Glasgow Anxiety Therapy

Knowing that there are things you can do today which can change the way you feel is a great confidence booster. For example, start to make a note of all the little things that go well every day. Often, we tend to disregard them and focus just on the bad stuff. And then we start to fantasise about all the terrible things that might happen. Catastrophes in the making.

Take active note of even the smallest positive thing. If someone talks to you at the bus stop, give yourself a point. When you find yourself having an unhelpful thought, tell it to go away, and reward yourself for taking that action.

Unkind and critical self-talk is destructive and achieves nothing. Hypnosis can help you get out of the habit.

Most of us worry in a random but constant way. A nasty self-critical thought pops up, or we brood on something that might happen and think of all the disasters that could entail. The random thoughts seem to self-generate and continue endlessly, all without your control. What can we do?

If persistent worrying is your problem, then making an appointment with your worry can be very effective. This limits the amount of time that you spend worrying, but also allows you to move the thoughts away from vague and non-specific to something a bit clearer. What exactly is it that is worrying you. Write it down. Clarify it.

To do this, spotting the onset of worrying is the key. You will find that there are certain thoughts or feelings that get you started and certain feelings and sensations that go with them. Make a note of these so that you can catch them at it. Once you find yourself worrying, interrupt yourself and tell your worries that you will deal with them during your appointment. You can then relax and get on with whatever you were doing. You will worry properly at the appointment. Sounds simple? Even a bit silly? Well, it has been shown time and again to be really effective. Persistent worrying is a habit. You can unlearn it.

And it you need a helping hard, contact me and have a go at hypnotherapy. It works and it's fast. You'll be feeling better in no time.

Note this first. To aim for excellence is good. To aim for perfection is a complete waste of time. It just won't happen. You will have expended all that energy to try to achieve perfection, only to discover what you think is perfect just doesn't do the business for someone else. Perfection is subjective (as well as a waste of time).

But if you tend towards perfectionism what can you do? Well, there might be a wee bitty part of you that feels (dare I say,  rather smugly) that it is a fine thing indeed to aim for perfection. You might well believe that your perfectionist tendencies mean that you produce great work. But it is more likely that you achieve little, because you spend such a long time planning and tinkering and honing. And you can make yourself very afraid of criticism, even the helpful kind. When you have invested so much time, effort, thought, anguish into producing something, the last thing you can bear is someone pointing something out. Another risk is that even if you get something done, you could miss the deadline.

But why should we accept that we are imperfect? Because accepting mistakes, failure, imperfection will  make us happier. Perfection is an unnecessary burden.

Here is one method of overcoming perfectionism (another is to come and see me!). It is a cognitive technique called The Downward Arrow.

Consider a task or facet which you feel needs to be perfect.

Ask these questions. Why does it need to be perfect. You might say, because I have a reputation to maintain. Next question. Why does that matter. And continue to ask that same question against all your answers. You might find out what you are fearing. Then you can do something about it!