Something that comes up frequently in conversations with clients is the discussion about anxiety and depression and frustration and all that kind of stuff. I’ve dealt with anxiety for the majority of my life. I’ve been medicated for it for the majority of my life. Panic attacks, anxiety attacks, even just right now, like yesterday and today, I’ve been feeling really anxious, not really sure why. But one of the best things I’ve learned to overcome that and combat it is like getting shit done, doing work, checking things off. I think so many times when we start to feel anxious, we start to feel frustrated, we start to feel depressed, we start to overthink, we start to overanalyze, we start to underact. And I think what happens is we get in this whirlwind of emotion and feelings and that nervousness that happens kind of in your stomach area, and you just end up not completing anything, right? Because you move from one thing to the other. You can’t collect your thoughts, not enough gets done.
So what I challenge you to do, if that’s something you’re dealing with, is make a list. Like every Sunday, Tiff and I typically make a list of 10 to 15 things we want to get done. And I’ll tell you, there’s nothing that helps me feel better than seeing something completed. And I don’t always feel good in the moment, like yesterday, I cleaned the garage, organized it, did some laundry, did some food prep, picked up around the house, and you don’t always feel good doing it, but eventually you end up sitting down looking around and realizing what you got done today and how valuable and important that was for you in the grand scheme of things.
So I don’t know if you want to call it the powerless of what Andy Frisella calls it, Championship Day, Prize Fighter Day. There’s a pun, don’t… There’s a ton of different people who call it different things. But ultimately, one of the fastest ways to get over anxiety in my opinion, is to take action and with intentionality, and it doesn’t have to be big stuff. It could be reorganizing the fridge, it could be folding the laundry, it could be setting up the camera. I had an event recently, so my entire office was kind of taken apart for it. And one of the things yesterday, was just get the camera set back up and I wasn’t enjoying the process, but I got it set up, got some pictures off of it from last week, and ultimately felt like I got something accomplished.
Here I am back in my clean office with the camera set up and ready to be used because I went ahead and set it up. And so that it starts to fuel you back up. It starts to pour back into you as much as incomplete tasks make you anxious, completed task give you confidence. Doing work and taking action and just doing what you need to do is not just simply taking anxiety away, it’s giving confidence in. So completing that checklist, marking that thing off, doing what you’re supposed to be doing, drinking your water, doing your workouts, reading, making your bed. I mean, I know one of my first ever, we’ll call him a client, he signed up for the Winning Mindset Mastermind group that’s still going strong 80, 90 weeks later. One of the first things that him do is just start to make his bed every day and starting to make his bed every day turned into actionable items he could see completed, which increased confidence, which I mean I think two or three years in a row, he’s triple his business.
And that’s not by coincidence. That’s not just one thing, it’s a compounding effect of things. Just like a losing streak makes you feel like crap. A winning streak makes you feel good, right? The win fast, win often mentality is not about getting wins compared to other people’s opinion of what a win is or other people’s scoreboard. It’s winning the next decision for you. Did you get out of bed on time today? Today is we were snowed in unquote iced in the gym’s closed. Schools are closed, but I was still up at 3:45. I still started reading. I read from four to five. I did yoga from five to six, so I still got my morning routine in, so now I’m feeling better. I still feel a little anxious, just being honest with you. I’m recording this right now on Monday morning, and I mean, there’s still some anxiety there.
There’s still some… Being a dad and being a husband and being a leader and being a business owner and being a coach is hard. There’s a lot of pressures there, and I’m carrying some of them right now, even though we had a great event last week. Now my anxiety spikes on how I do it again next time. Literally, I had a room of 50 people together last week, all high performers and all discussing their battle with anxiety. And I think for me, and I think something that’s worked really well for me, this doesn’t work for everybody I’m sure, but for me it was simply taking action. Taking action based on a list. I have my list in Asana. It’s a program I use for task management. I use it for pretty much all parts of my life. But checking that list off, building the list and then checking it off one at a time, no matter how you feel, right?
When your feelings start to integrate themselves into the way you take action, the action starts to get diluted or doesn’t happen at all. So I need you to go take action this week no matter how you feel. I need you to take action this week no matter what you think. Now, I need you to take action this week no matter what the outcome is because the win is the action. The win is completing the task. The win is checking that box. So get out there this week, win fast, win off, and by winning the next decision, to win the next decision, you have to define what the win looks like. So what is it? Is it making your bed? Is it going to the gym? Is it doing your walk even though it’s cold outside? Is it doing yoga? Is it doing your cold shower? These are all things you can control. I don’t need to go to the gym to still manage my morning routine. It all was the same. It just happened on my couch instead of in my truck.
So I challenge you…
Get out this week.
Define what the win looks like.
Define the task list.
Check it off every single day. No matter how you do that, no matter if you write it down, if it’s digital, if it’s on a whiteboard somewhere, it doesn’t matter to me.
But make a list every single day and don’t stop the day until the list is done.
That’s how championships are won.
