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Do you want to be more self-confident?
And do you sometimes feel anxious?
Worry no more! Anxiety is totally normal and there is something you can do about it!
In fact, it’s proof that you’re a human being.
Let me show you what the expert Vikki says about this and how dealing with anxiety will help you build self-confidence…
Who is Vikki?
She is a life coach, specialized in procrastination and why we don’t do things that we’re going to do as it relates to anxiety, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and indecision.
She’s on a mission to help people understand their brains so they can get out of self-judgment, self-criticism and actually go out there and do what they want to do! 🙂
That doesn’t mean overworking! That means having fun and enjoying life, being present with what you are doing and trusting you’ll get things done when you say you’ll do it!
What’s her podcast?
Vikki’s podcast is called “F*ck anxiety and get sh*t done!”
She started it because she says that “there is a lot of misinformation out there particularly around anxiety and a lot of people were coming to me feeling helpless and powerless, so my podcast was perfect to reach a lot of people at the same time!”
What I like with Vikki’s podcast is that the episodes are short and in each one of them, Vikki gives an actionable tool you can actually use and implement!
You then see results quite fast in your life!
And I always love to get practical tools…
When you think about it, we don’t have too much time and we just want shortcuts to simplify our life, right? 🙂
What is amazing is that Vikki hears from people all over the world that just listening to her podcast has helped them achieved something that they’ve been putting off for years!
Or that they managed their anxiety and can finally sleep better… Sounds amazing, right?
What is anxiety and how does it feel?
Vikki says:
“When you look up what anxiety is online, it’s like a feeling of “overwhelm” and saying it like this lets so much room for interpretation, so we don’t really know what’s happening!
The important thing here is to identify what anxiety is for you.
For some people, it’s a feeling in the stomach, for others it’s in the head, some people feel faint or maybe they are feeling sick.
So it’s about recognizing where and how does it feel for you and in terms of where does it come from.”
She adds that:
“Our brain is built to keep us alive. Anxiety is when you sense potential danger and it releases hormones so we can get into a fight or flight mode and literally run from a lion that is trying to eat us! This is what anxiety is for.”
Anxiety in modern days…
Today, anxiety shows up when we send an email, apply for a job, go to a job interview, speak on stage or go on a first date…
And our brain still senses a potential danger and exposure to potential failure or rejection.
To our primitive brain, failure, and rejection equal potential death! And that’s where the anxiety comes from!
Vikki says also:
“That’s why you can be doing something like writing an email to your boss and you get all of this anxiety and this overwhelming feeling. But really, when we actually break down what it all actually is, each individual is different and feels the anxiety differently!”
If you feel anxiety, what can you do about it?
This is what you can do about it.
Ask yourself these questions:
What exactly is happening?
Where exactly am I feeling this anxiety?
Do a complete body scan, ask yourself: Am I feeling something in my head, in my chest, in my stomach? Ask yourself and connect with exactly what’s happening. Because our instinct is to react or to resist or even avoid the anxiety and that only feeds it!
Instead, sit with it and connect with what is happening, don’t google what’s going on, sit still and ask yourself “Okay I want to understand exactly what’s happening in my body”.
She adds:
“Do not rush that process! Then, once you connected with exactly what’s happening in your body, you’re already going to feel a bit better!
The second thing, ask yourself: Why am I experiencing that?
So many people come to me and tell me “my anxiety just came from nowhere, I don’t know how that happened” but after coaching them for a few minutes, we know exactly why it happens.
And no matter what they are worried about, we have 60’000 thoughts a day and one disempowering thing that we can do is saying:
1. I don’t know what’s happening when I have anxiety!
2. I don’t know where my anxiety is coming from!
And those are the first two steps to take before anything else!
These two steps are understanding what exactly is happening and why do I think it’s happening.”
What is self-confidence according to Vikki…
Vikki says that a lie that we have been told is that our self-confidence comes from outside of us.
We think sometimes that we might feel more self-confident when we’ll get something (such as certification, losing weight…).
And it’s actually the opposite! We want to work on our mindset and our confidence and once we have that, we show up in the world as a different person, as the person who consistently gets things done! 🙂
How taking care of your anxiety is related to building your self-confidence…
Vikki says:
“You can have anxiety and panic attacks and still be confident.
It’s not like once you are confident, you’re never going to experience anxiety!
A lot of what I teach is that anxiety is really normal, remember that it’s there just to keep us alive!
When you think about it, anxiety kept you alive more than joy did! So it’s really a good thing!
Once we connect with exactly what’s happening with our anxiety and we know exactly why it’s happening, we are able to feel and be present with it.
I remember doing the work myself!
My last panick attacks was in June 2019. I knew it was anxiety, I felt it in my leg and I was like “I knew exactly what is happening”. I went inside and understand what was happening and I could do this because I had the confidence to manage it.”
She adds that:
“What is happening very often is that people are most of the time looking outside of themselves for the solution. And I have no problem with medication for example, it can really help!
But when we tell ourselves that we can’t fix ourselves or we’re broken or that there is something wrong with us, we are feeding a much bigger problem than just the anxiety itself because that’s feeding ourselves doubts that may show up in all of our relationships, in our work, in our health, in our finances, in our career goals!
Be mindful, the connection between those two is like the ability and the confidence to believe that you can handle anything versus you can’t.
And so you can totally have anxiety and confidence at the same time and everything is okay! In fact, you will and that’s okay because anxiety is normal!
Dealing with anxiety is like dealing with negative emotions!
Feeling anxious and feeling negative emotions are part of being alive!
And the moment that we stop resisting it and we try to understand its positive intention, things are already getting better, without any doubt! 🙂
Vikki and I talked about the fact that you can be successful and still feel anxiety and negative emotions.
It’s more than just okay!
I like how Vikki says:
“If you have ambition about life, you’re going to have anxiety. If you stay safe, inside of the cage, or going out of our comfort zone, you’re going to feel anxiety.
People that come to me are highly ambbitious people that want more and they are experiencing anxiety and that’s totally normal!
It’s even exciting!
It’s all about learning how to challenge it!”
Sounds amazing, right?! 🙂
To sum up!
I like how Vikki ended this interview by saying that:
“When you get things done, you keep moving forward.
People think that when they will get something, they will feel a certain way but what we want is for you to consistently be moving forward and growing and creating more of what you want!
And each time we do that discovering call, I ask people what do you really want to do, what’s your best-case scenario, your big goal and I realize that we have so small goals because most of the time, we don’t realize all of what we are capable of doing! And their goals get so much bigger!
Once you get one thing done, I discovered with them how can we scale it bigger? Asking them “what is your next goal, your purpose?” It’s uncomfortable, but this is how coaching comes in and how anxiety managing comes in! And it’s just amazing!” 🙂
Vikki is changing the world! I’m so glad I got the chance to talk to her! 🙂
Thank you so much Vikki!
