What Causes Anxiety? One Little-Known Reason

The two times my emotional health has been the worst it’s ever been, the cause was the same.

Both times, within a matter of weeks, I was carrying around a constant sense of dread and anxiety like it was a two-ton backpack.

And both times, until I resolved the cause of the anxiety, I was stuck with it.

What’s surprising to me now is that this specific cause of anxiety is one I've never heard anyone else talk about. And yet, it’s something I’ve seen people struggle with over and over again. 

Maybe it’s even causing anxiety for you.

This is one cause of anxiety nobody’s talking about:

The reason for my anxiety was a lack of clarity about my future.

The first time anxiety wrapped its arms tightly around me, I knew what I wanted, but I had no idea how to make my goal happen. 

That was pretty hopeless.

The second time, I didn’t know what I wanted.

I was drowning in an avalanche of questions about what to do, and the indecision was paralysing.

Both times, I was stuck: I couldn’t imagine what my future looked like.

Your brain needs some sort of vision for what you want.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, you don’t need to have everything figured out, and you don’t even need to achieve it right away. 

But being clear on what you want gives you something to feel hopeful about - and hope can’t exist if you don’t know what you’re hoping for.

If you’re paralysed by anxiety, or feeling helpless and stuck, friend, the reason might be a lack of clarity.

Maybe you don’t know what you want.

Or maybe you know what you want, but you aren’t clear on how to make it happen.

In either case, you can’t move forward. 

You’re stuck, and nobody likes being stuck.

Could it be that anxiety is a question mark from your mind, asking you to get clear?

Start there.