Early on in school, our teachers taught us to take things one step at a time when tackling our schoolwork. This was a common strategy we were informed to use especially when learning and performing math, a subject many of us struggled with. What might have seemed like a complicated mathematical problem ended up being simpler to find the answer to, all because our teachers helped us break it down into smaller steps.
However, for someone with anxiety, breaking problems down into more manageable bits and pieces is often perceived as enigmatic, difficult, and at times, impossible in their eyes. In reality, sometimes the best thing for someone with anxiety is learning how to turn a big, scary task into several feasible tasks.
As much as an anxious individual might want things to be easier to deal with, whether it be getting through an exhausting work shift or studying for a big exam, sometimes the only way we know how to make things easier is to... make things harder. In response, we might take on extra shifts at work or study for four hours instead of just two as a way to challenge ourselves to make the problems of our lives appear easier in the end.
Making things harder seems counterintuitive for someone struggling with anxiety. The truth is, it's a defense mechanism and not a good one as it distracts us from what we really need to be doing: making things easier on ourselves.
When we intentionally make things harder than they have to be, this "works" for us because:
- Making a task more complex is seemingly "easier" than breaking down into smaller steps, something an anxious person may not yet know how to do.
- Turning a task into something much harder gives us a greater sense of achievement after we accomplish it, more so than the original task or problem itself would.
- When we are able to achieve the thing we made more complex, it makes it easier to deal with that same thing again in the future when we do not overly-complexify it.
- As anxious individuals, intentionally making things more difficult is essentially a projection of what we really feel on the inside; we overcomplicate things in our head already, so sometimes we aim to make things more complicated externally as well. It's just easier to stick to what we already know.
- We thrive off of the stronger lows and highs it takes to accomplish a harder task.
- We tend to believe that we "aren't productive enough" if we aren't achieving the impossible, so we attempt to do the impossible.
As we engage in this defense mechanism, we tend to feel more anxious in the process. While we get that "high" after achieving that complicated thing, it often isn't worth the extra stress, tears, and frustration. Likewise, over-complexifying tasks feeds our anxiety; it reinforces that it's okay for us to think, feel, and do things that are not just hard but ridiculously difficult, to the point where it is unhealthy.
Sometimes the best way to tackle something that is hard or something that we think is hard is to do what our teachers use to tell us: break it down into smaller segments.
How do I know this? As someone with severe agoraphobia, OCD, and generalized anxiety disorder coupled with panic attacks, I've been on both sides of the spectrum: someone who intentionally would make things more complex and someone who broke down problems little by little until it was achieved in whole.
As I continue to recover from agoraphobia and deal with my anxiety on a broad scale, what works best for me mentally, emotionally, and physically is thinking and doing in baby steps.
For the first time in years, completely homebound to my property due to crippling anxiety, I was able to drive around my entire block and walk a half mile around my neighborhood. Why? Because I didn't think about the entire process and make it more complicated. I also didn't try to healer faster than my brain could cope. Instead, I broke my problem down into steps. I made it a goal to drive or walk a certain short distance, and when I made it there, I'd make another new goal, and so on.
Before, I thought healing from anxiety meant making flawless, immediate progress. I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't make my rigid goal. I thought in black and white thinking; I wanted it all, and I wanted it now. To do that, I'd have to jump through fiery hoops, when in reality, all I needed to do was walk to the finish line. In the end, this was a toxic thought process for me in the short- and long-run.
I am a firm believer that once you learn how to take a big problem or task and start to take the time and effort to turn it into several smaller goals, you can achieve anything you want and reap the benefit of less anxiety in the process.
You can still feel confident and proud when you achieve a task by breaking it down rather than by making it more intimidating than it truly is!
Remember: "Work smarter, not harder."
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