Ever since I can remember, Anxiety has has a presence in my life. One of my earliest sentences was "Too Risky", a mindset that has both formed me and challenged me throughout my life. I don't think of a cautious attitude as a bad thing. I like being prepared. I like thinking through all the possible scenarios and narrowing it down to my favourite plan. Far from making me risk-adverse, this approach has often given me the confidence to make difficult or dangerous decisions with the knowledge that I understand the risk/reward tradeoff. However, there are times when this approach backfires. I often find myself focusing too much on the negatives and ignoring the upsides that are staring me straight in the face. I'm a big fan of the [[Glass Half Full]] way of living and try to practice Stoicism - a philosophy that embraces rationality and responsibility - as much as possible, but these attitudes can be drowned out with too much negativity. On the advice of a friend, I recently started writing down all of the specific things that make me anxious. Sure enough, a lot of the negative thoughts that come through my head are repeat thoughts. Writing these thoughts down in an organized manner gives me permission to push them out of my mind. It also allows me to act on them. Most of the things that keep me up at night have very little that I can do about them. They are fears of the unknown, fears about what can go wrong. Some, however, are actionable. I may be worried about losing my relationships with friends; I can work on this by scheduling calls with them. I've started collecting my thoughts into dedicated Anxiety notes. These are too private for me to share with the world, but they are loosely grouped into the following: - Anxiety over Money - Anxiety over Health - Anxiety over Relationships - Anxiety over Property For each of these, I put together the following template: - What stresses me out about this? - What can I do about this? - What is out of my control While this method isn’t a cure-all for anxiety, it’s a step towards managing it. If you struggle with similar feelings, consider giving this approach a try. # Quotes *"Focus on your own journey. Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle. This is going to make you feel awful."* [(source)](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQVxHgLJmtkJKwQNdNzxPrfBPlc)