A Tip to Reduce Anxiety: Balancing the Details

Themes: Focus, Locus of Control
Helpful for: Anxiety, stress, ADHD/neurodivergence

Details in life are everywhere. They’re WITHIN something occurring in life and OUT of it, too. From my experiences, I’ve found that many people struggling with anxiety get caught up on the internal pieces of a moment and don’t shift back to look at the big picture. They lose focus on what really matters, and everything feels scarier, less secure, and harder to manage.

The Details IN

When I think about the details of something, I think about the inner workings of an experience. Think about if you were traveling home for the holidays. We’re talking about the nitty-gritty things, like your travel plans (are you driving or flying?), how long it will take you, what you have to balance to get your time off, and what you’re actually doing while you’re there. It’s all of the things you have to plan, and those decisions can really feel overwhelming, right? In fact, it’s common to feel like you don’t even want to take the trip anymore because it’s stressful living in those details and managing it all. There’s so many things to organize, control, and plan for - it becomes a lot to manage.

The Details OUT

Now, back out thinking about that same trip. Think about the people you’re going to see or meet. What about the location you’re going to - is that new to you or somewhere special? Will you be celebrating something important while you’re there or just taking a break? The WHY of your situation becomes the outside details. They’re the bigger picture of what you’re going to experience. In many cases, it’s the destination of whatever you’re doing (a trip, a child growing up, a school program). You’ve controlled some aspects of this - whether that was choosing where to go or when to take your trip, for example.

The struggle between the details

I’ve found that many of my clients struggle to balance both sets of details (within and outside). Both matter in the end. You have to know where you’re going before you can make a plan. And you need a plan to arrive at your final destination in one piece. But, when you get too hung up on the exact steps and only focus on the things you have to balance or work around, it’s easy to forget about the bigger picture of why you’ve chosen this experience. When you get hung up on the details inside an experience, you lose the details outside. They no longer matter and it becomes easy to be dragged down into this mental space of balancing, anxiety, and distress.

So… how do you find focus?

When you’re struggling with what’s going on, take a moment to pause and reflect. Look at the big details on the outside of the situation or experience. Remind yourself of what you’re doing and why. Think about that vacation we talked about…. If you can step back and remember that you get to go where you love and to see the people you miss, the trip feels a lot less stressful than if you’re just staring at the packing lists and work requests beforehand.

The same concept is applicable in so many situations where anxiety begins to weigh us down. We can’t control all of the inner details, but we can control how we feel about an experience we’re about to engage in. Zooming out and taking in the big picture is a great place to start to reduce anxiety over a specific situation in our lives.