Currently Reading: The Anxiety Toolkit

I feel like I’m on trial. The training for the new job is causing me to wake up every day irritated and a bit anxious about the situation. Somehow I passed two assessments already but, if I don’t pass the third and last one then that’s it, I’m out. I feel a huge boulder on my chest and I find myself incessantly tapping my feet to an imaginary beat when I’m at the training classroom. I’m nervous I won’t be smart enough for the job, anxious I’ll end up unemployed. I replay different worst-case scenarios in my head daily, coming up with new ones every day!

So, I decided to re-read The Anxiety Toolkit: Strategies for Fine-Tuning Your Mind and Moving Past Your Stuck Points by Alice Boyes PhD as it’s been a great help for me to overcome anxiety. May I point out, I didn’t know I suffered from anxiety until after I read the back cover of this book. It was quite a discovery for me because I thought I was just casually worrying about stuff. Guess not only do I worry, but also constantly recreate horrible scenarios that leave me feeling too afraid to step forward.

-You overthink before taking action.
-You’re prone to making negative predictions.
-You worry about the worst that could happen.
-You take negative feedback very hard.
-You’re self-critical.
-Anything less than extraordinary performance feels like failure.

The back cover that changed my life.

It doesn’t have to be read in order, so it gives you the freedom of jumping around. For example, I went straight to the Hesitancy chapter where she talks about entertaining the idea that our actions might actually have good consequences instead of dreadful ones. For every bad outcome you can think of, think of an alternative good one.

Mine is full of notes.

Give it a try, folks! It helped me greatly!