OVERCOMING ANGST

Do you know the angst of greatness, that sick feeling when you see your dreams sailing downstream towards a ravine that dares you to enter and retrieve them? Despite our obsession with success, we say little about the angst that eats when failure chastens and cheats.

The Silent Treatment

This angst alienates us from others and devours us from within. Unless we are resilient, we will live with shame and chagrin. Hence the importance of nurturing new goals and developing the resilience to reclaim old ones. In doing so, we overcome angst. We also energize ourselves. Sustained, our attitude enables us to give angst the silent treatment, as we ignore its taunts and challenge its threats. With resilience, we give new meaning to the silent treatment. Instead of silence censoring and sabotaging us, we now use it to withhold judgment about our chances of success and about what our circumstances mean. Hence the importance of resilience.

The Character of Resilience

Resilience does more than enable us to bounce back. It also enables us to go beyond the limits we set and failure prescribes. These limits are often illegitimate. Yet a series of failures can make us question our ability, especially in an age of ultimate utility. This utility demands that we discover our uniqueness and brand our greatness. Success, however, requires that we become more resilient. More important, we must understand how to develop resilience to overcome angst and its intimidation.

Cultivating Resilience

The key to cultivating resilience is to manage our self-talk because it is here that we err in our efforts to excel. This private palaver is the source of our assessments and the cite of angst’s assaults. Herein we give meaning to events and value to acts. This dialogue dilutes when we become penurious with our praise. In being emotionally stingy, we are inevitably stumped in our efforts to succeed.

The Site of Success

Winners understand the value of self-talk and the power it produces when we change our assessments. They understand that angst is compounded when we are surrounded in a self-constructed citadel of negativity, which our failures reinforce lest we escape and discover our true greatness. If you want to escape this constraint and overcome angst, watch what you say and how you assess your circumstances. Suspend your judgment and become a student, learning from them instead. Doing so doesn’t require you to be dishonest; but you must become generous with yourself, praising freely and cultivating carefully the quality of resilience. Rightly managed, self-talk increases our resilience, develops our confidence and minimizes angst as we strive to achieve our dreams.