Ep 78
Welcome fellow confidence crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, Real Confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver, and I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets, and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So, let's get to it.
I don't think anyone would say they want more stress in their life. But most of us create a lot of unnecessary stress for ourselves and other people. We're not even aware of it. I have a friend leave her nameless and all my friends listening probably like, who is it? Who is it? I always say she is a real drama queen; she looks for drama, she creates drama. Even the littlest things almost like Seinfeld episode kind of everyday things turns into crisis, and stories. And it's got to go on and on and on sagas. And she lives for it. And you know, like, can I tell you there are probably people in your life who are like that drama queens or kings and looking for opportunity to make things that are mountains, from something that was just not that important.
I have certainly the habit myself, of adding complexity to things, you know, trying to figure out how I'm going to pack more into a smaller chunk of time, trying to rearrange things and subsequently make everything more complicated. It could be trying to meet up with friends and figure out who's going to carpool so we can save a mile or two of gas. Or just you know how to just do things more efficiently effectively. Sometimes that just adds an incredible amount of complexity to things. And, yeah, I'll take total ownership for doing that way too often, but I am getting better.
What about the stress of just complaining? All right. I'm sure we have people in our lives, relatives and otherwise, maybe we're even guilty of this one too, of complaining about things much more than they deserve. You know, complaining about the weather or complaining about an ache or pain, complaining about a person, complaining about the politics complaint, whatever, and not really ever owning up to doing anything about any of it just complaining that can also add stress. And when I say add stress, add stress to your own life if you're the complainer, but it starts to get stressful for other people who have to listen to you all the time. Now, there is no surprise that perfectionism, hello, all you perfectionists out there can also cause an unnecessary amount of stress our need to be perfect and polished and dot every I cross every t write that we worry that something's not good enough to send or to do. And so that, again, maybe one of those situations where we just don't realize the enormous amount of stress that causes ourselves the perfectionist, but can also rub off on other people.
And I, you know, again, maybe you are a drama junkie or a perfectionist, and you're happy in that role in that state. But if nothing else, consider what it might be doing to other people. So why do we do this? Why do we create extra stress? Well, I don't think we necessarily go out of our way to say I'm gonna create some more stress today. But because we're so worried, because we have that fear in our brain of the three big ones for confidence that we may fail, that we may do or not do something that we're going to regret later. And the third one is the biggie is rejection, somebody's not gonna like us. And so, driving, all those stress creation methods, the drama, the complexity, the perfectionism, and complaining, all of those are a result of the fear in our heads that manifests into something that we're doing that's creating significant stress, at least for us. And while we're doing it, we may not be aware of how much additional energy it takes to worry instead of go, oh, boy, that sucks, move on, or not create the drama and be okay with maybe a humdrum boring kind of day. And maybe going out with friends and not having so many stories and things to tell that might be okay asking them to share some things instead of being the center of attention, then maybe that's something that we can do if we start to recognize that the stress we're creating is not productive for anyone. And if you really don't care about other people, if none of that matters to you, what may matter to you is that you're actually losing gray matter and your prefrontal cortex, that's where all your intelligence is, as a result of ongoing stress.
So yeah, the article that I'm quoting here, from The Week, the title is how stress makes you stupid. So, all good reasons to get rid of as much stress as we can, especially that we're creating ourselves that's unnecessary. So I want to invite you for a moment to think about things that you may be doing to yourself to other people that are creating extra stress are you delegating a ton of work, for example, at home or at on your job to people in your frenzy, that you're like, oh, my God, we get to get all this stuff done. You do this, you do this, you do this, and you're not really checking in with them, but you're also freaking out and just delegating without thinking about it. Maybe you do that. Or maybe you one of the scenarios we went through before. Or even somebody in their own head, you're not maybe manifesting it on the outside, but you got a little impostor syndrome going on. You're thinking to yourself, oh, I'm not nearly as good as they think I am. So, you're stressing about it. And instead of asking other people if you're as good as you think they think you are, yeah, then you keep it all inside and becomes a ball of stress.
And I don't think I'm the first to tell you that that kind of stress of keeping it inside and worried about some stuff like that is not healthy, it's gonna go right into your belly cause all kinds of reflux or ulcers, it's gonna go into your neurological system and other ways and cause maybe headaches. Maybe even cause some kind of diseases and conditions as a result of prolonged chronic stress. So, you know, reducing stress is good. At any time, we can get rid of this unnecessary so-called stress things that we self-create that we can control. Hmm, were given us maybe some more life back. extending, our ability to be with our brands, our kids out would be a good thing, wouldn't it? So, we'll take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to just do some basic. How do we identify how do we do these things, so that we can have less stress and more fun in our lives, we'll be right back.
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So, we're here talking about unnecessary stress that we can control we create, we can avoid maybe in some cases, at least reduce and it may sound easy to say and not so easy to do. But the first step in this is to start to recognize those moments when we are stressed. Maybe you start to get a little twitchy, or you start to get a little bit nervous and feel it in terms of your temperature may, raise your heartbeat may speed up, may get a little warm, sweaty or maybe you just feel a little nauseous. Maybe it's a very subtle like, oh, inside going off. Or maybe it's literally that moment where you go, I'm so overwhelmed, I can't handle it. So, these are all signs. And we have to be more mindful of when we're feeling that stress, so we can deal with it. So again, I would invite you to think about some times or things that you're doing that happen. And if you can't think of any right now, put up a radar so that you start to detect them in the future so that you start to feel and see when your stress level is going above what you would consider a baseline normal level, some stress is actually good. It allows us to get up in the morning and know that we got to get some stuff done, gets us out of bed, gives us a little adrenaline, that's not bad stress. But bad stress is when we start to really feel worried, anxious, and subsequently have it in our in our nervous system. So, recognizing it first step.
The second step is to have a sense of humor about it. And I know, you're like that sounds funny, literally. But yeah, have a sense of humor about it and start to look at what are you getting nervous about? What are you worried about? Because most of the time, it's kind of silly. It's kind of funny. I'm worried that people aren't going to think I'm cool. Yeah, okay. Sure. So, you're going to tell them about your mother's ailment and all the gory details about it to make them like you more? Like this is ridiculous. I also think we need to look inside our own set of values and think, hmm, is that really what I want people know me about? Do they want to I want them to think of me as the complainer as the drama queen? Do I want them to think of me as somebody who was such a perfectionist? That I couldn't relax? Like, what do I want to be known for? And, and are those behaviors are those times where I'm getting stressed? aligned with that persona aligned with that person that I want to be known for with that legacy? And, again, have a sense of humor about it? Because a lot of times, you're gonna be like, oh, my gosh, no, no, that's not the person I want to be known for. So have a sense of humor about it, laugh a little bit about it. And in that moment, let it go. Let it go. Just so let it go. Let it go. Because you have bigger, better things to do with that cognitive energy; bigger and better things to do with your time. Bigger are better things to do with your relationships and bigger and better things to do with how you want to impact the world.
And so, if you're overcomplicating things if you're overdramatic, dramatizing dramatic ties and dramatic sizing things, if you are putting out negative energy, guess what comes back to you? Yeah, negative energy. If you put out positive energy, and I'll give you an example. Instead of saying, boy, the weather sucks. Think of it this way. It says, you know, I can't wait for spring. But in the meantime, I'm gonna get to do a lot of cool things in the house because the weather is just doesn't allow me to do as much outside. Alright, you could always reframe things. And I'm not saying you should be Pollyanna or be a faker, but maybe not always find the negative find the silver lining, find a way to look at something that makes you like, bummed out and turn it into something that's not so negative. We can do that. Reduce the stress. Perfection is out there you know what I'm gonna say? You got to practice the word enough. More meaning when it's good enough. Is somebody really going to notice those details that you do? And if so, okay, then you can say you know what, it's really not ready yet, but not to be hysterical that oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Gotta get it out. Gotta finish it. Gotta make it perfect. So, can you take a breath and make a good confident decision? What good enough looks like and be realistic that you're good enough maybe a lot higher standards than most other people's and be again, decisive if you need to be that that good your standard.
So, recognize when you're stressed have a sense of humor. We're about it. Find the positive if you can, and be really honest with yourself, what is good enough? What is reasonable enough, and where we can reduce the complexity and the stress in our lives? I'll tell you that I'm always now on the hunt for ways to reduce stress. And sometimes it means spending more money, spending money to get some help whether it's cleaning the house, or, or taking the dog out, or whatever it is, you know, I'm looking for ways to reduce my stress. Not just because I'm older, not just because I can afford it, but because I really recognize the value of my own time, and my own energy store. So sometimes I have to do those things. Sometimes I have to say, you know, I can't, I can't do that for you, I can't make that night happen because I can't add that stress to my life. And so, I want to invite you to be a little bit more protective of your brain be a little bit more protective of your time and reduce the stress wherever you can and not feel bad about it. And certainly, let's aim not to create any more stress that is totally unnecessary. All right. Amen to that. My friends, thank you for joining me, I hope to see you in the next pod.
Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other Real Confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again, that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others and you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So, for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute. All rights reserved.