Next Level University

#1532 - What Are The Signs That You Are In Your Anxiety Zones?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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Like the relentless waves that carve the shoreline, anxiety, too, can shape us, pushing us to grow, evolve, and rise above our struggles. In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros discuss understanding and managing anxiety. It is a journey towards personal enhancement. It requires courage to unmask anxiety and persistence to strive for self-improvement continually. By identifying our anxiety zones, acknowledging our struggles, recognizing patterns, and managing coping mechanisms, we can ride the waves of anxiety to personal growth and self-discovery.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Next Level Hope Foundation -
https://www.gofundme.com/f/next-level-hope-foundation-2023-holiday-event

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Show notes:
[1:41] The truth
[3:46] Gratefulness while suffering
[5:50] No one has willpower everywhere
[7:00] Permission giving
[10:04] Recognizing patterns and coping mechanisms
[13:38] Rebecca praises Alan's coaching and the effectiveness of the Peak Performance Tracker in keeping her consistent and moving toward her goals
[14:57] The ultimate goal
[17:09] Stay in the learning zone
[25:10] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your will. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode. It was episode number 1531. One question to ask yourself before you start a vulnerable conversation Today for episode number 1532 happy Sunday.

Speaker 1:

What are the signs that you are in your anxiety zone, the reason we are doing this episode? I texted Alan today and I said hey, man, I have some new awareness about myself that I believe will help you understand me and me. Understand me and Me, understand why I'm doing certain things and why I'm not doing certain things, and it has to do with my anxiety zone. So, whether you know or not, business has grown a lot and things. We just have a lot more opportunities than we have in the past, and next level social media is growing and next level podcast solutions is awesome.

Speaker 1:

All of the Struggles we're dealing with now or struggles that I would have wished for five years ago, but I definitely am maybe the most overwhelmed I've ever been. And I texted Alan today and I said hey, man, there is a direct correlation between me hitting snooze and not going to the gym and how far into the anxiety zone I am and I said last night I, I, I literally couldn't not get dominoes. We have ground turkey and we have ground chicken and I said, yeah, I'll cook it. But by the time I finished Doing what I was doing, there's I had zero willpower left. And again, I Usually am pretty good at doing hard things I don't want to do. I just didn't want to do it. I Just did not. I didn't even want to say what were the best version of Kevin do. I didn't want to put myself into the corner, to give Myself the opportunity to potentially fail. That's how much I was struggling. And I texted Alan today and I said I am really starting to understand that when I am too far into my anxiety zone, my day-to-day is just not enjoyable at all. It's pretty miserable. My, I don't want to exercise at all. Luckily I'm in love with jiu-jitsu, so it's been helpful, but I have no desire to go to the gym. I have no desire to get up early. I want to sleep in. I hit my, I shut my watch off right when it goes off and I have no desire to do anything Involving tracking food or eating healthy. No desire, and I literally said this to Tyron today when we were doing the dishes.

Speaker 1:

I said I'm actually grateful that I'm suffering as much as I am, because it gives me a lot of extra opportunity to have empathy and understanding for other people that are struggling struggling. So if you're out there and you feel like it's hard to do certain things that you know you should do and you know, or you believe you should do and you know You'd be grateful if you did, but you just can't find a way to get them done, if it's because you're in the anxiety zone, I am on your team and I understand completely. So this is a relatively vulnerable thing for me to share, because I'm afraid you'll look at me a little bit differently differently whether you're watching or listening. But this is my truth and I feel like, as we promised 1500 episodes ago, I want to share what I'm going through as much as the things that I've succeeded at, and this is currently what I'm going through. But Admitting it and getting certainty around it made me feel so much better After I sent that message to you.

Speaker 1:

I was doing the dishes with Taryn and I turned music on and we were dancing and I was singing, and then I went to the gym and I had a really good workout. Identifying it is one thing and then doing something with it is the second thing. Hopefully in this episode we can help you really you'll help yourself identify what are the signs that you're too far into the anxiety zone and then maybe you'll have a better idea of what to do about that. Moving forward.

Speaker 2:

Well, the first thing to address here is Kevin sharing with everyone that he was scared to admit these things, because there's one level of admittance, which is admitting it to yourself, which is Kevin sitting there and going I don't wanna work out, I keep hitting snooze, I can't seem to get myself to eat healthy or stay on this diet. All of those are the most relatable things ever. There's no one on planet Earth I just surpassed 4,830 coaching sessions and there's no one in the world that I've ever met who doesn't struggle in at least one area with this. No one has willpower everywhere. For me.

Speaker 2:

Mobility I cannot get on that yoga mat. It's so unreasonable how hard it is for me to get my ass on that yoga mat. Dude, I'm foam rolling. Foam rolling up a storm foam rolling every goddamn day. I cannot do yoga for the goddamn life of me. Now, of course, I'm upset with myself and I'm trying to give myself grace, but obviously it's causing me a lot of pain. So Kev's having trouble eating healthy. Hello, who on planet Earth isn't struggling with that? There are two types of people people who are lying and people who struggle. Eat healthy and I'm being playful. Obviously, some people do eat really healthy and don't struggle with it. I'm being playful, but I guarantee you they're struggling in some area. And then the second thing is getting up on time. So who here hasn't struggled to get up early? Who here hasn't struggled with hitting snooze? And who here hasn't struggled to stick to their diet? I mean Kev.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the most disciplined people in the world struggle with those things. That's fair. Number one, he admits it to himself. Number two, he admits it to all of you, which I think is permission giving, because I think, kevin and I, we talk about personal development, self-improvement, health-wealth, love, productivity, tpo, getting after it, consistency, sustainability, improvement. What we fail, what we try to do, is pull back the curtain on where we're struggling and pull back the curtain on where we're succeeding and why and how. So the first thing I want to share on this episode is hell yeah for admitting that to yourself, hell yeah for admitting that to everyone else. I'm too human conditioned. I don't struggle to eat. That's even a lie. I would say that I'm on point with what I want to be eating and I feel pretty good about that. I don't feel good about mobility whatsoever. So here's what you do you check it. Check in with where you're winning, check in with where you're meeting your standards, check in with where you're doing a good job based on your own standards, not based on what the world tells you you should be or should do, and then ask yourself why, and maybe one of the reasons why most likely is that you're in your anxiety zone. And so, for example, kevin texts me today, as he said. He said I realized today that there's a direct correlation between how much I sleep in and how far into my anxiety zone I am.

Speaker 2:

Now we got to explain this framework quickly. The framework is it looks like a target. So if you've ever the company targets the same idea, there's three sections. The center of the target is your comfort zone. The middle portion of the target is your learning zone and the outer part of the target is your anxiety zone. Your comfort zone is everything you do is pretty much easy for you. You've been, you know you're playing pick up basketball and you've been playing basketball for 15 years and you're playing people that aren't that good. So it's just easy. You just kind of show up, put in the reps. You always win. It's easy. You need to get outside your comfort zone and play some better players. The learning zone is sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It's good competition. You're playing people that are at your level, maybe a little above it, maybe a little below it. Sometimes you're the best on the court, other times you're one of the worst on the court.

Speaker 2:

Learning zone Last zone is anxiety zone. It means you're playing in the NBA, when you've only been playing for a couple of years and, honestly, you didn't even play in high school. You're just, you can't even touch the ball. It's, it's, it's. You're too overwhelmed, you can't handle it.

Speaker 2:

Emotionally, mentally, physically, your body's breaking down. That's what Kevin's talking about and all of us have coping mechanisms when we are in our anxiety zone, because what our body does, our physiology does and our mind does is it protects us. It says Kev, this is not conscious, but his unconscious is saying Kev, if you don't cool it, man, I'm not going to survive. And so Kevin's unconscious mind says I know how to cope. I'm going to eat some food and I love pizza and I'm going to sleep in and get extra sleep. It is a literal defense mechanism that your body does for survival. The key here is self-awareness and understanding what your coping mechanism is. So this is what I said 100% man, wild, how it's taken seven years to identify that pattern. Lol, that and what you eat. So I brought up the what you eat. Those are your body and minds go to coping mechanisms.

Speaker 2:

And he said had dominoes last night. I couldn't not Just hilarious, I said we're still learning ourselves, brother. We each have our own ways we deal with stress. Everyone does, and it's important to know for sure. I also noticed that when you're sleeping in and not lifting, you get insecure much easier. I said, when you've got money in your bank account, when you're waking up early and crushing your workouts, nothing can touch you. Obviously I'm being playful A lot of things can still touch you. But Kevin's at his best when he has enough money in the bank, enough food in his belly and he's doing workouts. And it's taken seven years to get that level of clarity about who he is and what he is. And I have different ones and you have different ones. So let's turn it back to the listener. What are yours, what are the, what are the musts for you to be at your best Is if you can focus on those leverage points, the other stuff will flourish.

Speaker 1:

There has to be some level of sign that you have, and maybe it's not completely known yet. Maybe it's not obvious. Again, for me it was. I didn't hit snooze, I just turned off my alarm, and I don't when I'm on it, I don't do that. I like getting up early, I genuinely do. I enjoy getting up early. So it's weird for me when I don't, and I still. I think I got up at 7.30 on Saturday, so it's not like I slept in in, but that's for my standards. That's sleeping in for sure, so good.

Speaker 2:

I would say that Kev has a certain standard and a certain core value of getting up early. You have a certain core value of work ethic. It's important for you not to let yourself down. This goes back to the quote I always say about if you had a friend who broke as many promises to you as you've broken to yourself, how much would you value that friendship? So Kevin's self-esteem and self-worth is tied to whether or not he keeps the promises he makes to himself, and setting an alarm is a promise.

Speaker 2:

Yeah yeah, it's saying hey, future Kevin, you're gonna get your ass up at five or six or whatever and you're gonna go to the gym and every single day, the first, imagine starting your day letting yourself down twice.

Speaker 1:

I have. I don't have to imagine it and I can tell you. I can tell you exactly this. And then, what about the compound effect of?

Speaker 2:

that it's brutal. Yeah, it's brutal, and same with me with mobility. I feel like a million bucks when I get something done that's been weighing on me, Like that's a good example of this when I finally opened my goddamn mail or whatever. And again, so I'm being a little bit. No one on earth doesn't struggle with this. I need to make that clear. There's no one who doesn't.

Speaker 2:

Even one of my best coaches, multi-millionaire, super successful she used to say, oh, I procrastinate constantly, and I remember I challenged her on it. I'm like what do you mean? You're like one of the hardest working people I've ever met. She's like, yeah, but only on the stuff I wanna do, oh, so I want every listener to really take this in. Kevin and I are consistent and disciplined on the very high end, and I say that with all the humility I can. But it's true. But I'm telling you we still struggle with procrastination. We both do. I do too. I procrastinate my writing. I wanna write every day. I've written three times in the last week and a half. Everyone has this in some area and that's all I wanna get across and I'll turn it to you.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think the ultimate goal is progress. Awareness is the first thing. I feel so much more empowered now that I know this. Yeah, going to the gym is gonna be harder, and the other thing, too is I've been dealing with an injury on my shoulder, so that's been a whole thing. My workouts haven't been great, so that's been a challenge too, but it's the certainty of I'm probably not gonna feel 100% anytime in the next couple of weeks. The next couple of weeks are probably gonna be kind of a struggle for me, but at least I know I can try to proactively say no to things that I don't need to do.

Speaker 1:

Taryn literally said she said do you wanna cancel? We had plans and she said do you wanna cancel them? And I said no, I'm fine, it's not, that's not gonna affect it, it's more. Just, there's so much going on that I know I'm behind and I'm not gonna be able to catch up to so. But I appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

But that all came from the awareness of me sharing, but that my next level nugget would be what are the hints? What are the hints for you? What are the signs for you? What are the things that you recognize that start to happen or you start to feel, or you start to say, you start to think, when you're approaching the outer edge of your anxiety zone. One of the tells for me is I wake up at 3.30. I just wake up 2.30, 3.30, I look at the clock, it's 2.30 or 3.30. And it's usually cause I'm super stressed out. That's then happening. So okay, that's a sign. So now it's almost like I have a list of when this happens. Check these things.

Speaker 1:

I always use the airplane analogy because I think, more than anything, airplanes fascinate me at the deepest level. They also scared me at the deepest level, so that's another self-awareness thing. But if engine one goes out, pull this thing, hit this button, do this, do this, do this. If this happens, then this happens. Humans, I think we have the opportunity to recognize very similar patterns in our cell. So that would be my next level nugget. Ultimately, I guess in an ideal world we'd be able to avoid the anxiety zone. I don't know how realistic that is, especially if you're focused on growth, because sometimes you'll be growing slower than you could. Other times you'll be growing faster than you can, and I think if you're growing slower than you could, you're probably living, you're hinging on comfort zone. If you're growing faster than you are capable of, you're hinging on the outer edges of anxiety zone, so most likely we're all gonna end up here at some point. Just the understanding of what do you do when you get there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the question is are you in the learning zone and, if not, which side are you on? Are you on the comfort zone or the anxiety zone? I think that it's called a challenge skills sweet spot. We interviewed a man named Steven Coller who wrote a book called the Art of Impossible and he's been studying peak performance for decades. And there's a challenge skills sweet spot, and the gym is the best analogy, so I always use it. You know, 150 pounds for me is in my comfort zone for bench press, 185 is in my learning zone and 215 is in my anxiety zone, and 215, I might not get it up without a spot. You know, 150 I can do for reps and 185 is challenging. I could probably get it for 12. If I'm really killing it, probably eight and definitely five. But that's a good analogy for everything. And then now let's blow that up to a macro scale. That's like in a moment at the gym.

Speaker 2:

What about in life in general? And this is what happens. Right, you're in your comfort zone or your learning zone. Rather, I'll use Emilia and I hosting Thanksgiving as an example. We were super proactive, planning Wegmans, catering, setting it up. Her mom came early to help. The more proactive we were, the less we were gonna get knocked into our anxiety zone. So my calendar I do it every Sunday and on Sunday I'm proactive and I set up the week quote unquote for success. And I also sit down with Emilia and I look at what the week looks like and we try to set ourselves up to stay in our learning zone, aka our challenge skills sweet spot. But here's what happens in life we prepare in advance and then something goes wrong that we didn't anticipate and now all of a sudden we're in our anxiety zone and now we need to go eat ice cream on the couch or whatever your coping mechanism is.

Speaker 2:

Some people use food as a coping mechanism. I would say Most people. There's very few humans who I don't think have a fairly challenging relationship with food. Very few, very few. I use R&R movies, distractions for sure. So I talk about the show Friends. The show Friends is such a coping mechanism for me. It's an escape. I love the show and I enjoy it, but eventually it becomes an addiction and it becomes an escape. I'd rather watch them live their fun life than me live my own challenging one. And anyone who's ever addicted to a show they know, you know, you know, when you're letting it ride eight episodes in, you're like I think I have a problem here Because you're watching other people live their lives to escape your own. Some people use fiction books. You know, they, they. I use movie trilogies. I love when Jurassic Park has six of them, because I can just mainline those things.

Speaker 2:

I this is not a you thing, and that's that's the last thing I'll say is what are your coping mechanisms? And to Kevin's point, when do you pull those levers? And, and maybe the most important piece is listen. You can't pull those levers and keep them pulled the whole time. You've got to pull them back and step off the gas. Like, yeah, use your show as your coping mechanism, get back on the rails, though Don't let that go too far, to where it becomes detrimental to your future.

Speaker 2:

I think that these coping mechanisms like Kev are you getting dominoes? If that's every day, that's not good and you're going to destroy your future. If that's once a week or once a month, you're okay. Just keep it within reason. And same with me. I don't believe in no pleasure. I don't. I really do. I love dominoes. I'm going to get dominoes once a month for maybe the rest of my life, I don't care.

Speaker 2:

This.

Speaker 2:

This idea that you can be disciplined 24, seven, 365, in every area of life is a lot.

Speaker 2:

It's a lot. It's not real. And that's coming from someone who genuinely aspires to be the most disciplined version of himself, maybe the most disciplined person, holistically, in history. I don't know, I'm. I'm shooting for it, we'll see. But I'm telling you right now it's empowering to understand the fact that you're a human being and that human beings have coping mechanisms. And the difference between someone who's productive and performing and improving towards a bigger, brighter, better future and someone who's not, is this person over here acknowledges the fact that they have coping weaknesses, like Kevin is doing, admits it and then does something about it, knowing that it'll never go away fully. Kevin is driving his coping mechanisms. His coping mechanisms are not driving him and he's aware enough of that to realize it and take that preventative measure and shift it in advance, versus someone who thinks, oh yeah, no big deal at all, I don't have any downsides, I don't have any addictive personality, I'm not addicted to anything, I'm perfect. That person's actually the one who's gonna let their coping mechanisms drive them off a cliff, metaphorically.

Speaker 1:

I think it's getting. How fast can you get back on track? I used to think you just stayed on track. You could stay more on track, but it's how fast do you get back on track?

Speaker 2:

Is the thing that I've learned, yeah, same.

Speaker 1:

Next level nation. If you have not yet joined our private Facebook group, appropriately named Next Level Nation, please do so. At the end of the day, one of the reasons that a lot of us feel stuck or we feel like we're doing this alone is because we don't have growth minded people in our corners, and I know it can be challenging to find those people. Join Next Level Nation. We have had the opportunity and the pleasure and the privilege of having a lot of people in there that are into growth, so we've kind of created the group for you. Hop in, find a peak performance partner, make new friends, get out of your comfort zone. Link will be in the show notes, as always.

Speaker 2:

Community. Every year, we do a holiday event for the kids Next Level Hope Foundation 2023 holiday event. The GoFundMe page is up. Kevin and I already donated $500 to this cause and so we're matching 500. So 500 is already raised. That was Kevin and I's donation. You'll see that on the GoFundMe page and our goal is 1,000.

Speaker 2:

So any contribution, big or small, we really, really, really appreciate it. Please go there. There's a beautiful video of last year and the video is so awesome. I mean, the kids all got a present. And again, this is for children of single parents. Kevin and I both grew up with single parents we didn't have fathers and this is to turn the holidays into a more special experience for children of single parents, and we also witnessed growing up how expensive the holidays were with a single parent, and so it's really just to help.

Speaker 2:

So any whether it's $5 or $50 or $100, please contribute. Thank you so much, and we will make sure that you are on a list of the contributors and we can email you a video of the experience, cause we have a photographer and a video so you'll be able to see how much your donation contributed to the joy and to the fun day. We have activities, arts and crafts, we have sports, we have gifts, and all the gifts are, by the way, in an alignment with fitness. So we have footballs, basketballs, the single parents they go in, they RSVP and they pick which sport their child likes the most, cause we want to encourage physical activity too. So, obviously, in this digital world, physical activity is not as much as it used to be. So we're trying to be aligned gifts, aligned gift giving. Any contributions we really appreciate. The GoFundMe link will be in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure if the kids were older, Alan will be handing out copies of the compound effect. They're not there.

Speaker 2:

I'm actually gonna put copies of the compound effect in with the. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1:

But, yes, definitely In the future. In the future, yeah, speaking of the future.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, you know I have some Kev real quick Books for Babes is actually gonna donate an entire box of books for the kids that day as well. So, speaking of books, it won't be the compound effect, but it'll be children's books, diverse children. It's gonna be awesome. Emilia has a charity called Books for Babes that she does every year and she's gonna bring a box of books for the kids for the next level whole foundation event. So it's gonna be awesome. I just had to mention that. Shout out to.

Speaker 1:

Emilia and Evolve Ventures for that, very, very grateful. Tomorrow for episode number 1,533, a little NLU on a Monday. This will be a deep one. What's more true now than it's ever been for you, as self-awareness continues to increase and as perspective and contrast continues to evolve. Some things are more true than they've ever been, the things that maybe I've learned years ago. Some things are less true than I ever thought they could be. So I thought that would be a powerful episode, hopefully to bring some hyper-consciousness your way. So that will be tomorrow's episode. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and NLU. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

Stay in that learning zone. Next Ä° Blension.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host