years ago, we were taught to treat goals as experiments. This is a powerful shift that allows us to hone one of the most important traits for success: Curiosity.
Embracing curiosity allows us to stay interested, release expectations of the outcome, and build an underlying belief in ourselves to accomplish something.
This allows us to learn and play with a variety of strategies to see which ones fit us and our goals best. It also helps us increase our resilience and reframe how we view failure.
It's really possible to enjoy the process and have fun bringing your dreams to life. I hope you choose to let yourself!
If you've been feeling wildly stressed, ask yourself: What am I stressing about? What am I afraid will happen if I let go of that stress?
