 The reason why I am the quote unquote mindset guys, because I have to work on my mindset, sometimes more than other people, just to motivate myself to get shit done. Whoa. Today, I'm gonna talk about anxiety and I'm gonna give you a formula to remove yourself from any anxious thoughts, any anxious feelings and any anxiety that happens to be going on in your present moment or anything that might come up for you. And this right here that I'm gonna share with you is a strategy that I've used for tons of my clients before in the past. And it's actually a strategy I've used for myself. And it's actually a strategy, the reason why I'm talking about it is because it's a strategy I had to use for myself at 4 a.m. in the morning a few days ago. And I don't know if you guys have ever done this before where you wake up in the morning, it's early in the morning, maybe you have to go to the bathroom or you hear noise or dogs are barking or something like that. And then immediately a thought comes through of something that needs to be done or something that you have to do or it could be an anxious thought. I don't know what it is for you. But that first thought gets your brain going and then once your brain gets going, it's gone. You can't stop it. And so a few nights ago, we've been super, super busy in my business this week. We have an event that we're planning which we'll tell you about later. We have a mastermind that we're planning that's coming up as well, another three day event. We have tons of other amazing things that are coming up and it's all good stuff. But the problem is I woke up to go to the bathroom and immediately one thing that I had to do popped into my head and then it was a cascade of all of these different things. Oh my gosh, I'm behind on doing this. I've got to reach out to this person. I've got to get a quote for this. I've got to get this, this. I have to negotiate this price. And it started to become all of these anxious thoughts rolling into my head. One of the things that's a huge misconception is because I'm a mindset guy that I must have this perfect mindset and nothing holds me back but nothing can be further from the truth. The reason why I am the quote unquote mindset guys because I have to work on my mindset sometimes more than other people just to motivate myself to get shit done. And so what happened was I had the first thought, I had the second thought, third thought and I was sitting in bed for about 45 minutes. So it's about four o'clock in the morning, right? I'm in bed and I'm like, I'm not falling asleep. It's not happening. And I was like, I have to get up and I have to use my strategy on myself and I had to get up and I had to get my journal. So I went into the living room, I got my journal, four o'clock in the morning and I started journaling some of the stuff that I needed to and I'm gonna take you through exactly what it is that I did for myself and what I've done for many other clients as well. I've worked with a lot of different people that have anxiety problems and this is just one of the strategies I've come up with. And the first thing is the awareness that I'm having anxious thoughts. That's the first thing, right? Like the first thing is now you have to, you're inside of your head, you're having anxious thoughts, you're inside of your head, you're having anxious thoughts, pause and notice as the observer what's going on here. Oh, okay, yep, I've done this before. I know exactly where I am. I'm in the middle of anxious thoughts. I need to then remove myself outside of my head. You know, it's like the quote when you take yourself, if you don't take yourself out of the jar, you can't read the label. Inside of the jar is inside of my head. I need to take myself out of my own head, become the observer and say, what is actually happening here? Oh, too many thoughts, too many anxious thoughts. And one of the things about anxiety is that anxiety comes from your thoughts. And when you Google and actually start to look up and research anxiety, there is no cure for anxiety. And the reason why is because it comes from your thoughts, there's no actual, hey, you have anxiety, this is the chemical that you should take. Now I will tell you this, people do have that you can go to a doctor and if you have too much anxious thoughts, they will give you stuff to then make you feel different and put different chemicals into your brain, but it's not a chemical imbalance, right? So I've had anxiety attacks before in the past. It's been a long time since that's happened. I've been around many people in the middle of anxiety attacks. I've worked with many people who have anxiety. Some of them that have such crippling anxiety, they literally cannot even leave their house. Their social anxiety is so high that they haven't left their house in two to three years. And the reason why is because it all comes from the thoughts. And when thoughts are in your head, they're extremely hard to deal with, right? It's like trying to grab water. Like when your thoughts are in your head and you're trying to work through thoughts, it's like trying to grab onto water. Like you will never really grab it. It's always gonna get away from you, right? So thoughts can't stay in your head because thoughts are too abstract. You need to get all of your thoughts and put them on paper because to try to wrangle up your thoughts and to try to figure out what's going on and figure out how to work through them is like trying to punch somebody in the dark. Like you're not going to see that person. Maybe every once in a while you take four, five, six swings and on the hundredth swing you might hit that person but then they're gone again and they move. That's kind of like figuring out your thoughts in your own head and too many times people are trying to figure out their issues. They're trying to figure out what's going on in their head. They're trying to figure out why they feel the way that they feel. They're trying to figure out why they're sad, why they're depressed, why they're anxious, why their life isn't going the way that they want to but they never get a fricking pen and paper and write down what's actually going on, right? So I sat down with my journal and I wrote down a few questions, right? If you have ever learned how to journal for me before in the past, it's super simple. You just ask yourself questions and then you force yourself to answer it. So I was writing down and I noticed that I was having anxious thoughts. So I said, what am I having anxious thoughts about? And I just wrote them down. And there was like 17 things. It was like a massive list of all of these things that started flooding through because so much was on my plate. So many plates were spinning at one time. Kind of what happens sometimes when you grow a business and the higher you go, the harder the wind blows, right? The wind was blowing hard that morning. And so the first thing I wrote down is what am I having anxious thoughts about? And I wrote all the different things down and I just brain dumped, put them all down. Okay, I've got to do this for this person, this for this person, this thing has to happen. I got to make sure that I plan all my podcast episodes. I've got to record all the podcast episodes, this, this, this, this, all of these things. I put them all down on a piece of paper, right? Then what I did is I took each individual one and started working through it, right? I started working through each individual one and then helped myself come up with a plan. And so let me show you how this works. So next time you feel some anxiety, now this isn't going to help you in the middle of a panic attack, I promise you that, because by the time you're in a panic attack, you're already too far, like you're too far, you just have to wait till that calms down. But if you feel just anxious thoughts, you feel sad, you don't feel right, this is something that you could use. So you write down and say, what am I feeling anxious about? What am I not liking? What am I fearing right now? Whatever it is that's there in front of you, you write it down. You take it out of your head, you put it on that piece of paper, right? The next thing you ask yourself is what's the worst that could happen? Now you might think this is not a good question to ask somebody who's in the middle of having anxious thoughts, but it is because I'm going to show you exactly why that is, right? So what's the worst that could happen? The next question is what's the best that can happen? Right, because I want to contrast the worst that can happen. And then the last step is what, last question is what is my next best step to make me feel better right now, right? So let's go through those questions and talk about why they're important and exactly how to work for them, okay? You write down the question, what am I feeling anxious about? And you write down all of the things that you might be feeling anxious about, all of those, right? We all have things that can pop up in the back of your head. We all have busy moments. We all have stressful moments. We all have sad moments in our life. But what we're doing by actually writing it down and not letting it be in our head anymore, we're putting on a piece of paper is we're basically in that room trying to punch somebody in the dark and we flip the lights on. And we're like, oh, they're right there. I see them. That alone, 90% of the time makes somebody go, okay, it's on a piece of paper. I feel so much better about it because it's not abstract anymore. It's there. It's literally tangible. I can see it on that piece of paper. Usually that starts through relief. And a lot of times people don't know what's making them feel anxious. And so when they're able to take it, put it down and identify it, it already just by writing it down makes them feel so much better, right? So that's the first thing. Let's identify. Maybe it's one thing. Maybe it's 17 things like it was for me, right? Now let's go into what's the worst that could happen. Here's why this is important is because when you don't put it on paper and you're dealing with it abstractly, your brain makes up these fears that are completely illogical and are ridiculous, right? Oh my gosh, if I don't end up getting this done, I'm gonna lose my house and my kids and my family. And that's where your brain immediately goes to the worst possible outcome. So I'm gonna put down what's the worst that could happen so that I can literally see it and go, oh my God, that's ridiculous. That's never gonna happen, right? Because 99.9% of the time, it never gets as bad as your brain actually makes it before you put it on a piece of paper. So when you write down what's the worst that could happen and it's like, oh, I could lose my job and my family could be homeless and my kids could be homeless and my wife could divorce me and I could be a terrible father. And then you look at it and you're like, yeah, but that's not gonna happen. Like that's ridiculous. And usually that's what happens when you actually take it and put it down on paper and you see it. You identify, once again, flip the lights on so that you can see what's going on in your head. So what's the worst that could happen? I want to identify that and I want to get clear on what that is. Because then I can go, ah, that's not gonna happen. I'm not gonna let that happen, all right? Let's go to the next step. What's the best that can happen, right? So let's look at it positively. So if I'm up all night and I'm going, okay, like for instance, we have this event that's coming up. I have to get the event, the contract, the AV video team, I've got to negotiate all that stuff. I've got to get the place figured out. You know, we've already got it. I've got to get the contract signed, all of that stuff. We've got to get the audio video team completely separate. Got to get them negotiated, get the contract done for them. Then I start thinking about all the things that I'm planning and the worst that could happen is that it doesn't happen, right? And that would suck, but it's not, the world's not going to end. The best thing that could happen is we have a bunch of people show up to it. Everybody gets there safely, they feel amazing. They're able to make new connections and a hundred lives are impacted, right? That's pretty damn exciting. And so now I'm looking at what's the worst that could happen and going, ah, that's probably not gonna happen. And then I'm looking at what's the best that could happen and I actually feel better about this thing that I was having anxious thoughts about that kept me awake for a while, right? Usually it doesn't go as good as you think it's gonna go, but it goes way, way, way, way, way, way, way better than the worst that could happen, right? If there's like a medium ground and the worst is all the way over to the right and the best is all the way over to the left, usually in that medium ground it's gonna swing a little bit much more towards the left than is the right. So I want to actually identify what is the best thing that could happen through this? Like so if you're in the middle of a divorce and that divorce obviously you don't wanna go through, that sucks. I can't even understand what that would feel like to go through something like that, right? But you could go, what's the worst that could happen? You can work through and they say, what's the best that could happen? Well, we go through this divorce. We go our separate ways and I become a free person again. I can refine myself because I felt like I lost myself in that relationship. And then you're like, oh my God, what can, what, how amazing would it be for me to find myself and who I truly am and who I've grown into because I grew apart from this person? And then maybe you actually get excited about divorce because you're like, that sounds awesome. I do wanna get this divorce, right? So it can take something that seems positive and turn it into negative, right? So what's the best that could happen is the next question. And then the last question is, what is my next best step to make me feel better right now, right? What is my next best step to make me feel better right now? What action can I take to make me feel better, right? So for me, what it was, I was like, okay, if I'm looking at all these things, I put down all of the action plans of exactly what I needed to do in all of those 17 categories, all of the stuff that I needed to do. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, I can do this tomorrow morning once everybody wakes up and I can get on the phone calls and I can negotiate and do all the stuff. I can get my team on it as well. So I was like, okay, I'm looking at all this stuff. It's four o'clock in the morning, 4.45 in the morning. I can't do anything about it right now for most of these. So what's the next best step for each one of these? Did them, okay, wrote them all down. Now what I'm gonna do, the next best steps to make me feel better right now, I was like, what's the next best step? I need to meditate and I need to focus on what I'm grateful for because I have so much shit to be grateful for in my life. Like it's amazing that I'm focusing on these things that are kind of trivial. And I'm not saying all of people's things that they're stressing out about are trivial like mine happen to be, but it's not going to ruin my life in these circumstances. So I was like, you know what? I need to focus on gratitude because if I come from a place of gratitude, if I come from a place of love, equanimity, peace, I'm going to go into all of these 17 things and feel better. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna focus on gratitude, you know? Maybe for you guys, it might be like, okay, I need to have a conversation with this person. That's the very first thing I need to do right now. Maybe it's like, I need to go work out. I need to go for a run. I need to call a friend. I need to call my business partner because this thing that happened to us has really been stressing me out and I haven't had the conversation I need to. That's why I'm stressed out. You know what? Screw it, I'm gonna have the conversation right now, right? Because then what happens is I've identified my anxiety culprit, right? I've shined the light on it. I've identified what could happen, the worst that could happen. I've identified the best that could happen and now I have the action that I need to take in order to make me feel better. And by doing all of this at literally 4.45, five o'clock in the morning, made me feel so much better and I went from not being able to fall asleep to, okay, I've got everything on a piece of paper. It's all ready to go. As soon as I can start doing work in the morning, I was like, I'm gonna put on meditation. I'm gonna feel some gratitude. I'm gonna try to make myself feel better and I consciously breathed for 20 minutes and I was consciously, and when I was breathing, I was going, I'm going to feel my body relax with every single out breath. For 20 minutes, I was like, I'm gonna consciously feel my body and I went from this high vibrational buzzing state of like, oh my gosh, anxiety, stress, stress, anxiety to calm, peace, felt amazing. What happened? Fell asleep. I was like, whoa. Wake up a couple hours later on my couch. Did my morning routine? I got my journal, I looked at all of the things and then one by one started knocking out every single one of them and had a super frickin' productive day and all of the anxiety around everything was gone. All of the stress around everything was gone. Why? Because it was all in my head. I needed to take it out of my head. I needed to shine a light on it. I needed to work through what's the worst that could happen, the best that could happen and what is the immediate steps that I need to do right now to make myself feel better. So I woke up, I did my morning routine, I got my journal, looked through all of the stuff that I had, started knocking everything out because I had my action plans. I had exactly what needed to be done but the most important part was number one, identifying what was going on, excuse me. Then what did I do after that? I actually went, you know what? I'm gonna write it all down. I took it all out of my head and I put it down on a piece of paper, right? Get it out of your head, put it down. So you're not trying to grab water anymore, so you're not trying to punch that person in the dark, flip the light on, see the person and go, oh, there it is, that's the thing that I need to work towards. So know that when you're feeling anxious thoughts, there is a strategy to get out of it. This is the four steps, the four questions to ask yourself. Next time you feel stressed, worried, fear, anxiety, any of those negative feelings, I want you to use this, try it, and I guarantee it'll make you feel better. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. If you wanna learn even more about Master Your Mind, click right here and watch this video as well. I want you to think about the things that are making you anxious and ask yourself this question. Do I have any control over those things?