Nick Trenton - The Overthinking Cure: How to Stay in the Present, Shake Negativity, and Stop Your Stress and Anxiety (The Path to Calm)

Nick Trenton

The Overthinking Cure

How to Stay in the Present, Shake Negativity, and Stop Your Stress and Anxiety

How to Stay in the Present, Shake Negativity, and Stop Your Stress and Anxiety

by Nick Trenton

www.NickTrenton.com

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Chapter 1: Its All in the Perspective

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you deal with it.

John Maxwell

People who are cool, calm, and collected just have something about themwhat is this X factor that lets them remain so composed and in control of themselves? While overly anxious people flap around and freak out, calm people seem to be inhabiting an entirely different mindset. Lets begin this book by looking more closely at exactly what this mindset is, and how you can go about cultivating it in yourself.

Heres an interesting question: who is in control of your life?

There are two main answers: either you see something or someone else as responsible for what happens to you, or you see yourself as the primary agent, mainly responsible for how your life plays out. Proactive people are those who, in essence, do not depend on the environment to guide and shape their life, but rather take active responsibility and do things on their own. They focus on their scope of action, on what they want, and on how they can bring those things about. Naturally, their attitude puts them in a frame of mind that focuses on solving problems and seeking opportunities. Broadly, when it comes to their life path, they are the ones calling the shots.

Compare this to the opposite: someone who is reactive. As the name suggests, this is a person who acts only as a response to other peoples actions, or according to the environment, and less from their own innate agency and desire. This is a more passive, more conditional, and more dependent position. Its more about what you should do or are being made to do, than what you genuinely want to do. Blame, indecisiveness, victimhood, people-pleasing powerlessness, and lack of responsibility all belong to this mindset, as well as the belief that other people can make you feel certain emotions or force you to do something.

Now, I know what youre thinkingsurely its impossible to be truly proactive? After all, none of us is one hundred percent in control of our lives. This is true. Being proactive, however, doesnt necessarily mean you always get your way; rather, its an orientation of mind and an attitude that says I can learn from mistakes. I can use my potential. I can try something new. In fact, a proactive person is also able to recognize when they dont actually have an influence over outcomes, and they can comfortably relinquish control.

So, its not that being proactive means you are entitled and enabled to make the world exactly as you like it, rather that you have conscious awareness of your own scope of action, you have an internal locus of control, and you are willing to actively engage with obstacles and mistakes rather than passively assuming you have no control or responsibility. Its not really the outcome or result that matters but the attitude.

Because a proactive person knows that they are in charge of their actions, their feelings and their inner interpretations, they make efforts to create situations that actually align with their values. A reactive person quietly hopes that things will align for them, or that others will help them, or else they quietly resent when this doesnt happen, or resort to blame.

Proactive people consciously create the conditions they desire, and they know that they are the only ones who are empowered to do so. This takes a degree of mindful awareness, honesty and courage. It also means they have to be mature enough to shoulder some riskif they fail, they know that only they are responsible and can blame nobody.

Lets return to the question: who is in control of your life? Well, it depends on you! You can choose to be in control of your own life, or you can forfeit that choice to others. The thing is, nobody can force you to take charge of your own lifeyou either embrace that agency or you fail to embrace it.

Now, what does all this have to do with cultivating an attitude of inner calm? As you can probably guess, those who are calm and composed as people tend to act from a proactive mindset. They feel calm because they are self-assured and confident in their own agency. Theyre not anxious in situations because they know that someone is in controlthem! Because they have fully claimed their agency, they know that they always have options, they can always become aware of them and make conscious choices, and they can always make the best of even the worst possible outcomes.

When you are reactive, you have no such inner security. You are waiting for others to determine your fate, or sitting ineptly and complaining about what they choose for you. This is an innately anxious position. You are at the mercy of other peoples actionswhat could be more stressful than that? Because you doubt or ignore your own ability to take responsibility or find solutions, you may feel that there really arent any solutions until someone or something else comes and provides them. Instead of feeling competent and filled with optimistic hope, you are naturally pessimistic, always on guard for the next bit of trouble.

So, if we want to be genuinely calmer and more relaxed people, how can we start moving toward the proactive rather than reactive mindset?

Reactive: Look at all these things and people and situations that arent the way I want them to be...

Proactive: What is the way that I want things to be, and how am I going to do make that happen?

When you complain, you are putting yourself in reactive mode. You are communicating to yourself and others that you are not responsible, and you relinquish your agency in favor of someone elses. One way to be more proactive is to get positively ruthless with the bad habit of complaining. Nothing good ever comes of complaining! You may think you feel a bit better after whining about something youre unhappy with, but all you do is disempower yourself further (and probably bore others).

This takes a bit of awareness. Be honest if you notice yourself ranting and moaning about things, and just stop dead in your tracks. Then ask yourself one important question:

What action can I take here?

This puts you in active, problem-solving mode. Stop waiting for someone to come and save you; think of ways to help yourself. If you can act, then act. If you dont like something, have the courage to change it or remove yourself from the situation. Think of it this way: not acting is also a choice, and if you remain in a situation you dont like, what does that say?

If you cant act, well, then you can still proactively choose your attitude. You can choose not to respond at all. Just because you find a situation uncomfortable, it doesnt mean you have to complainor worse, look for someone to blame. How you react to circumstances is far, far more important than the circumstances themselves. You might not be able to take conscious action or do much about a situation, but you still have plenty of power over what you focus on, how you interpret the situation, the attitude you commit to having, the words you say, and the way you respond. You always have options. When you complain, however, you shut your eyes to those options and get stuck on the fact of your discomfort or annoyance.