Jay Morrissey

We all get that sick feeling in our stomach from time to time. Challenges and changes in our lives are supposed to be exciting, and yet these situations are often accompanied with anxiety.

Learning to handle anxiety is an important skill, one that can take an entire life to master. Throughout your existence, life will throw you a series of challenges, the more unique the challenge, the more anxiety will accompany it. The nature, and source of the challenge is unimportant. The critical factor is in your ability to take on the challenge in a relaxed and thoughtful manner.

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We are often put in a situation where we need to negotiate with, or confront somebody in authority. For most of us, this is our employer, our direct manager, or even a CEO. Confrontation is already an unpleasant situation, and it is often made worse when the other person is in a position of authority over us.

In my time, I have had the opportunity to work with some amazing managers, and others for whom the term “manager” was simply a title for ego. The latter could certainly learn from the first. Unfortunately, we cannot change people very easily. We can only control what we know and equip ourselves with the confidence necessary to negotiate with and confront authority, whether the individual in question is good-natured, or an extravagant egotist.

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Imagine you woke up this morning and had no expectations of yourself. No standard you had to live up to. How would that feel? In my humble opinion, people demand so much of themselves that their confidence suffers. In a given day, we demand ourselves to look prettier, feel fitter, walk taller, talk with more charisma, work more productively, and even be funnier. Is it any wonder we doubt ourselves?

I have read many pieces of work in the past that focus on visualising, practising, self-hypnosis and many other techniques for dealing with confidence. I think these methods complicate what is really a societal issue: we can’t live up to our own expectations.

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The power to communicate within the human species is our single most precious gift. Still, we have only scratched the surface with our ability to connect with each other. We are taught from a young age: don’t talk to strangers.

This is sound advice when you are seven years old. Though as an adult, this attitude can massively affect your enjoyment of life. We can all agree that the people we know now shape our lives. Yet, we are often shy, scared and even lazy when it comes to meeting new people. I have split this article into five sections, to demonstrate why you need to kick the “shy” habit and come out of your shell.

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Disagreements are a fact of life. They are a necessity for understanding each other, for growth and sometimes as a means of discipline. That said, arguments can get out of control very quickly.

When this happens, both parties of the argument can (and often do) say things that they do not mean. As emotions pour like a fountain, a simple disagreement can turn into a series of personal attacks.

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An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but I’d rather be blind than see a coward in the mirror. In our evolutionary history, intimidation was a direct result of physical size. One human being would be intimidated by a larger creature, and even a larger human being. This formula is still in play, you need look only to night-club bouncers, celebrity security guards and biker gangs. As the tolerance for physical violence in our community diminishes, verbal intimidation has found itself a new home in our lives.

Often, the blows from a verbal intimidator can be just as punishing as those from a fist fight. With all matters of survival, if you don’t learn to fight, you will lose. Never instigate intimidation, but learn to fight back when somebody tries to intimidate you.

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