How to stop worry from ruining your day

It's about 10-17. Stress is one sneaky little bugger, isn't it? You think you're managing life's blows really well. And then boom, it's the middle of the night and you can't shut your brain off. So here to help us with that is Angela Goodman. She calls herself a leadership coach, speaker, and pattern disruptor. So let's break some chains here and start moving forward. Good morning. Thanks for being here with us. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Of course. I know a lot of people are tuning in, listening, thinking, okay, what's she got for me? Because I've been feeling a little stressed, whether it's pre- or post-election stress, as you were talking in the commercial break, or thinking about the holiday season. So where do you want to jump in? You know, I think it's really important when you're dealing with stress and anxiety to be able to understand that it is not a flaw. It's okay to worry. It's nothing wrong with that. We're all going to do it. And so I have some tips for folks to kind of understand where that anxiety and worry is coming from because once you name it, you can release it. Yeah. Yeah. And I know you especially have some tips for the holiday season. Why that specific approach? Well, it's interesting. Most of us don't like to disappoint our friends and family. So during holiday season, whether we're the ones hosting the party or we're the ones who've been invited to places we don't really I don't really want to show up. up getting in this anxiety loop because we don't want to disappoint people. So it happens a lot during the holiday season. Well, what's the first thing we need to do to nip this? Well, it's about understanding what type of anxiety person you are. So there are three types. There's the person who is a checker. So you're constantly checking your phone. You're constantly checking what's going on in the situation. There's people who are rehearsing. They're constantly rehearsing the situation. They're thinking about, well, what if this happens? Or what if that happens? Or maybe I'm not going for that particular moment in time. And then the third person is somebody that is actually part of who I am. They're the night solver. They wake up in the middle of the night and they're solving the world's problems while they're trying to sleep. So understanding what type of person you are with your anxiety is really important because that helps you realize how to name it. That's really good. And I feel like I think there could be some overlap if we were to make a Venn diagram because I feel like I've been a person rehearsing in the middle of the night. So what do we do then? How do we fix this? So especially if you're in the middle of the night, like myself, I'm the same way. If you are in the middle of the night, there's a couple of things that can help you. Number one, all of our cell phones typically have a voice memo app. If you wake up in the middle of the night and you are worried about something that hasn't happened yet or that you're doing tomorrow, voice memo yourself so you get it out of your head once you've downloaded it somewhere else. Your head then no longer feels like it needs to retain it and solve it. Um, you can also grab a notepad in the middle of the night and kind of write it down and just let it go. Yeah. Um, that's one of the really important tips that I like to help people with because they don't realize that they haven't fully let it go before they go to sleep. That's good too. Yeah. I know that I'm asking you lots of questions, but I also know that you have some questions that we can ask ourselves to try to feel a little less stressed. What are those? Yes. So really good questions to ask yourself is, is this true? If you find yourself in a worry loop or in a spiral where you're just really concerned about a problem. that's going on, you're creating that anxiety within yourself. The first question to ask yourself is, is this true? Is it really going to happen this way? And is there anything I can do about it? Because if there's not anything you can do about it, you can't predict how the future is going to happen anyway. It's a perfect opportunity to stop yourself in your tracks and then let it go. Yeah. Yeah. I know you've also got something about what is it protecting us from, right? You You said that worry is natural, it's normal, and in a way, it's healthy. Yeah, we have created in our life these protective strategies that we anxiety becomes a part of. So if you are a child who grew up maybe in not the safest home in later in your life, you're going to have that come back to you in certain situations. If you are a person who has been through some really tough situations in life, you're kind of always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so that anxiety is really trying to protect you from those moments. But we also create them too when we get too deep. Okay. So what do we do in that situation? Do we say, I recognize that this is me trying to protect myself and I know I'm capable. So I'm just going to let it all shake out the way it's supposed to. You should be doing my job. Yeah. I mean, that's, it's literally that simple. Yes. You know, for years in businesses that I owned, I had a lot of anxiety and a lot of stress. What I realized was it actually really is just a choice. And once you've named it and you recognize Do you recognize where it's coming from and you realize that that you can't plan the future and you can't predict the future, it becomes a choice of, do I want to be in this stress or don't I want to be in this stress? Yeah, where you can't add a day to your life. Finally, with just seconds left, you have one more tip that we can do in just minutes. Yeah, in just minutes, I have a free resource on my website. It's called the Alignment Drift Assessment. My website is msangelagoodman.com and you can go take the assessment for free and I send you some results and some questions to ask yourself to better understand where your protective strategies are Wonderful. And that's the note we'll end on. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for having me. Sure. And again, you can go to our website, foxfiveatlanta.com, to find Angela's website and other ways to connect with her. Just go to the Good Day tab on foxfiveatlanta.com and click on today's viewer information link.