Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Anxiety

How Thought-Stopping Can Help You Overcome Negative Thinking and Get Unstuck

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How Thought-Stopping Can Help You Overcome Negative Thinking and Get Unstuck To avoid getting trapped in negative thoughts such as “No one will hire me,” “I’m so angry,” or “I’m an imposter,” thought stopping can be a lifesaver. This technique is particularly effective in preventing your mind from fixating on distressing situations. The more frustrated and irate you get, the more likely you are to avoid thinking about it. But then you end up blaming yourself for remaining stuck.

When you catch yourself indulging in unproductive thoughts, immediately shout “STOP!” and shift your focus to a productive task. You can take a small step toward your goal by reading an article, watching a video, or reaching out to a trusted friend for suggestions on how to enhance your situation.

It’s also vital to assess if the negative thought is justified or if there’s anything you can do to improve the situation.

While it’s true that thought-stopping alone may not be adequate to address all causes of being stuck, it can still be a potent tool to help you identify negative thoughts that play repeatedly in your mind. Once you become aware of these thoughts, you can break free from the cycle of negativity and move forward positively by taking small steps to get unstuck.

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  3. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  4. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  5. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy

What You Most Fear Doing is What You Most Need to Do

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What You Most Fear Doing is What You Most Need to Do Sometimes when you’re anxious about things, you tend to push them out of your grasp. Instead of evading from frustrating encounters thus, ask yourself, “What can I do that’ll make me more competent to tackle this problem?”

Don’t postpone the problem. Start with a baby step. A single, small accomplishment may promote new feelings of accomplishment and spark a sense of self-confidence. You’ll be pleased with yourself for taking charge.

When you like yourself better, you’ll begin to get more productive and improve your life in small ways, which can lead to bigger achievements.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. What Are You So Afraid Of? // Summary of Susan Jeffers’s ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’
  2. How to Face Your Fear and Move Forward
  3. How to Turn Your Fears into Fuel
  4. Trying to Be Perfect is Where Your Troubles Begin
  5. Nothing Like a Word of Encouragement to Provide a Lift

Things Will Look Up Soon

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Things Will Look Up Soon There’ll be days when you’ll feel down in the dumps. You’ll have those days when the band, singer, or ensemble you enjoy won’t suddenly make your anxiety disappear. When the show you’ve been watching won’t fascinate you as much as it did the previous day. When you’ll not feel like being with a loved one.

Feeling helpless is something that all people suffer from time to time. You may become dispassionate or disengaged from the things and people that ground you. The hobbies you care for don’t cheer you up.

Sometimes, it’s just a day that only you can get through, even if you feel nobody understands what you’re going through. Nobody’s going to do your life for you. Hang in there—you’ll soon find ways to deal with it and emerge from what can feel like a hole or a dark tunnel with no end.

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  4. Get Everything Out of Your Head
  5. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal

Trying to Be Perfect is Where Your Troubles Begin

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Trying to Be Perfect is Where Your Troubles Begin Fear of failure is one of the insidious confidence killers. Instead of living life in a place of self-acceptance, many folks try to live up to unrealistic ideals. They’re on a continual treadmill, chasing the illusory feeling of urging on everything in their lives to be “perfect.”

When you cling to the all-or-nothing standard, all your endeavors result in perfection or failure. This mindset drives you to see yourself as a disappointment again and again.

Let go of dichotomy. You needn’t be “perfect or failure.” Don’t build yourself up to fail with the unattainable goal of always being perfect. Instead, set goals that are very achievable and within your control. Make your goal just to take action. Not to achieve a perfect outcome, not even to a positive outcome, but just to be done. Completed with a satisfactory result. Checked off.

Idea for Impact: You don’t have to give 110% or even 100% to everything you do. Be very selective about when you want to push yourself to the max—only when the stakes are big enough and when your perfectionism is thoroughly justified.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. What Are You So Afraid Of? // Summary of Susan Jeffers’s ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’
  2. How to Turn Your Fears into Fuel
  3. How to Face Your Fear and Move Forward
  4. Change Your Perfectionist Mindset (And Be Happier!) This Holiday Season
  5. Just Start

What to Do If You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night Worrying About Stuff

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What to Do If You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night Worrying About Stuff

Intrusive thoughts can take control of your mind at the worst possible times—when you’re trying to go to bed or having trouble staying asleep in the middle of the night. It may take hours to fall asleep if you’re agitated about your job, finances, relationship conflict, or other trouble.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep within 20 minutes, get out of bed and do something calming. Sip some tea or read yourself to sleep.

When your brain is revved up about unsettled impediments that you may be avoiding, devote a few minutes to journal about whatever is bugging you. Get everything out of your head. Or scribble at least one baby step you can take to address each issue.

Idea for Impact: Journaling and working through your stress—processing powerful emotions, clearing your mind, and brainstorming solutions—can help deal with the stressors. If you have persistent insomnia, talk to a healthcare provider.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  3. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  4. Learn to Cope When You’re Stressed
  5. How to Encourage Yourself During Tough Times

Do You Really Need More Willpower?

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Do You Really Need More Willpower?

Sure, self-discipline is an asset. Plenty of successful people evidently benefit from having truckloads of it. However, strengthening willpower may not always be easy for the rest of us.

You can increase productivity and contentment simply by altering your environment. Make it easier for you (and others in your life) to confront temptation and adopt the habits you want.

Use stimulus control to shift your behavior:

  • Want to stop taking on more debt? Freeze your credit cards.
  • Can’t stop checking your phone for likes, comments, texts, tweets, and game requests? Disable the apps.
  • Want your household to be more organized? Establish routines and make things easy to put away with clearly labeled receptacles.
  • Want to switch to healthier snacking choices? Splurge on pre-washed, pre-cut, grab-and-go vegetables.

You’re more likely to start change when you put the stimulus for action into your environment.

Idea for Impact: Don’t get bogged down by thinking that lifestyle changes are entirely about willpower. In a world so heavily baited with pervasive cues and craving-inducing stimuli, the more you can tweak your environment to better condition yourself into your desired habits, the more likely you are to meet your goals.

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  4. How to Turn Your Procrastination Time into Productive Time
  5. Small Steps, Big Revolutions: The Kaizen Way // Summary of Robert Maurer’s ‘One Small Step Can Change Your Life’

“Fly the Aircraft First”

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Attention Prioritization: Lessons from Eastern Airlines Flight 401 Today is the 50th anniversary of the Flight 401 disaster. I’ve previously cited how the crew of the ill-fated Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-1011 got so single-mindedly preoccupied with tackling a nose landing gear indicator light malfunction that they didn’t pay attention to the fact that their airliner was descending gradually into the Florida Everglades.

In summary, the pilots were too distracted to fly the aircraft. Human factors, specifically cognitive impairments, can precipitate distractions away from vital tasks.

The incident led to a breakthrough called Crew Resource Management (CRM.) This “human nature innovation” actively orients pilots to prioritize tasks in order of operational safety. The adage “Aviate, Navigate, and Communicate (A-N-C)” reinforces the ‘fly the aircraft first’behaviors until they’re internalized and become routine.

The top priority—always—is to aviate. That means fly the airplane by using the flight controls and flight instruments to direct the airplane’s attitude, airspeed, and altitude. Rounding out those top priorities are figuring out where you are and where you’re going (Navigate,) and, as appropriate, talking to ATC or someone outside the airplane (Communicate.) However, it doesn’t matter if we’re navigating and communicating perfectly if we lose control of the aircraft and crash. A-N-C seems simple to follow, but it’s easy to forget when you get busy or distracted in the cockpit.

Idea for Impact: “Fly the aircraft first.” Know when to set aside the seemingly important things to accomplish the more vital ones.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Lessons from the World’s Worst Aviation Disaster // Book Summary of ‘The Collision on Tenerife’
  2. How Stress Impairs Your Problem-Solving Capabilities: Case Study of TransAsia Flight 235
  3. What Airline Disasters Teach About Cognitive Impairment and Decision-Making Under Stress
  4. Pulling Off the Impossible Under Immense Pressure: Leadership Lessons from Captain Sully
  5. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’

Public Speaking is Traumatizing Vulnerable Students

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Public Speaking is Traumatizing Vulnerable Students For decades, universities have forced presentations and class participation to be integral to students’ grades. Sure, employers are interested not only in graduates’ subject knowledge but also in their ability to communicate, work in teams, problem-solve, build consensus, and so on.

However, public speaking anxiety is too common in college students, particularly those suffering from chronic social anxiety. Some even dread the sheer prospect of raising their hands in class for fear of being judged.

Sadly, our academic institutions aren’t doing enough to support such students. College is, after all, a place to practice in a supportive environment—it’s better for students to confront their fears in a relatively low-stakes classroom setting than in the real world. One lecturer I know of accommodated a nervous student by dismissing everyone else and making her present only to the professor.

Colleges must emphasize that anxiety and fear of public speaking are entirely normal—Mark Twain famously noted, “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.” Colleges should assess individual students’ natural ability and teach public speaking as part of university learning, starting with systematic desensitization and conditioning confidence until the students feel they can tackle entire presentations.

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  4. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue
  5. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’

3 Ways to … Stay Calm Under Immense Pressure

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How to Stay Calm Under Immense Pressure Under intense pressure, our patterns of thought, judgment, and action can prove remarkably maladaptive. Here’s how to keep what’s already bad from worsening, stem the contingency, and take charge of dreadful circumstances.

  1. Be clear about what you need to do. Don’t over-optimize every variable. People who get stuff done under pressure precisely understand what they want. And they’re selective about when they push themselves to the max—only when the stakes are big enough and when the pressure is entirely justified.
  2. Do a threat assessment. Beware, pressure can narrow the cognitive map and blind you to become fixated on one line of thought. Keep an eye on all critical parameters and maintain awareness of the situation across the board.
  3. Put things into perspective. Reframe priorities and values. Stress is generally sourced in the feeling of not being in control, and tuning into the uncontrollable can intensify the pressure. Consider the situation objectively and ask what’s the worst that could happen. Have a plan ready, and focus on the task—not the outcome.

Idea for Impact: Mastery is a process. Practice simulated high-stress situations, just as pilots learn to handle panel instrument malfunctions on flight simulators.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’
  2. This Trick Can Relieve Your Anxiety: “What’s the worst that can happen?”
  3. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  4. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be
  5. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal

How to… Reframe Negative Thoughts

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Think Your Way Out of a Negative Thought

Modest self-doubt is normal when you’re analyzing your past or thinking about the future. But it’s easy to give in to negative chatter in your head and get lost in a mental house of mirrors. There’s no cognitive off switch for brooding, but a little internal coaching can help quiet this voice.

Start by recognizing negative thoughts and ask yourself—is this useful? Or is it not useful? Recognize that negative talk is unhelpful. Bring your focus back to self-compassion—let go of the judgments you hold about yourself, your body, and your moods.

Whenever your mind squawks, hone in and try to identify the exact emotion you’re experiencing. Ask yourself, “What’s at the core of what’s going on here?” Instead of using a broad label like “worry” or “stress,” drill down deeper into those feelings. Are you feeling vulnerable, or are you anxious about an outcome?

Reassess those pesky thoughts that play on a loop in your mind. Catch yourself embracing insistent expressions such as “always,” “never,” and “forever.” The more you attend to such notions about yourself, the more you believe in them, regardless of whether they’re true. Before you go into a negative spin, ask yourself if you really are failing at everything and if you’re always too busy to find time for your loved ones.

Idea for Impact: Rewrite Your Negative Self-Talk Script

If dwelling on critical moments is dragging you down, it’s time to take action. Rather than fault yourself for the swirl of thoughts, tell yourself you’re troubleshooting, planning, and preparing. Get on with the things you want to do. The momentum of positive emotions builds up as soon as you take action. If dwelling on critical moments is dragging you down, it’s time to take action

[Re-scripting your self-talk (“I can rehearse this presentation and ask a friend for feedback”) can help you prepare for any challenges and stop worrying about them incessantly.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. The Power of Negative Thinking
  2. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  3. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal
  4. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy
  5. How to Think Your Way Out of a Negative Thought