As already said by Ghandi “Fear is our biggest enemy not hate”. For me fear, anxiety and negative thoughts are connected and are a big bottleneck in order to live a positive life you want and what you deserve.
For me anxiety started very early in my life. On a very young age I started to think about life and asked myself questions like, what are we doing here on earth, is this life real or a fantasy. Why are we born and why do we need to die and what is death? Since I thought a lot about this, especially when I was in bed at night, my fear of death and the unknown started. When I was around ten years old it really kept me awake at night and I started to get small panic attacks. At an age of eleven I started to see a psychologist on a weekly basis for around two years. This was more for me to start talking about it since I was afraid to speak about my fears. They treated me well but I’m not 100% convinced that they really helped me because it went worse when I was around sixteen years old and got my first real panic attack nearby my house and started to scream a lot – I was in such a deep thought about life and dead when I was cycling home from school and saw “eternal death” in front of me and that scared the hell out of me.
At the age of sixteen I finished high school, had long curly hair and was different than the other kids. I failed to get good results and realised that I was not good enough for this school. Since I was a good drummer (at least that is what I thought) I did audition to go to the conservatorium to become a famous rock drummer. During the audition I was so nervous that I blow away my change to get accepted to the conservatorium. During my youth I failed a lot at school and ‘failure’ really started to feed my anxiety and I had the feeling that nobody could help me. 24 years later my burn-out finally opened my eyes and it taught me how to deal with anxiety, how to reduce it and started to live a life I really want.
What would you do when you don’t have fear? Buggy jumping, presenting in front of a big audience, resign from your boring day to day job and start your own business, flying to your old friend who lives at the other side of the world, speak up in a group, call that boy or girl and ask for a night out…..why do we let fear and anxiety rule our lives?
It is a shame because we all have so many great ideas and needs, but fear and anxiety is keeping us from doing what we really want.
The three key elements that really supported me during my burn-out and started my fearless life are:
- Acceptance
- Self belief
- WITWTTCH – What is the worse thing that can happen?
Acceptance
Since you are now getting familiar with acceptance based on my other blog post I will start with acceptance. A positive lifestyle starts with accepting that you can’t influence what is not in your circle of influence. For example, the sun comes up’s each day, all living creatures will eventually die (circle of life). How hard we try we can’t change it. This is how I overcome my fear of death. Don’t get me wrong I still don’t like it and I still don’t want it to happen but I realised it is a waste of time to fight against it. I don’t have the power to influence it, I just needed to accept that there is nothing I can do about it. It took me 24 years to do but since I have managed it, it gives me so much more peace in my everyday life. I’m not a religious man but I think the feeling I have, to come to terms with death must be similar with religious people that believe that all things will be fine after they die, as long as they live according the ‘rules’. The rules I live by is to accept that I can’t influence everything.
Acceptance is not easy because since human mankind we want to have influence on nature and make our own decisions.
Fear of flying, oh man I was so afraid of stepping on a plane, sleepless nights, small panic attacks. I had my first flight when I was 19 years old and since then I just don’t like flying, luckily I only flew ones a year when we went on summer holiday. Since I started to work in 1999, I started to fly more regular and the last 8 years I fly almost each week and sometimes twice a week. I overcome my fear of flying by accepting that flying is one of the safest ways of transportation. I had read a lot about airplanes it and I almost know every single sound you hear in and outside a plane during a flight. Since I overcome the fear of flying, shortly after my burn-out I feel so much more relax on a flight and actually started to enjoy flying. I flew to all major cities in Europe, been to Asia and the US a couple of times.
When you can accept that you can’t change what is not in your circle of influence you will find out that fear and anxiety have no way to be a big part in your life. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
Self belief
The most difficult part of the 3 key elements is “Self belief”. Our mind is wandering all the time and is mainly focusing on the negative experience you have had in your life and about your self-esteem. I started this blog with some example of my youth. If I want, I can write a full book about all the failures in my life, but that is boring because you miss all the great things that I have succeed in my life. During my burn-out I wrote down my biggest ‘failures’ in life and wrote next to it how successful I’m. I was really surprised that it is actually not that bad hence I reckon you should do a similar exercise.
A couple of examples:
- I wasn’t good in learning during high school -> graduated at the university of applied science and became the COO of a listed internet company and responsible for all our offices around the world
- Was not accepted at the conservatorium -> still having fun in drumming and released an album with my band
- Spending 3 years to get kids -> First daughter born after a couple of IVF treatment and son and second daughter born via the “natural way”
- During the burst of the internet bubble (2001) I couldn’t find a job for a full year -> wrote more than 100 job applications, went to 30 job interviews and got rejected 29 times. When I was hired I became the COO 13 years later
- I stutter a lot and I’m very insecure -> I now give presentations in front of big audiences (+500 people) and play drums in front of 1000 people
These are just a couple of examples and I guess you can also pick a couple for yourself and realize it is not that bad and that you are actually very good!
In my blog about reminder cards, I already mentioned the 2 min power pose by Amy Cuddy. The reason why this really works is that during the power pose you are raising you testosterone level hence a big boost of dopamine is getting active in your brain. This makes you feel more confident. You are tricking your brain and that is ok, it is tricking you also with unnecessary fear and anxiety, please try it, it really works!
After my burnout I read two great books, which I recommend you to read yourself:
- The stress test – how pressure can make you stronger and sharper – http://amzn.to/2mfsBVi A good learning from this book about feeling more confident is to activate your left frontal lobe of your brain by squeezing a rubber ball (stress ball) for around 45 seconds in your RIGHT hand. This will activate the positive part of your brain. Repeat it a couple times, it is amazing!
- Leaders eat last – http://amzn.to/2lsOj3E in this book Simon will go over the four hormones, Endorphin, Dopamine, Serotonin and Oxytocin and how they can give you more self-confidence.
Life is a rock show and you are the rock star that is on stage and performing a great show. Start believing in yourself, because if you don’t do it nobody will!
WITWTTCH – What is the worse thing that can happen?
This is what I learned during my sessions with the psychologist during my burnout. Our sessions were based on cognitive behaviour therapy. (since 2020 I’m a certified cognitive behaviour therapist myself). In everyday life our mind in wandering about 160 times a day and your inner voice can be very irritating and your thought are making your anxious and feeling bad about situations. But…..are these thoughts the reality and are they true? No not all the time and what I learned was to think about “what is the worse thing that can happen?”. This simple sentence is so powerful to change your anxious mind into a happy mind that is free to live a life you want.
When you have moments when you feel insecure, anxious or having fear, always ask your self the question “what is the worse thing that can happen?
A couple of examples?
- I will start to stutter during my presentation and the audience will think I can’t do it -> 1% of the world population stutters, so you are not the only one. Is it really true that when you stutter people think you can’t do it, of course not! Have some self-mockery and make a joke about it
- When I need to play drums with my band on stage I might forget a break in a song -> I played these songs hundred times, I know them by heart and If I miss a break I will play something different and call it “improvisation”
- During a training session I might get a black out -> The people at the training see you for the first time and if you get a black out you just look up and you will always find something to talk about and trust me that they don’t realize you have had a black out.
It is really our inner critical voice that we should not believe, his/her thoughts are not always true and you know better than your inner critical voice, listen more to your inner heart and don’t forget to rocknroll – Believe in your self !
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash
