By Ken Lubin
Founder Executive Athletes
Accepting anxiety is a sign that I must do what is necessary. It means that I need to make things happen. It means that I can do what I do best. It means that there is power that is coming out of my mind/body that needs to be unleashed and that the anxiety is there for a reason. Anxiety is priming the pump for greatness and is a tool that we all need to survive. If we didn’t feel anxious we would never be ready for anything. It is a tool that forces you to focus and to prepare, to be better than you were yesterday and to be ready to launch forward. It is also there because it tells you when you are doing things the wrong way, it is there because it shows your weaknesses and forces you to the face those weaknesses. As a lifelong sufferer of anxiety, debilitating at some points, I have decided to embrace it, make it my friend. I believe anxiety is a tool for greatness! It is a tool that gets you excited and wakes you up in the morning to be ready to perform. It is a tool that forces you to do/be/get better if you recognize it as such. It forces me to do the deep work, to ask the questions: How do I perform? What do I need to do to be ready to perform? How do I lever this internal power to move forward?
They say it is a flight or fight response, imagine if you took that power for fight!
Using that power to fight your battles both internally and externally rather than just sitting on the couch with all that pent up energy that isn’t being used. You could use that energy to party or you could use it perform. Both are state changers, but which one yields a better result? Anxiety is a performance tool, anxiety is your body's way of telling you to take action and make shit happen. Anxiety for me happens when I know I need to do something that makes me uncomfortable, that is what it is there for. Feel it, embrace it, use it to perform. When used correctly, this is a huge step and direction forward. Use it as a tool that makes you think, that prepares you to be your best. We all have physiology for a reason, we all have minds for a reason, and we all have bodies, they are all connected. The mind is telling the body it is time to perform, it is a way to say you can do this right now and I am giving you the extra power to do it, if I embrace that power I will see tremendous results. Imagine going into a challenge without anxiety, that would suck worse because your senses aren’t aware, they are not ready or alert and you will be taken off guard, the anxiety is getting you ready to perform and to be your best.
Today I am going to use my anxiety to take me to that next level in all aspects of my life, I am going to use it to become better than I was yesterday and I going to prove to myself I can perform at the highest levels of myself. That is how you get to the next level!
By Ken Lubin ken@executiveathletes.com