Caroline Cavanagh argues anxiety can push you toward growth, not just hold you back. She uses Tom Speight's decision to publicly reveal his colostomy bag and her own kids learning to drive as examples of how facing fear with purpose changes you and helps others.
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It's Friday afternoon as I record this and the end of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, and I've done loads of webinars this week and just recorded a load of videos to support those webinars. And I was just about to pack up, but it dawned on me that something that happened this morning is directly related to one of the topics that I've been speaking about To lots of people this week. My underlying theme of all the work that I do is anxiety is a good thing, because one of the roles of anxiety is to help us perform in the face of risk. And we do face risk on a regular basis, normally when it involves going outside of our comfort zone, doing something that we're not used to doing, or perhaps are not even skilled to But when we do those things, we grow. And one of the things that will help you step outside of that comfort zone into uncomfortable is having a high enough purpose. I've got 2 teenage children and they're both learning to drive at the moment, and I remember quite vividly how nervous they were in their first driving lesson because it was way outside their comfort zone. But now they're jumping into the car quite readily and even excited about another opportunity to develop their skills as drivers. Their motivation to overcome the fear of that first experience of getting behind the wheel is the freedom that driving will give them. This morning, as I was getting ready to start my day, I caught an interview with someone on TV. Who was talking about how he had been hiding within his comfort zone for 10 years, covering something that was fundamental to his life because he was scared of going outside of his comfort zone. But then something happened that said, enough now. By me speaking out, I may help hundreds, thousands of other people, to deal with what I've learned to deal with. I can help people. That person was a singer-songwriter called Tom Spade. 10 years ago, due to Crohn's disease, he ended up with a colostomy bag, but that colostomy bag led him to withdraw his comfort zone, to stop doing some of the things for fear of being judged. But recently he reached that decision, is, no, I'm a young man, I've got a following, I've got things that if I share with other people and just show them that when you step outside of your comfort zone you can help, it's worth it. And so he stood up in front of a camera similar to this, lifted up his shirt and showed his colostomy bag. And in the interview he said how amazing, how liberating that felt to go, this is me, it's nothing to be ashamed of. All of us will find times when we don't want to step outside of the comfort zone. It may be because we don't have the skills to be outside of that comfort zone, but often it's because we fear being judged. And so to combat that fear, you need something more powerful, and that's a purpose. Tom Speight's purpose was to help others. Sometimes the purpose may be a new skill, a freedom, growth. And that's what I would always come back to as the epitome of why we We should keep stepping outside of our comfort zone when those opportunities arise, or even create those opportunities yourself. Because the more you step outside of the comfort zone, the more you grow, the more your skill base increases, and the more you can then do. Staying inside your comfort zone means you're not growing. Stepping outside of the comfort zone makes your comfort zone bigger and bigger and bigger. So I encourage you now, don't see doing something that you've never done before as a bad thing. Embrace that anxiety because what that anxiety is going to do is to help you perform. That's the role of anxiety, to facilitate a higher level of performance. It's part of that primitive fight-or-flight response, the ability to react and At a higher level in the face of risk. So we need it when we're stepping outside of the comfort zone. Embrace the anxiety, step out of that comfort zone because there is a reason to, and know there's only ever one first. The second time you do something, it will be easier and easier and easier until it becomes habitual. Your comfort zone Now embraces that skill too. Keep stepping outside your comfort zone and take your lead from that very brave young man, Tom Speight, because by stepping outside his comfort zone, not only has he grown, he is going to help many other people to step outside their comfort zone too. And what a wonderful thing that is to be able to do. Thank you for listening.
