Any time you have been told not to do something because of the bad things that might happen or that you had to do something just right to avoid a disaster, someone was pushing your anxiety button.
Our parents started pushing our anxiety button when we were tiny. They were using it to teach us about avoiding dangers such as stoves, streets, and strangers.
Of course, they couldn’t teach us how to avoid pushing our button because they had no idea how to quit pushing theirs.
Many of us live with our finger on that button, ready to mash it flat at the tiniest hint something might go wrong, even though the anxiety we are experiencing is a product of our imagination. But there is one thing we know for sure.
The basis for most anxiety today is our doubts about not having the skills we need to create a tolerable and sustainable future.
Our lack of skills is understandable because the development of our skills with relationships, making choices, and managing emotions had matured before we started school.
Those brain parts are, however, exquisitely aware of what we do. If we do something different, it notices. And, if that something “new” creates “better” results, it becomes open to change.
So, it is possible to reprogram our subconscious by approaching it the same way it uses to learn how to do everything. Teach it a new skill or show it how to do an improved version of a skill of a skill we are already using. With practice, better habits will overwrite older habits.
Upgrading your foundation skills to versions designed for adult situations will enable you to create more reasonable and tolerable outcomes.
Do you need proof? Can you remember how anxious you were when you were learning to drive, cook, skills for your job, or any skill that has serious consequences when done incorrectly, or is not done carefully? To avoid causing adverse outcomes, you had to learn how to do those skills in a specific manner.
They are what I call conduct-critical skills. “How” we do them determines the outcome.
As our competence with the skill improves, we learn to trust ourselves to use the skill without triggering the consequences and our anxiety decreases accordingly.
The following graph explains the relationship between skills with consequences, our perceived competence, and the level of anxiety. Learning to drive is an excellent example to illustrate the process.
This Graph also shows us what to do when we feel anxious.
Instead of experiencing our habitual anxiety horror stories, we need to ask ourselves this question.
What am I trying to do that I doubt my ability to do successfully?
What are the skills I need to use or learn so I can do this with the same level of skill as I have for driving or any of my other successful skills?
The solution is clear. If you do not have the skills, find someone who does to teach you how to do it.
All the processes we need to upgrade our skills are already in place.
For proof of that, look at the large number of successful habits you have. Most of our habits are good ones. They got us through today, and they will get us through tomorrow.
Upgrading our most important skills will enable us to create and maintain close and nurturing relationships, make consistently tolerable choices, and manage the negative emotions we cannot avoid.
Bottom line? Having better skills enables us to quit imagining a future we do not want and instead, use our upgraded skills to create the future we do.