Get Up and Do Something
How to Leverage Fear & Anxiety in the Moment

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #600: Get Up and Do Something: How to Leverage Fear & Anxiety in the Moment

Jeff Sanders
Good morning and welcome to The 5 AM Miracle podcast, episode #600: Get Up and Do Something: How to Leverage Fear & Anxiety in the Moment.

Now, I'm going to do something that I have never done on this podcast in 12.5 years.

I'm just going to talk to you.

Just going to have a conversation about something that I think is extremely important.

and I'm going to leverage the fact that this is episode number 600 and have some fun.

So today we're going to do an episode that is wildly different.

There will not be any ads.

There will not be any typical checklists or top 10 lists or anything else like I've done before.

Instead of all of that, we're just going to have a little chat about an experience that I have had numerous times in my life.

And these experiences have been transformative.

These are experiences that have turned the corner for me on various struggles and difficulties and fears, and I have pivoted and turn those moments into breakthroughs.

And I think that when I look back at what this podcast has been for over a decade now, and as much as I love what the show has become, what I think is indicative of success that I have had at various points in my life and career, it has come down to moments.

moments when I made a decision to act on something.

It's not just the typical consistency of habits or day-to-day work,

though obviously the compounding of those actions over time will grow into big success.

The thing I'm most curious about and interested in are those key moments when you're faced with a decision.

And you have to make a move.

Do something now.

Get up and do something.

And what does that mean for your future?

What are the implications of choosing or making the right choice, let's say, in that moment to then change your whole life, change your business, change your career, change your finances, because you struck when the iron was hot.

The moment showed up, you acted, you were present, and you made the call.

Let me be a little more specific.

So the experiences that I am referring to in the episode now are the moments in the middle of the night.

picture yourself at 3 a.m. You've been asleep for a while. You've had some great sleep, but you're awake now. And you can't fall back asleep. There's this thing in the back of your mind you just keep thinking about. It could be work. It could be stressors. It could be fears. It could be an unfinished project. But there's this thing you can't let go of. And so you're awake. You don't want to be, but you are. What do you do in those moments? Do you sing a song? Do some yoga?

get a snack and just roll back to bed and really hope you fall back asleep.

I've been there thousands of times.

I've had these moments frequently where I just can't sleep like I want to.

And so I will force myself back into sleep.

And on most occasions, that is fantastic.

I get the good sleep I want it.

Okay, fine.

But there are other days that are different, other middle of the night experiences

that stand out to me.

And I had one of these just three nights ago.

And what happened was it's another 3 a.m. experience.

I'm awake all of a sudden.

I don't want to be.

And I have this thought in the back of my mind that's no longer in the back.

It's now right in the front.

And it's just pinging my brain over and over.

Jeff, you've got to take care of this thing.

You got to do it.

You got to take care of it.

And I keep thinking to my conscience.

Like, yes, shut up.

I'm trying to sleep.

Go away.

I'm really trying to get some sleep.

And my brain keeps saying, no, no, no.

You got to do it.

Do it now.

And so I fought this voice for like an hour.

And I laid in bed, tossed and turned, went to the bathroom, got a snack,

did all the things.

And none of it worked.

None of it at all worked.

And so now it's 4 o'clock in the morning.

And I'm thinking I don't have to get up yet.

My alarm clock is not until 545 on that morning.

I needed more sleep.

But instead of doing that, I said, you know what?

Fine.

I give in.

I'm going to get up.

So I crawled out of bed at 4 a.m.

I put on some clothes, put on my contacts.

and I got to work.

And I went to my computer and I began to tackle this thing that was on my mind.

I started writing and planning and organizing and executing and two and a half hours went by.

And my family woke up and then their day began.

And so I moved on to other things.

Later in the day, I was extremely tired and groggy and felt terrible.

But the good news is when I looked back at that two and a half hour stint that I spent from 4 a.m. to 6.30.

What I did in those moments was transformative.

Because what I did was address something that I was going to put off.

I got up and I did something.

I tackled that fear, that anxiety, that voice, that just annoyance that wouldn't go away.

And I said, instead of ignoring that, instead of postponing my future, delaying it, procrastinating, whatever it was going to happen next.

I just said, no, no, no, no, I'm going to do this now and really truly.

address the issue at hand. And I was thinking back to other experiences just like

this in the past. And most of the time, I would argue that the breakthrough that I have

at 3 o'clock in the morning usually is small. It's usually not a ginormous bit of

progress. I mean, even what I had just three days ago, yes, I got some good stuff done.

I'm glad that I was awake at 4 a.m. because I really did address a very difficult

problem head on. Now, the actual breakthrough I had was very very very.

small, so I'm not really necessarily proud of that action. I could have done it

later in the day, and that would have been just fine. The thing I'm most interested

in, though, was that I listened to the voice and I acted on it. There was a moment

for me to pounce, and I pounced. It was there. The opening was there, and I took it.

And I'm really curious about the implications of this long term, because how many times in

our life do we have those moments that show up and say, here it is. You've got the time.

You could do this. It's a sacrifice. You're going to lose some sleep. You're going to be

tired. It's going to be annoying later. But this is the moment. Do it now. That was the voice in

my head. And I did. I acted on it. And then for two days, I was extremely tired and annoyed because my

sleep patterns were thrown off. But I look back at that. I think I need more of those moments. I need more

those versions of Jeff Sanders who says, I am willing to act when the time is right.

And if I need to do something, I'm going to do it.

Because let's juxtapose that with the alternative.

The alternative is to say, I heard that voice and I ignored it.

I knew I had a moment and I postponed it.

I knew there was a chance for me to directly address a fear and anxiety, a bottleneck, a problem.

And instead, I just said, nah, I'm fine.

where I am. I'm just going to stay the course because I'm probably better off with

eight great hours of sleep tonight and then tomorrow could be a great day. And that is

true. And on most days, that should be how it plays out. But these moments are rare.

These special moments, these openings in our lives that say if we're going to pivot

and do something of significance of long-term, real true success, it's going to happen because

we said yes when the time was right.

I don't have any other way to explain this besides you feel it.

This is a gut instinct and intuition.

This is the inner voice that says,

if I don't do this now, I'm going to regret it.

If I don't act now, there's going to be a consequence that I don't want to live with.

Because here's the long-term vision or the long-term implication for how this plays out.

if you consistently become the kind of person who delays that voice, who ignores it and postpones it, when will the moment show up?

When will you have that chance again?

When will you actually say yes?

The answer might be years or never.

And I think that's the most realistic scenario here is that if you put off the voice, you're going to train yourself to always put off that voice.

And the alternative is one where you say, no, no, no.

Instead of doing that, path one is not going to work for me.

I want path two.

And on path two, when I hear the voice, I listen.

Now, you may not want to act in the moment because it's 3 o'clock in the morning.

Maybe you just write the idea down and go back to sleep.

That's fine too.

But at least say, I'm going to write this down.

I'm going to acknowledge what is true.

Pay attention to what's happening.

Write it down, make a plan, and then actually execute as soon as possible to be

the kind of person who has direct action in mind, the kind of person who says,

I'm going to this finish line, let's get there. I'm not going to live with fear

and anxiety and the possibility of things being terrible in the future. If my brain

is telling me that something needs to happen, it needs to happen now or as soon as

humanly possible. Because once again, this path one of being the kind of person who

always postpones it will only lead to more postponement.

but the kind of person who takes path to and chooses action in the moment

will choose action more often and have more success.

That's all this is.

Life is nothing but a series of choices and moments to optimize and take the advantage of the opportunity that shows up.

So will you?

Will you show up in the moment?

Will you get up and do something?

Or will you just roll over, go back to bed, and hope tomorrow is back.

better than yesterday. I think that I have turned a corner here because I am

more intentional and acknowledging that I want to go down path number two.

I want to train myself to become the kind of person who chooses action more

often than not. And once again, that action could be to write the idea down

and do it later, but that's still a good positive action. In fact, let's go down

that angle for just a second. One of the things that I do,

every single day for productivity is I leverage my task manager knows me

that I've discussed thousands of times in this podcast. But one way that I optimize

my task manager is I let it become a catch-all, a bucket for new ideas. And the

funny thing is, if you're the kind of person who gets new ideas frequently,

you'll get more of them and more and more because as you write ideas down,

I record them in my task manager, my brain is then freed up for more new ideas.

and so if your conscious mind is used as a playground for creative new possibilities,

well, then your brain keeps developing more of them.

And as you write them down, you free up more space, you continue that process over and over again.

And as you write them down, you are recording them.

They're not being lost.

They're captured now.

And you can return to them later.

And then schedule them, act upon them, make that into an actionable, successful venture.

As opposed to an idea hits your brain, you don't write it.

it down. You don't record it. You don't act on it. You just ignore it. That won't

lead to action. That won't lead to progress. That won't lead to the path you're trying

to get to. You know, in the gym every single day, I have a waterproof notebook

notepad. And as the day begins, my morning routine, I write down in this notepad

what today's workout is going to be. And then as the workout takes place later in the day,

I refer to that list and I cross things off as I do them. And then I take that

same waterproof notepad into the sauna with me, where I then write down any ideas

that happen to hit my brain while I'm in the sauna. Now, I do that for a few reasons.

One is that I don't have my phone with me because the sauna could kill my phone.

And the other thing is, I love this time, these 15 to 20 minutes in the sauna to just sit

and think, to just sit there and let my brain develop new ideas if it has any new ones.

And if not, fine. But if it does, I have the notebook.

I record the idea.

And then later on, I'll take those ideas, put them into NOSB,

and the same process then takes place where everything has now been captured into one digital tool that I then organize, prioritize, you know, delete bad ideas, schedule the good ones, move them to over to project files.

I can process the information, process those ideas, and let them become something that they otherwise would never have had the chance to become.

all that to say that this process, this lifestyle of being the kind of person who

records new ideas and then acts on them later turns you into the kind of person

who's always getting new ideas and acting on them.

You're always willing to engage with what crosses your mind.

You're paying attention and listening to that inner voice.

This has been one of the most profound changes that happened to me in the last few

years is the doubling down on this process.

That I am very willing to listen and record whatever happens in my head, which,

yes, on many days are crazy thoughts.

They're all over the map.

They're very random.

Most of those ideas, by the way, get deleted.

I would say at least half of them every single day.

I write them down and then that day or the next day, I delete the idea and

ignore it because it wasn't worth pursuing.

But that's part of the process.

I'm not looking for every single idea to be perfect.

I'm looking for maybe a fourth of the ideas to be great.

And the rest are just throwaways.

And that's totally fine because that's how you get to the great ideas

is you're willing to go through that brainstorming process,

even if it's just impulsive in the moment or impulsive at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Whenever your brain decides that now is the moment,

which is the whole point of all of this.

It's the optimization of the moment, saying yes,

when the time is right.

So if you want to leverage your fear and anxiety,

if you want to turn that negative energy into something positive,

well then let the positivity show up by converting whatever thoughts,

anxiety, worryiness, goofiness is happening in you and say,

let's go flow this into something.

I think the best example of that is a free writing or journaling experience.

I have not done this in a long time, but back when I did this, it was really helpful.

I think that Noseby has now replaced this for me today.

But let's say for you, if you don't currently have a task manager or you like the idea of journaling more, use journaling as a way to process your inner dialogue, as a way to get the thoughts out of your head and onto paper, even if you then take that paper and tear it up and throw it away immediately.

The process of writing down whatever's in your head makes it tangible.

It makes that fear or anxiety or worry into something that's now outside of you and onto paper, and now you can act upon it.

Now you can do something about it or with it or work through it in a way that otherwise was just going to toil inside of you and make you feel crazy, which is what can happen with these thoughts that are never processed.

The unprocessed negative energy will just stir inside of you.

And the best way to tackle that is to get it out of you and act upon it

and give it some legs, give it some real energy by saying,

here's the positive spin on this.

Here's tomorrow's game plan because I have these thoughts in the middle of the night.

Now I know what I'm going to do next.

There are a lot of variations on this strategy,

everything from writing down questions before you go to bed,

to working through journals or task managers or break.

brainstorming sessions or therapy itself.

There's lots of ways to process inner dialogue.

But I think the most helpful thing to do when you are working with that inner voice

is the conversion of the voice into a tangible written down task, then into execution,

and to make that process as fast as possible.

So the next time it's 3 o'clock in the morning, and you definitely have an idea that needs attention

immediately. I'm not going to argue you should miss sleep. But I am going to argue,

take a few moments, write down whatever's on your mind, then go back to bed.

And you will feel a lot better. You will get so much more out of that moment than you

otherwise would have. Now, I really just feel like there are so many of these opportunities

in our lives we just let slip by. These moments, these experiences where we knew there was a window.

and we just let it pass.

We knew that something was there,

but because we didn't act on it,

we now have regret or we now have this sense of,

well, I could have acted on that 10 years ago,

and I didn't today.

I mean, literally on the podcast a few weeks ago,

the entire episode devoted to that exact concept.

This has been on my mind a lot, if you can't tell,

is this entire midlife crisis, let's say,

of me realizing that the clock is ticking.

that time is moving forward all the time

and that if I have regrets

if there were things I should have done years ago

or days ago or minutes ago

why wait do it now

act now write it down take some action

schedule it make it part of your life

and that conversion from thought

to action to results is so powerful

because that's the whole game

that's what it means to be productive

to be performative, to achieve a goal.

It's converting all these thoughts, positive, negative, neutral, whatever they are,

into things we can do something about.

Because action is everything.

Everything we've ever discussed in this show comes back to action.

Always has, always will.

And I think it's really cool to be able to acknowledge the fact that sometimes those actions are 3 o'clock in the morning actions.

So maybe the next podcast that I launched a few years from now could be the 3 a.m. Miracle. I hope not. Please stop me if I try to go there.

But that's what this is, though, right? This is your new 3 a.m. Miracle. That's what this is. And you can tackle that next goal later on.

Okay. That's all I've got for you today. I think there's a lot more to be said about these topics, especially of this idea of fear and anxiety and converting negative.

thoughts into positive action.

But for this week, for now, just let these thoughts simmer.

Let your brain percolate on these as you go to bed tonight.

And maybe for you tomorrow, you can have a better sense of clarity on your next

actions to move yourself forward.

And before we end this, I definitely want to take a moment to thank you for being

a listener of this podcast.

To get to episode 600 is a milestone.

It's a big deal.

I've been around for a while now.

I'm a very old man when it comes.

to podcasting, and I know that, but I also love that. And I plan to be around for a

long time. And so if you'd like to ask any questions, give feedback for the show,

email me, jeff@jeffsanders.com. I would love to hear from you. And thanks a lot.

This is a lot of fun.

---

© 5 AM Miracle Media, LLC