Is Your Anxiety Beneficial To You?

This is a tough question to ask anyone suffering from anxiety on any level, but a question that nonetheless must be asked. With so many people suffering from anxiety around the world and on such intense levels, the idea that your condition is working for you and giving you many benefits seems absurd. Or does it?

The truth is that while suffering from anxiety can be painful and dramatic, it can also be your excuse to continue to do something or not to do something else. Quite simply, you may not want to recover from your anxiety because you are actually benefiting from it, and you know it.

If I reel this thought in and personalize it, I can tell you in my own life that although I complained about my anxiety and was shit scared of many of the symptoms it brought me (like crazy panic attacks), my anxiety was my ally, my friend, and the condition that saved me from having to do things I feared. We had a love-hate relationship!

Yes, I had a bad fear of commitment and fear of confrontation in my past, and I can tell you every time I was about to go on a date or partake in a business meeting I knew was going to be heated, my anxiety was there full force and to the rescue.

Just before that date my stomach would tighten and the cramps would be unreal; the fear would overtake my system to such a point that all of a sudden I was ‘really sick ‘and the thought of going on my date would be absurd and simply hazardous to my health.

From those physical symptoms the mind would start to race with negative thought after scary thought and in a matter of seconds my confidence and self-esteem was at its lowest point; my date instantly went from something of a fun experience to a situation that would define the value of my being and would indicate to me whether I was a good or bad person – I was shit scared of the possibility of rejection and even the possibility of the responsibility of having too commit to this person.

Like I mentioned before thank goodness my anxiety would fly in as a gracious superhero and rescue me from having to go through with anything that would make me uncomfortable. I was saved again. Because so many of us fear change, and fear the idea of changing our lives and dealing with a new set of anxieties, we use our current anxiety to keep us exactly where we want to be: in our routine and comfortable lives.

Subconsciously, so many of us actually believe that the current anxiety we are holding onto and using to stop us from change is not as bad (and milder if I can say that) then the future anxiety of changing our lives and trying new things.

We fear this future anxiety so much we hold onto and live with our current anxiety, but the truth is (and we know this) the anticipation of the anxiety is always worse than the actual anxiety itself. We need to identify our beneficial anxiety and crush it.

So, what is your anxiety doing for you?


The list could be endless, but lets take a stab at it.  Is your current anxiety working for you and stopping you from:

Ending a bad relationship or entering a healthy one?
Quitting your job or changing careers?
Stopping you from being responsible for yourself as others are taking care of you now?
Getting married?
Going on a vacation?
Spending a large sum of money?
Socializing and making friends?
Becoming more of a family-oriented person?
Networking?
Starting your own business?
Getting healthier and joining a gym?
Becoming great and changing the world?
Defeating your addictions such as smoking and gambling?
Looking inside yourself and optimizing your emotional and spiritual well being?
Changing religions or embracing spirituality?


The list can go on and on, and this list here is only supposed to make you take stock of your own life and figure out if you are allowing and controlling some form of anxiety in your life to stop you from actually changing your life and living the life you want.

If the answer is yes, then you must understand this: the anxiety you are harboring and feeling now is far worse then the anxiety you will face in the future if you go for it and change your life. The anxiety you fear is known as ‘anticipatory anxiety’ or the ‘fear-of-fear’, whatever we term it the key thing I will reiterate is it is never as bad as it seems.

Just like going on that date, once you actually go and settle in you find it isn’t as bad as you thought and generally all of us are happy we went through with things despite our anxiety.  The reason it is so important to figure out if we are benefiting from our anxiety and if it is working for us is because quite simply these ‘secondary gains’ are stopping us from overcoming our fears and anxieties and going after the life we want.

Many people who suffer from this type of beneficial anxiety claim they don’t know why they are experiencing it as they really aren’t scared of anything, so it is important this concept of secondary gains is explored as it is here we sometimes find that hidden source of anxiety we have been searching for.

Also, whether it is real and genuine fear, anxiety and panic we are facing or whether it is anxiety brought on by ourselves and beneficial to ourselves, the obstacles are the same and in each instance we are being held back.

The goal is not to be comfortable forever and not to stay stagnant in our lives. We must defeat our anxieties to move on with our current lives (if we are doing everything we really want and are happy) peacefully, and to make the changes necessary to achieve the life we want.  Relationships, careers, you name it, these are all life changing situations that must be addressed and if you are scared then you must take your anxiety head on.

Generally with this type of beneficial anxiety it is about dealing with fear of the future and not relieving panic and intense anxiety in the short term (although that may come later). If you want to defeat your current anxiety you must address the things you fear; recovery is found in the things you fear the most.

The purpose of this article is to get you thinking about your anxiety and to establish its source. Are you employing your anxiety? Is it working for you? Do you have a love-hate relationship with your anxiety?

If so, make a concerted effort to identify your anxiety, its source, and what it is doing for you and then make a plan to tackle and defeat it!  Please look at my other articles, namely one on Defeating Fear, and never, ever give up on your goals and what you want. You really can conquer anything. If you are strong enough to hire, you are strong enough to fire.

I really hope you enjoyed this article, I hope it gave you food for thought that can be applied to your life. If it was beneficial to you in some way or you think it may be helpful to someone else, please share it with him or her.

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