Anxiety

We all would have had some situations in our lives when we had been overly anxious. If we recall what actually happened, no doubt we would realize that at the time of the incident, we were not in control of ourselves. It would also probably be true that if we had kept cool instead of being anxious, we would have dealt with the situation in a better manner. There are some memories we have of people, perhaps of ourselves, who fared badly in a game or in a race because he was not cool. How about the footballer who missed the goal because he was anxious rather than cool, or the badminton player who lost because he was not cool, or the man who failed his driving test because he was not cool? These are common occurrences. The more serious ones are like when a person fails to get a job because he is not cool during an interview.

According to experts, a person is anxious because he is afraid that he might fail. Then he fails because he is anxious. This is a vicious circle. The solution seems to be that a person has a better chance of succeeding in anything if he is confident of success; since that confidence would keep him cool. To get to the bottom of this, it is necessary to see why a person is afraid to fail. The obvious answer seems to be that he has failed before in the same or in a similar situation and is afraid that it would happen again. The solution seems to be obvious: To cure the spell of anxiety, the person should not think of the times he failed but of the times he succeeded. This may not be as easy as it sounds.

The fact is that a person is anxious by habit and what needs curing is the habit itself. An excellent and practical technique has been suggested by some experts. In order to keep cool, a typically anxious person should list down all the failures (or lack of successes) in his life. For each of these, he should find an area of success – preferably greater than the area of failure. For example. the footballer who is anxious whenever he is taking a penalty kick (probably because he had missed on other occasions), should think of the times when he had scored a really difficult goal. What happens is that he programs his mind to think of the successes he has had whenever the thought of failure comes to his mind. He uses the negative to trigger the positive. If he does this several times on his own, he will develop a positive attitude. As soon as he develops that, he is cool itself. One question arises immediately: What if a person has never known success in the area he wants to? The experts say that this is easily resolved. The same result can be achieved by just pretending the good experiences. It seems that the mind cannot tell the difference between a real experience and an imagined one. In other words, you will benefit by imagining good things happening to you.

Constant practice is necessary in order to keep cool. After continual practice – perhaps for a few months – a person becomes cool. It is assured by practitioners that keeping cool will give us a richer and better life.