Ways to Reduce Anxiety Through Action
Action is the Antidote
You may have heard the phrase before “action is the antidote to anxiety”. While this may seem all too simple, especially when handling the anxiety that comes with making larger life decisions, research has shown that there is a significant amount of truth to the statement.
Be it unpacking after a hectic move or making decisions on who receives what percentage of your legacy when faced with a large and important decision, we as humans often face lots of anxiety and pressure on coming up with an informed decision and making sure our best interests are carried out. Oftentimes, however, this leads us down a rabbit-hole of overthinking and overanalyzing which in turn causes significant anxiety and turns a seemingly simple/decision that requires an adequate amount of thought into one that seems unmanageable (better known as “analysis paralysis“). By following these 4 tips, ensure that you avoid the anxiety and reduce the stress that comes with making large decisions through action-based strategies.
Make a Plan & Break it Down
When it comes to decisions that require a large amount of dedication & careful planning (i.e.: will & estate planning), making all the decisions at once can seem very daunting. In order to help clear the fear, find the smallest action you can take and take it step-by-step, asking yourself along the way: “can I just get this one little thing done?”
With estate planning, you may be thinking that the first step would be to reach out to multiple different estate attorneys and figure out which one is the “best-fit” for you. This is actually often counterproductive and instead, a much better alternative that can feel much more manageable and directly actionable can be to sit down and write out your own personal best interests. What assets do I want to leave behind? Who do I want them to go to? How much do I want to spend to secure the future of my loved ones? These are all questions you can start answering and writing down and create momentum that can help carry you through the larger steps of the process.
Go With Your Gut-Feeling (T-A-F)
For many of us; myself included, thinking about the first step tends to make us more anxious than actually taking the first step. As simple and counterproductive as it may seem, in many instances when facing anxiety on decision making, going with your “gut” & intuition is a largely underrated tool. While there are certainly moments when planning and reflection help (i.e.: making a plan before reaching out to an estate attorney), there are many times where the best course of action is to just pick something to do, do it & assess how it affected you emotionally after.
Be it considering creating an estate plan or making that last step in booking travel, waiting too long creates an analysis trap and by following the Think, Act, Feel (T-A-F) framework you can easily avoid the unnecessary anxiety that comes with these moments. Using the travel booking as an example in this scenario, the T-A-F framework would work in the following way:
Think: When finally booking the last part of a travel plan, many anxious thoughts can pop into your head: what if there’s a better deal? What if my plans change? What if the flight gets cancelled/I miss my flight? Realize that these thoughts will continue to exist until you’ve acted to minimize them.
Act: While the initial step can seem daunting, going with my gut and loading up the reservation page, inserting the dates, and going with whatever is most convenient/whatever has the best review places me in a mindset of action and lets me quell my worries before they even arise.
Feel: After completing my purchase, I can then allow myself to feel my emotional state and answer any lingering questions that may still exist. It also allows me to feel better by providing me with a conclusion on many of the questions that may arise.
Key Takeaways
Unfortunately, anxiety about decision-making is something that we all face. Be it in the professional world on the day-to-day decisions we make in our careers to our long-term decisions on our life and what mark we want to leave behind, the anxiety is prevalent. Reducing anxiety and managing stress is important but ultimately, the best method to ensure that your anxiety about the situation is limited is through taking action.
So if you feel like you’re ready to take the next step in reducing the anxiety you may face on securing the future for you and your loved ones and make sure your best interests are represented, book a consultation meeting with us that can allow us to walk you through what you want your future to look like. Allow us to help you walk through the seasons of life with a sure mind knowing that we’ll be there with you in the event of an accident or emergency and that through taking action, you are taking the antidote to anxiety.