Sidequesting

I’ve been sidequesting a little here and there for a while now.

For anyone who doesn’t know, a sidequest is a term used in video games to describe quests that aren’t of the highest importance to the game - but are often fun to do, or drop a lot of gold, experience or whatever else it is that you’re after.

But no, I haven’t started binge-playing Valorant or whatever.

(btw I have no clue which games have this main quest vs. side quest element. Only games I ever knew were Clash of Clans and Clash Royale)

I’ve been sidequesting in real life.

The way I’ve always looked at my life is pretty simple: You have 1-3 areas (ex. building your physique) in life that you try to improve, while other areas (ex. playing the piano) don’t really get neglected… but kind of.

Let’s say other areas stay stagnant.

For the last 1-2 months or so though, I’ve taken a lot more interest in my so-called “sidequests” in life.

Whereas my entire focus used to be 1. On the gym and 2. On my business (and maybe sometimes 3. Touching on relationships), I’ve recently gone down a lot of paths at once.

Most of which I’ll probably talk about in the near future—except for the one I’ll write about right now:

Anxiety

Every human on this earth knows what anxiety feels like.

This daunting, uncomfortable feeling that alerts you. Which leads to overthinking and unbreakable thought loops. This emotion that kicks in right at those times when you wish it wouldn’t be bothering you.

I’ve had a deep look into all forms of anxiety.

It’s something I struggle with, still, even though it used to be a lot, lot worse.

Soooo…. without further ado, here are some mega interesting things about anxiety I wish I knew earlier.

1. Anxiety is the Future

When you’re anxious, you’re anticipating the future.

Basic example - a class presentation. A lot of people have a basic fear of speaking in front of others.

I despised class presentations. But not the 5 minutes you spend in front of the other people, most of the pain and uncomfort I felt was the second the teacher would announce “Everybody’s going to be doing a presentation in the next weeks”.

Boom.

Anxiety alert.

With every day the presentation would come closer, my mind would get more anxious.

More overthinking. More thought loops. More anxiety.

Technically, this is a good thing. We experience anxiety because of an important future event, and our mind makes us feel bad in order for us to get our asses up and prepare accordingly.

In science terms:

Anxiety is our brain’s ability to see problems (e.g., messing up my class presentation in front of everybody) and consider consequences (e.g., embarrassing myself in front of everyone, being humiliated, etc).

But sometimes, even most of the time (at least in my experience), the anxiety response is just a bit too hardcore. A bit too hefty.

To be specific, the uncertainty of a future event is a determining factor of how anxious we are.

Which leads me to point 2:

2. How our mind responds to anxiety

You can be anxious about all sorts of things.

Approaching a girl.
A class presentation.
A project or task you have to complete.

ANY type of future event.

But science says we can classify 3 common responses to anxiety.

The first and most common one for me is distraction.

If anxiety is future-directed thinking, the logical reaction of someone who struggles with anxiety is to attempt to get back into the present.

The easiest and most energy effective way to be present?

Netflix. YouTube. Video games.

Stimulation, and the higher and more intense the stimulation is, the easier it pulls us into the present, leaving no room for anxiety to flourish.

It won’t come as a surprise though, when I say this:

That’s ain’t gonna solve the problem mate.

All it’s going to do is delay your anxious thoughts to later, where they will have stockpiled up on each other, while you will have made 0 progress.

Yeah, of course there are better ways than crazy stimulation to get you to think about something else, but it’s the most natural way to escape your thoughts in this day and age.

The second way to deal with anxiety is by removing uncertainty.

If you can remove uncertainty about the future, you’re gonna be better off - for example by deciding to NOT participate in a future event.

That could mean NOT going to a party.

NOT approaching that cute girl over there.

NOT getting your work done on time, because we’re just so exceptionally good at making excuses.

Lastly, we can also choose to fight our anxiety with logic.

This creates a full on war in your head - and I bet this is something you will be able to relate to.

Anxiety comes. You notice that you’re anxious.

And the next minutes, hours and days you try to convince yourself that there is nothing to worry about.

I can tell you from experience that it can sometimes help, but mostly, this is just another way to start infinite thought loops and generate overthinking possibilities.

That’s how our minds respond to anxiety - but not all hope is lost.

Because there’s one more point I want to talk about:

3. The Equation

The anxiety equation is dead simple and allows us to reduce it fairly reliably. Not always, but most of the times.

It goes like this:

Anxiety = Uncertainty/Confidence

The higher your uncertainty, the worse your anxiety is.

The higher your confidence is, the less anxiety you feel.

If you’ve ever been anxious about a school test of some sort, this equation is easily explained.

The more you study for the test, the more confident you are about getting a good grade → the less anxiety you have to deal with until you absolve the test.

If the asshole teacher gave you 0 indication about what the test is going to be, you’ll be far more anxious (because there’s more uncertainty), compared to a situation where the teacher is a cool dude and spilled all the tea about the test beforehand.

You can use this equation for any future anxiety inducing event.

While it might not always help to reduce it, understanding the equation itself makes anxiety a whole lot simpler.

My sidequesting isn’t over though, and I feel like I haven’t even really touched on 10% of the entire complexity of anxiety.

Let me know if you’ve ever had major anxiety problems - I feel like it’s something a lot of us in this online business/self-development space have in common.

In any case, thanks for reading.

See you soon,

Henri