No-fuss anxiety tips #10: Audit Your Strengths

You’ve joined us at blog number 10 in this series of short, no-fuss, articles focussing on simple tips and techniques for managing anxiety. This blog looks at how auditing your strengths and getting an accurate overview of the strengths and inner resources available to you can really help when anxiety strikes. Each tip in this anxiety blog series draws upon therapeutic thinking from a range of psychological and psychotherapy theories. 

What these tips won’t do is explore the origins and purpose of anxiety for you – this type of deeper exploration is what counselling offers. That said, having strategies for managing anxiety is a great place to start. Each article is designed to be quick read, no-fuss. So, let’s get dive into another technique: audit your strengths to deal with stress and anxiety.

Stress and anxiety go hand in hand

Audit your strengths can help you to recognise your resourcefulness to deal with stress when it strikes

The impact of stress

For many people, stress is a trigger for anxiety. Stress leads to muscle tension and we can begin to feel less able to think straight. When you’re under stress, you may well notice that your ability to challenge any unhelpful thinking patterns decreases. You can start to feel overwhelmed and begin to ruminate over the “what ifs…” As a result, you may feel panicky and anxious. So, finding ways to manage stress can be helpful for tackling anxiety.

The transactional model of stress

The transactional model of stress comes from the work of Lazarus & Folkman (1984). It’s a simple process that helps you to be more able to balance demands placed upon you with the ability to manage. It involves being clear about the challenge and what strengths and resources you have available to you in response. The first step in the transactional model of stress is called “the primary appraisal”: here, you identify the source of your stress. You name the challenge. The next step is known as “the secondary appraisal”. Here, you list the resources available to yourself in response. Your resources include your skills, attitudes and approaches that you’re already adept at using. This allows you to then identify what needs to change so that your resources meet the level of challenge. Do you need to find ways to reduce the challenge? Or can you rally additional resources and support to help you meet the challenge. By taking control of stress in this way, you are in a better place to manage anxiety.

Find greater ease

Being clear on your strengths and your inner resources to manage challenges helps when tough times come. If changing the sources of the stress is outside of your control, you can then focus on what lies within your control - which includes making use of your inner resources and strengths

Taking an audit of your inner resources

It's often helpful to take an audit of your strengths, skills and attitudes at a time when you don’t feel under stress or particularly anxious. That will support you to think straight and objectively about your strengths so you can identify what resources you’ll have available when you do feel stretched or bent out of shape in some way. Consider whether you want to set aside some time over the next few days for such an audit? Being clearer about your inner resources can help you to feel more robust, and able to manage stress, when it comes your way - making you less vulnerable to anxious worries and ruminating thoughts that include “will I cope?” or “how will I manage?” 

Prompt questions for auditing your strengths

There’s no one right way to audit your strengths - but if it helps to have some prompt questions to begin your own audit, here are some:

• When times have been tough in the past, how have you coped and got through?
  

• What do other people admire about you?
  

• What do you do without breaking into a sweat that seems to drain others?

• Name three things you like about yourself.

• What tasks do people generally ask you to help out with?
  

• What do you enjoy doing?
  

• Complete this sentence: “No matter what, I know that I am …….”

Next steps?

I hope that this short article looking at auditing your strengths to help with stress and anxiety has offered something of use for you.

If so, you might like to check out the other blogs in this series of no-fuss anxiety tips. The next blog, #11, looks at how cuddles and physical touch can support some people to feel calmer and more regulated.

If you’d like to talk through how counselling can help you towards a deeper exploration of your anxiety, do get in touch and make contact with me, Claire Law.

I’m a BACP Senior Accredited Psychotherapist offering professional counselling and psychotherapy in Preston, Lancashire and online for adults based in the UK.

I offer a simple, no-pressure approach to people who are considering therapy - and can chat through how I work, and to share with you my availability for new clients for either:

• In person counselling for anxiety at my therapy room in Preston.

• Online counselling for anxiety via MS Teams.

References:

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer Publishing Company.