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Does anxiety lessen productivity or get shit done?

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Meow's picture
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Joined: 03/27/2013

This is a huge fear for me, that letting go of my anxiety will stop me from doing my best in life. I associate lack of anxiety with laziness, and I can not decide if this is true or not. However, from a science stand point anxiety does not really help us perform our best. The only argument I can make against that according to my knowledge that flow state starts off with resistance (anxiety).

For example, I constantly worry about my school work and make future projections about getting a bad grade. Truthfully though, I can not remember a single instance where I really fucked up in a class. Everything always has ended up okay in the end.

Does anxiety help you guys get shit done? or am I looking at this completely backwards and wasting energy?

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Joined: 03/03/2013
DO NOT go down this road. 

DO NOT go down this road.  Relying on motivation by anxiety will lock you into unproductive habits and mindsets--it will train your brain to act only from fear.  It also makes you much easier to manipulate and control.  On the surface people may seem ok or even successful, but they've developed some coping mechanism to deal with the anxiety, or, they're massively depressed but hide it well.

Work on presence.  Awareness of your thoughts, then get a handle on your thoughts, then learn to generate positive thoughts and emotions from within.  Once you strip away the negative thoughts, patterns, emotions, and habits, you'll see what you need to do and you'll motivate yourself. 

The only thing holding you back is fear.  You're afraid that without anxiety you'll be a lazy schmuck who never amounts to anything.  That's bullshit. 

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Joined: 09/18/2014
Guess it depends on the type

Guess it depends on the type of anxiety. Sometimes i have super strong anxiety that isnt conected to anything particular and overcoming this is extremely hard. Especially when it comes to gaming or calling people i dont know and need to get them on board on a certain project. So if anything - this anxiety is a huge performance killer for me. This anxiety also feels like poison in my veins... I dont think it does any good to the body.

Fuero's picture
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Joined: 07/21/2014
no thats a false belief.

no thats a false belief. common "gotta win, gotta do my best" anxiety? you can drop it.

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Joined: 08/20/2014
Archangel has it. More Tolle

Archangel has it. More Tolle bro and I often reread Jabro's shit, one thing he said was that as you find what you really want to do in life you no longer have to rely on negativity for motivation. I used to have all kinds of anxiety and stress too and my brain basically does not generate those emotions anymore. That's not to say I have some perfect emotional balance or anything — they still crop up occasionally — but those are one of the first things to go with Tolle. Breathe deeply into your fear.. it's fuckin sexy

Besides which fear isn't nearly as powerful as love and Presence, for one thing it cuts you off from critical mental resources and fucks up your body, so 'sacrificing' yourself to be motivated like that doesn't even work haha.

One more thing: one thing I've been doing lately, when I can't get shit done, is to just accept that, and not beat myself up at all, as it ultimately serves no purpose. For days on end I tried to motivate myself to go to the gym with thoughts like "don't be a bitch", "don't be a fag", "you need to do this", "why hasn't this happened yet", that kind of thing. The result of all this abuse and criticism? It didn't happen, it just made me depressed and caused me to associate negative emotions with it, making it even less likely to happen. However as soon as I accepted the situation "Ok I don't feel like going to the gym right now, that's fine, maybe I'll go later", and didn't beat myself up for it - well LATER THAT DAY I went to the gym, because I WANTED to, my natural motivation came out rather than fear-based ego motivation, and I fucking smashed it. True story bro

Meow's picture
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Joined: 03/27/2013
Archangel wrote:DO NOT go

Archangel wrote:
DO NOT go down this road.  Relying on motivation by anxiety will lock you into unproductive habits and mindsets--it will train your brain to act only from fear.  It also makes you much easier to manipulate and control.  On the surface people may seem ok or even successful, but they've developed some coping mechanism to deal with the anxiety, or, they're massively depressed but hide it well.

Work on presence.  Awareness of your thoughts, then get a handle on your thoughts, then learn to generate positive thoughts and emotions from within.  Once you strip away the negative thoughts, patterns, emotions, and habits, you'll see what you need to do and you'll motivate yourself. 

The only thing holding you back is fear.  You're afraid that without anxiety you'll be a lazy schmuck who never amounts to anything.  That's bullshit. 

That makes sense, thanks

My motivation is probably too anxiety based, cuz I work hard and do a good job, but I always end up so drained and exhausted.

beargrizz's picture
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Joined: 09/30/2012
Meow what you said about

Meow what you said about school is exactly how I went about school.  I would worry myself to death about projects and homework and tests in school only to get a 3.5-4.0 every year.  I would literally fear that I was going to fail classes, not graduate, etc.  It  was so fucking stressful.  Then I would try to get a schedule down so that I would not procrastinate.  But the thing is, I had so many unacknowledged emotional issues going on that ultimatly, all of this shit was just a symptom.  I had no other real purpose in my life other than doing well at school, golf (sport I played in college), and gettting laid.  And the way I went about it was basically, retarded.  I got so good at repressing my emotions and living a life of denial that I started believing the outside world was what was stressing me out...(i.e. school, golf, girls).  I lost touch with what I was really feeling and it created a huge mindfuck for myself.  

As long as we are not connecting to our inner truth this kind of stuff will continually happen.  And its good that its happening because its telling you that you need to look inside yourself and see what you are really afraid of, and ultimatly, the only real fear is to face the fear itself.  

__________________

“Cleverness devoid of wisdom is extremely dangerous and destructive.
Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the Now the main focus of your life.  Through allowing, you become what you are: vast, spacious. You become whole. You are not a fragment anymore, which is how the ego perceives itself. Your true nature emerges, which is one with the nature of God"
- Tollester

AP_Grappler's picture
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Joined: 07/22/2014
Anxiety kills my ability to

Anxiety kills my ability to get anything done. When I have anxiety/anxiety attacks/panic attacks, I can't do shit.

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"Veni, vidi, vici." - Julius Caesar

Meow's picture
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Joined: 03/27/2013
beargrizz wrote: Meow what

beargrizz wrote:
Meow what you said about school is exactly how I went about school.  I would worry myself to death about projects and homework and tests in school only to get a 3.5-4.0 every year.  I would literally fear that I was going to fail classes, not graduate, etc.  It  was so fucking stressful.  Then I would try to get a schedule down so that I would not procrastinate.  But the thing is, I had so many unacknowledged emotional issues going on that ultimatly, all of this shit was just a symptom.  I had no other real purpose in my life other than doing well at school, golf (sport I played in college), and gettting laid.  And the way I went about it was basically, retarded.  I got so good at repressing my emotions and living a life of denial that I started believing the outside world was what was stressing me out...(i.e. school, golf, girls).  I lost touch with what I was really feeling and it created a huge mindfuck for myself.  

As long as we are not connecting to our inner truth this kind of stuff will continually happen.  And its good that its happening because its telling you that you need to look inside yourself and see what you are really afraid of, and ultimatly, the only real fear is to face the fear itself.  

Great post beargrizz, I really really like what you said about repressed emotions and believing it was the external world causing all the stress. I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense. I've been waiting for my work to get easier, thinking I am just going through a rough patch, but it never does. I do my job, and I get a 3.5 every semester, but I really do not feel any creative motivation. I am not doing exemplary work that seperates me from the rest. I wouldn't say i'm driven to build myself up, but more driven to not let myself fall apart.

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Joined: 12/19/2013
At the same time believing

At the same time believing that everything will be ok, not having a rational fear of failure at life can lead to what the majority of people are. Nowhere

It seems some forget that ANYTIME you have a desire it's a form of insecurity. You can be on your path and being calm most of the time, however achieving anything significant for you will come with a massive internal resistance.

Homeostasis.