How The Principle, "Use Your Anxiety," Was Discovered

AT A NOVELTY STORE in Chinatown, San Francisco, I bought a Chinese finger cuff when I was a kid. It is a tube made of woven straw. You put a finger in one end, another finger in the other end and push until it's snug. When you try to pull your fingers out, you discover the cuff tightens around your fingers when you try to pull them apart. And the harder you pull, the tighter it grips your fingers.

There are many psychological factors that act like finger cuffs. For example, when I started doing public speeches, I got feelings of anxiety and dread whenever I thought about an upcoming speech. I tried lots of strategies to make these feelings stop coming, but they kept happening.

It was frustrating and I knew it was unhealthy and these thoughts created a second layer of anxiety. I became anxious about the anxiety. I was upset that they wouldn't go away. These second-layer effects just produced more anxiety. They made occasional anxious feelings into almost continuous anxiety, disrupting my sleep and making me miserable.

Because stress hormones arouse the nervous system, they can act like finger cuffs. If you feel anxious and try to get rid of it, you can make it worse. Being angry at your anxiety, being upset about it or frustrated by it, wanting to get away from it, being worried about what the anxiety is doing to your health — all of these emotions about your anxiety simply add even more stress hormones to your system.

I tried many things to deal with it. Three things worked well. First, I stopped referring to the jolts as "anxiety" or "dread." I used more neutral terms like adrenaline jolts or adrenaline rushes. This was, I believe, an important first step because it lead to the next two.

The second step was accepting the fact that anyone in their right mind is going to have rushes of adrenaline when they think about giving a speech. In other words, it wasn't a sign something was wrong. That is also true about terrorism. Discovering that trained soldiers want you dead and are willing to go to any lengths to do it would make any normal person anxious.

And third, I reasoned that as long as I had these rushes, maybe I could put them to good use. I tried several things.

Originally, I decided that each adrenaline jolt would be my cue to go over the speech outline in my head. That worked pretty well. I stopped dreading the rushes and stopped trying to avoid having them. An adrenaline rush became a welcome opportunity to make sure I knew exactly what I was going to say. This directly countered my main fear — that I would lose my train of thought in front of the group.

Over time, I tried several things, all of them sharing the same basic theme: using the rush rather than rejecting it.

The one that worked best will reveal probably the most important principle on this site. Every time I got an adrenaline jolt, I would say to myself, "I will make them get how important this is." That's what I wanted to go through my head as I stood in front of an audience.

I practiced that thought over and over whenever I experienced an adrenaline rush. And while I practiced saying this to myself, I imagined saying it to myself while looking at the audience, so the audience became associated with that thought. The audience became a trigger for that thought.

I came up with this after doing a few speeches. I noticed the audience listened with the attitude, "this is interesting." But I wanted them to sit up and pay attention to what I was saying — as if it could help them or someone they loved, as if it would make a difference, as if it were important! I wanted to have a real impact on them. I wanted their lives to be forever better. I didn't want them to listen to me as a mere form of entertainment. This was something I really wanted. It was a sincere, heartfelt desire.

So every time I got a jolt, I would say to myself, "I will make them get how important this is!" And thanks to the jolt, I said it with extra intensity.

The reason this worked so well is that anxiety, worry, insecurity — these are "pulling away" emotions. Anxiety includes the impulse to run away, hide, withdraw, pull back, etc.

My heartfelt desire to make them feel the topic was important directly countered my anxiety because desire displaces fear. Remember that and you may not need to remember anything else. Desire can overrun and override fear. Desire is a "reaching toward" emotion. Desire is moving toward, seeking, taking possession of, aggressing, if I may coin a word.

Desire moves toward. Anxiety moves away.

You will find that the best antidote for anxiety is a strong desire. The more intense the anxiety, the stronger your desire must be to successfully counter it. And while you can't make yourself desire something you really don't care about, you can intensify your sincere desires. You can fan the flames and make your desire burn hot by thinking about why you want it.

Make a list of all the reasons you really want your goal. Keep coming up with new reasons. Ponder them often. Talk to yourself enthusiastically about them. Imagine your goal vividly. Encourage your desire to become intense. (Read an illustration of these three steps.)


RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

This doesn't have to be the only anxiety-reducing method you use. You can simply add it to the others. Go ahead and take actions in your life that will lead to a lower level of stress hormones: change the way you think about things, meditate, stretch, stop drinking coffee, etc. But at the time you feel anxious, find a way to welcome the feeling. Never resist or try to get rid of your feelings of anxiety or insecurity or worry when you're feeling them. Don't try to resist your feelings at the moment you're feeling them. Use the anxiety for a positive purpose. Use it to remind you of your purpose. Repeat your purpose emphatically to yourself every time you get that rush of adrenaline, and get busy accomplishing that purpose.

This very cleanly converts anxiety into determination. It converts an unproductive, unhealthy emotion in to a constructive emotion with good side-effects. It doesn't try to get rid of the stress hormones; it uses the hormones as fuel for determination rather than fuel for fear. It works well. I've used it hundreds of times.

This seems to use the commonly understood fact that there isn't much difference between fear and excitement. This was demonstrated beautifully in an experiment by researcher Stanley Schachter. He had a group of students in one room who were acting happy. In another room, the students acted anxious.

Then he gave a volunteer a shot of adrenaline. The volunteer didn't know what was going on. He wasn't told it was an adrenaline shot. He was put into one of the rooms and led to believe everyone else there had received the same shot as he just got.

The unsuspecting volunteer was then asked later what effect the "drug" had on him.

As you might guess, when he was put into the happy room, he reported the drug made him feel excited and elated.

If he was put in with the anxious group, he reported that the "drug" made him feel nervous and insecure.

This was repeated with many different volunteers. It was a consistent result and I'm sure it doesn't surprise you. Adrenaline doesn't necessarily cause a positive or negative feeling. It depends on your attitude and expectations of the experience. A roller coaster can be terrifying or quite a rush, and both are caused by adrenaline. The only difference is whether the experience is welcomed or resisted.

When you get a jolt of adrenaline, stop calling it feeling nervous or anxious or worried or afraid. Call it a shot of adrenaline, accept it as a normal response to the circumstances (if you have strongly-reacting adrenal glands, perhaps you have a stronger response, but only in degree) and then go about changing your mind-set from withdrawing to reaching toward. This is not hard to do. It is not complicated. Whatever thought went through your mind that gave you the adrenaline rush, think up a goal for it. Think of something your really want. And make up your mind you will try to achieve it.

Be clear that this is not positive thinking, and it is not hope. We're talking about determination. (Read an illustration of the difference between hope and determination.)


INCREASING MOTIVATION

Desire can overcome fear. Increase your desire and the fear becomes proportionally smaller. This is important. Please remember this principle. Desire displaces fear. The stronger the fear, the stronger the desire it will take to overcome it. When the fear is intense, the desire has to be equally intense to displace it.

Can desire be increased deliberately? Can you intensify your own desire? This is a crucial question.

And of course the answer is yes, you can increase your own level of motivation and it is not difficult. All you have to do is think about your goal and imagine what it would be like to achieve it. Remind yourself why you want it so bad and what it would mean to you.

It's the same old stuff you find in motivational books — visualize your goal and talk to yourself confidently about it. There is no big secret about it. All you need to do is do it.

I don't think you can make yourself want something you don't want with this method, but you can definitely go from mild desire to intense desire with it.