Sometimes we create our own troubles by sheer force of habit. For instance, if you don’t consider yourself a good writer your first reaction to being required to write a progress report for your business might involve fear, anxiety and worry. If your job involves any sort of report or research-based writing, your primary reaction may be to put off writing until the very last minute. For the next few minutes let’s just look at how procrastination plays a part in making your fear, anxiety, and worry more painful than it needs to be.

What benefits do you get from those three emotions: Frear, Anxiety, and Worry? Why is it such an easy set of responses for you? Did you know that a simple change in attitude and behavior will make it easy for you to make friends with fear, anxiety, and worry and ultimately succeed at whatever task you have to complete? Here are some hints on just how to do that.

First, there’s your experience with fear. You’re afraid to fail, afraid it (whatever “it” is) won’t be perfect and you’ll have to do it over again. Afraid someone will see your work and post it to the Internet as “one of the stupidest things anyone ever did/wrote/said, etc. Fear keeps you from getting started. In fact, the fear even makes you so numb that you can’t acknowledge that you even have the fear. If you could accept the fear, perhaps the first change you’d make would involve actually learning how to write like an expert in your field. Push through the fear and find a good book (or ebook) on writing fast with wild, wicked abandon.

Next comes work on editing, which leads us to the next troubling response: anxiety. You will feel a twinge of anxiety if you have a report to write, no matter how many weeks exist before the deadline. The best thing to do is to face your fear. But facing the fear just brings up anxiety and worry (which we’ll deal with in a moment). This time, it’s anxiety or stress that builds up in the pit of your stomach and makes you forget to write down deadlines and points that you need to make in the report. You may be so inwardly stressed when you think about writing that report that you lash out at friends, family and co-workers for no apparent (to them, at least) reason. Your middle name becomes “Road Rage Roy” or “Gravel Grappling Gertie” and people stop inviting you to parties.

If this is you, try this three-step process:

• Step 1: Take out your date book and mark a big red circle around your deadline date.
• Step 2: Create a schedule to write two sentences — or two paragraphs or two pages — a day. The time frame will, of course, depend on the amount of time time you have remaining to complete the report.
• Step 3: Write something down. Actually do some work on the writing project. Take action!

Once you start working your way through the project you might begin to experience a third emotion: worry. Your stress and anxiety has been relieved by actually writing out a list of things to do as you work toward meeting your writing deadline. The bad thing now is you’re suddenly worried that you won’t be able to do all the things on your “to do” list.  At this point, it’s time to be honest – are the things on your “to do” list really humanly possible? Seriously consider both the amount of time you have left to write the report and the other things going on in your life. When writing a report is not your usual activity, you will have to re-arrange certain things in your life to get the writing done. Do some thoughtful schedule rearrangement and worry could miraculously turn into courage and self-confidence.

Fear, anxiety and worry can co-exist in your otherwise peaceful and happy life. It’s ultimately up to you – do you decide to ignore fear, give into anxiety, and do nothing but worry? Or do you acknowledge the fear, accept the anxiety, and work your way past the worry? Yes, each of these steps require taking action. Perhaps you’ve tried taking this type of action before and failed. That’s no reason to give up. Overcoming the monstrous attack of fear, anxiety, and worry starts with a decision to find ultimate success in the thing you need to do. The next important step is to take action on whatever project you have looming. Taking action puts you on the offensive as you overcome that 3-headed monster. Ultimately success or failure is up to you.