Hey professionals. Do you get into the anxiety procrastination loop, where you procrastinate
about something because you feel anxious about it, but you also feel anxious because you're
not getting things done? Well trust me, I've done this like a champion in my time,
and what I'm going to show in this video is work that I did with my coaches, which is
work I know you can do, to get out of this loop. My name's Steve and I coach professional people
just like you to master creating success from a deeper and more peaceful ground of being,
and a good place to start is with my free, simple, five-step process for dissolving stress in the
moment. Now if you're watching this video I'm making the assumption that there's something you
need to get done but you're feeling anxious about doing it, and you're feeling anxious about not
getting it done. Well the good news is I see you. I've been there. If you rewind the clock 15 years
you'll see that I got into this loop a lot. I worked with mindset coaches and people who taught
a more spiritual understanding of how we work, and what I'm going to share is a simple intervention
that would get me out of that loop. Now the first thing is slow down. You need to clear your head
for this, and if you think of your mind as being like a snow globe for a moment, then what you'll
realize is you cannot shake a snow globe clear. You have to let it get clear by being still,
and for you that means physically slowing down, physically experiencing stillness, and at the same
time mentally slowing down. Whatever thoughts are going on in here, just slow down, and while you're
doing that I just want to let you know about what some people call the monkey mind, which is the
fast and irrational mind that makes up loads of fast decisions and is helpful a lot of the time,
but it is subject to biases such as negativity biases. It's the monkey mind that winds us up but
when we slow down, it slows down, it calms down, and makes space for your slower, more deliberate,
more rational mind to come in, and that's what we want. Now slowing down our physical movements
helps, slowing down our breathing helps, breathing deeper helps as well as just relaxing the muscles
around here and just relaxing the mind itself. Sometimes fixing our gaze on something helps
like for example a candle, or an object. Just let go and slow down. Now number two
is to get out of your head and into your body, and into the present, because what I'd like you to see
is that every anxious feeling you have is a response to an anxious thought that we get
involved with about the future in our heads, and that means we're in our heads, and in the future.
Think of it like this, that we have these mental simulators working in our mind to
simulate various things about what will happen if we do this, what will happen if we do that,
what must we remember to do. Now for the most part our capacity to mentally simulate things
is what makes us intelligent. It's what helps us plan, it's what helps us move away from danger,
it's what helps us anticipate danger, but if we've had some emotionally traumatic experience
around something, then when we mentally simulate these things, similar things to
them if not the exact same thing, we will get these anxious responses. Now we can do work
on how we do those mental simulations, so we don't get such an anxious response, or we can work on
a more spiritual understanding, which means we don't need to work on those simulations,
but that's not actually in the scope of this video. For this video, let's just work on
dissolving the feelings in the moment and fast tracking you to being able to do that thing
that you need to do. So stay slowed down, and if you've sped up at all, slow down again. Remember
slow down your physical movements, experience stillness, breathe deeply, just relax, slow down,
let the mind settle, because when you do and you choose to see the process of what's going on,
to choose this to see the process of these mental simulations and how they're interacting
with memories, and how they're interacting with your understanding of how things work,
then you can look at that and see that it's just a process, and it's not what's happening in this
actual moment, because in this moment, and this is why I want you to get into your body and into the
present, in this moment you're quite safe. And the way to ground yourself into the present is to look
around you, see the objects in the room, see that there is a lack of danger right in this moment,
because in many ways this process is like watching a scary movie. Let's say it's a late friday night,
the lights are out, I'm at home alone, and I'm watching a scary movie on the tv. Now if I get
involved with that scary movie, then I'm going to get anxious with the movie. It's going to be like
I'm inside the movie, and I'll get on the edge of my seat, and I'll lean in, and my heart rate will
increase, because I'm getting involved with what's going on. But to break that, all I ever have to do
is look away from the television set, focus on something that's actually in the room with me
right now, and remind myself it's only a movie. And it's the same with these simulations. All
we ever have to do is look away, ground ourselves in our body, in the present with things that are
in the room around us, and remind ourselves it's only a thought. And when we slow down,
then we can feel safe in this moment, and in that now is the time to make a deal with yourself.
By the way if you're enjoying this video so far do give it the thumbs up
and don't forget to subscribe to the channel and click the notifications bell so that you'll know
when new content arrives. Now the deal that you can make with yourself is that, first of all,
you can bail out at any time, but in that context of being slowed down,
just take the simplest, smallest step towards completing that task. The smallest step.
For instance I once had a client who got into the anxiety procrastination loop about their annual
tax returns. From june all the way to the end of january, their tax return was on their mind.
They knew they should do it, but they kept kicking it down the road, because they felt anxious about
starting it. They'd get to the end, they'd have a mad panic, they'd miss the deadline, they'd get
fined, but they'd get their tax return in, any way late, and it wouldn't be that long before
the process started again. Well I had that client do everything that I've explained to you so far
in this video, to slow down, to see the process of what's going on, to ground themselves in the
present, to make the deal with themselves that they can bail out at any moment, but just take the
simplest smallest first step. Now please bear in mind how anxious this person got about starting,
but having got into that state, they made that deal with themselves, and they agreed that they
were going to do that simple first step, so we ended the call. I waited by the phone because
what happened next didn't surprise me. About an hour later I got a phone call to say it's done,
and the reason it was done is because the task was not nearly as intimidating as they were imagining.
The first step got done, and the first step led to the second step, and the second step
led to the third step, and before my client knew it they were on a roll. Now this intervention is
an easy one to get started with a task that you are procrastinating about, but as I hinted before,
there is work that goes beyond the need for interventions, and if that's something that you'd
be interested in talking about, I would certainly love to hear from you. And this video up here
talks about the two qualities that we build in that work. Or if you've already watched
that video then watch this one down here instead. This is Steve wishing you health and happiness.