Too Anxious To Productively Obsess?

Most of our obsessions are not of our own choosing and do not serve us. They arise because we are anxious creatures and our unproductive thoughts cycle repeatedly to the beat of that anxiety. We obsess about things that we want to happen, like winning the lottery, and about things that we don’t want to happen, like getting wrinkles. Our mind, which ought to be ours, is stolen away by anxiety thieves.

These are unproductive obsessions—they do not serve us. They waste our precious time, occupy our finite neurons, and pressure us to behave compulsively in ways that amount to further self-disservice. Anxiety fuels these obsessions and the effort to relieve our anxiety leads us to pointless, questionable, or dangerous behaviors intended to quiet our nerves and banish the anxiety.

Productive obsessions are different. They are the way that an individual makes meaning and the way that civilization progresses. Scientific obsessions lead to vaccines, artistic obsessions lead to symphonies, humanitarian obsessions lead to freedom and justice. Productive obsessions are our lifeblood, both for the individual and for all of humanity. We should not fear them because they put us under unwonted pressure, give a compulsive edge to our behaviors, or in other ways discomfort us. Rather, we should learn how to encourage them and manage them.

But many people find themselves a little too anxious and easily distracted to be able to get a grip on their mind and produce brainstorms. Fortunately there are a great many things you can do to deal with this anxiety. Learn what you can do in a class that Dr. Maisel has prepared for dailyom.com called Overcoming Creative Anxiety.

The Overcoming Creative Anxiety class is delivered electronically and you can begin it whenever you like and pay whatever you want.

Thousands of folks have found this class helpful. Take a look for yourself:

Overcoming Creative Anxiety