Ahead of a serious interview, passing a project or exam, an important speech? Preparing for the test is sometimes exhausting so that there is no energy left for the final push. How to save strength and deal with fears, says psychoanalyst and coach Yulia Lyanguzova.
Ask yourself the right questions
Ask yourself from time to time: «Who am I doing this for?» or «…To what?». This question quickly removes the filters of consciousness and allows you to reach answers deeply hidden in the unconscious.
I’m going to a new job so what? Get a high salary. Or prove to myself or others that I can. If I go for myself, then I evaluate the risks from an adult position, all the pros and cons, and I understand what I should do. If I ask for a raise because my wife is sawing at home, then anxiety builds. Very often, awareness of the true cause of anxiety is enough to reduce it.
Ask yourself: what is the worst thing that could happen? We want to belong to some community, project, company, family. To do this, we enter universities, conquer Everest, a man or a woman. And we are afraid to be overboard.
Ask a question: what if I fail the test? And what’s next? And then? Ask and answer until you feel that the fear has disappeared: there will be no catastrophe.
Approach the task systematically
Separate the present from the past. You felt something frightening in your state. Ask yourself what does it look like (image, bodily sensation, smell or sound)? When did you feel like this before? You will probably remember something, and it turns out that your fear is an echo of the past, it does not apply to the present. When the current situation is separated from the one that scares, it is perceived more easily.
Throw out anxiety in motion. At the gym or at the dance. Movement allows us to make the stress stretched out over time finite, to materialize fear. The knot of tension will be weakened, and the focus of psychic energy will be shifted to something else that we need.
Write down your achievements. What are you proud of, what makes you happy? And not necessarily on the topic of the test (study or scientific work). You can be proud of the built house and the planted tree. Or the fact that you once boldly registered on a dating site.
Make a list of your goosebumps. Something that gives pleasure, from which you want to purr like a cat. A cup of cappuccino, a touch on a child’s hair, a sunset on top of a mountain, music. Write a list in advance so that it is always at hand, for example, on the phone. In moments of stress, look into the cheat sheet and plunge into the memories or make your «goosebump» in reality.
Make a promise to yourself to celebrate the fact of passing the exam. It doesn’t matter what the result will be. Whether you go to a meeting with friends, cook dinner or take a trip. This is how we force our psychic to create an image of the celebration of life, the expectation of a reward for the very fact of overcoming. And it helps to ease tension and move towards the goal. And after that, find the pluses that you received during the strength test. This is definitely a new experience in which you learned something new about yourself.
Put a point. On the eve of the test, try to rest and sleep. Do something nice in the morning, spend time with nice people — this is a resource. And after the exam, be sure to give yourself time to rest to complete the stress-reaction cycle. Otherwise, you will not put an end to it and each next exam will be psychologically harder. At least a few hours (and preferably days) do what you like.