Action is the cure to anxiety
If you’re anything like me, you want results yesterday. It’s a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing in that it means that I keep moving forward. It’s a curse in that sometimes I could relax a bit (pro-tip: get a cool female friend who can give it to you straight and who you can unwind with).
When I first read the book Relentless by Tim Grover (must read if you haven’t already), I couldn’t believe how much I could relate to the book. There were so many things that I always thought about but couldn’t quite put into words.
I am a pretty resilient person, or at least I’d like to think so. There are times nonetheless where I get anxiety that keeps me up at night. By all objective metrics, I’m doing well. I’m making what IRS/Department of Labor data says is a good amount of money. To be fair, when I left NYC, I was only dating 2 girls who both knew about each other, so I might be slipping a bit.
Despite all this, I too get anxiety that I’m falling behind. Am I really falling behind? Meh, probably not. That doesn’t stop the thoughts.
What does stop the thoughts is taking action. What I do is every Sunday evening, I write down a list of action items that I intend to hammer out for the week. I have played with other systems to track goals, and I found that simple is better. The best system is the one you actually use. You don’t need some fancy apps or spreadsheets. You just need a to-do checklist. Whether it’s on a Word doc, an entry on your phone, or pen and paper doesn’t matter. Just write down all the items that you want to hammer out for the week that will get you closer to your big picture goals, and make sure during the week that you knock them out. Audit it the next weekend. What went well, what didn’t go well, what do you want to sustain, and what do you want to improve.
What does NOT stop the thoughts: alcohol, escapism, taking shortcuts, making excuses, doomscrolling, strip club binges, “going out” but instead of actually socializing you’re just derping at the bar with your Corona or Red Bull vodka, hooking up with girls objectively below your standard, productive procrastination like binging YouTube videos or Wikipedia articles but not taking action…
It’s almost as if I know a thing or two about that.
The last few months, I learned a ton about my own psychology. I have some avoidant tendencies. We all have some quirks. What I am now able to do is recognize when I am default retreating into avoidance or retreating into old coping mechanisms.
If you’re feeling stuck, give it 3-6 months of aggressive action taking. There are years where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where your life completely 180’s. Sometimes all you need are a few lucky breaks, and you create your own luck through aggressive action taking.
Summary:
If you feel anxiety that you’re falling behind—you’re not alone
The proper way to deal with this is taking action—make a weekly checklist and tick items off one by one
We all have some coping mechanisms to avoid doing the work—identify yours and realize when you are leaning into them instead of leaning into doing the right thing
3-6 months of aggressive action taking can change your life—sometimes all you need are a few lucky breaks
https://x.com/Bowtiedplayer