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Planned worrying

Dealing with the symptoms of an anxiety disorder from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep is a lot to bear. Ifyou're experiencing an anxiety disorder in this period of your life, you can try scheduling out some explicit time to worry. You can't command yourself to stop being anxious, but you can negotiate with your mind and say, "Fine, I will dedicate some thought and worry to what is drawing my attention... from 5:00pm to 5:30pm — but outside of that: I have to live my life." The CBT therapists call this "planned worrying,"it's likely to be helpful not just because it can help lessen symptoms outside the dedicated time, but probably also helps to decrease the fear you experience when you are worrying, as well as increase the fruitfulness of that time spent worrying, since worrying with the back of your mind is far less productive than with the tip of your tongue.

Do not bend two bows

"A man cannot bend two bows, nor can he mount two horses." Focus and motivation come from the clarity in your plans. Make sure you know what you're doing, and that you're not trying to do two things at once, even if they seem to you to be simple things, or a simple goal. "How difficult it is to be simple."

Be Perfect

Your brain is built to house your map of maps. Enthusiasm is experienced as a result of a goal's path being made clear, its events understood, and the endpoint fully explored for its meaning. It is produced by a ready map, which has integrated your past experiences, and wields at least a new experimental solution to all visible doubts and anxieties. You are enthusiastic when you feel confident (i.e. devoid of doubts) that good things are coming, if you act in a way you believe you can manage. Even if you do suspect this may fail, trying a novel approach offers a backup, in that you will at least have learned something from the attempt, which can be more valuable than an immediate successs.

True charisma is a state produced by an alignment of all of your goals, to your overarching ideal. Charisma is essentially meta-enthusiasm. It is produced when the enthusiasm of many goals combines with confidence that those goals are coming together to form the harmonious vision that reaches beyond oneself.

The opposite of this state is a mood, a funk, or an outright depression. The direction one's heart sways, whether to charisma or to depression, is produced by the balance between what has been ignored, what has been addressed, and everything which is stuck in between. These are the problems which announce themselves as in need of fixing to you. That's the unspoken communication gap, the constant nuisance, the impending doom, the weight of unatoned remorse, the growing dragon.

Not all problems can be solved immediately, nor even have a confident plan devised for them. But to be perfect does not mean to be without problems, but to ask yourself, genuinely, longingly, deeply, "Just what stupid things am I doing to make my current situation as wretched as it is? What could I change? If I am wrong, what might be the right?"