How Mojo Helps With Anxiety

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Overcoming Anxiety with Mojo

I have been asked on Quora how to overcome anxiety or use anxiety to build motivation, which will aid in your
Anxiety and fear can sap motivation.

Figure 1. An anxious woman

mojo.  It is possible if you have enough motivation, to use motivation to overcome anxiety and fear. But anxiety and fear do not motivate you.  Remember that I have described how motivation is a key contributor to mojo in an earlier post.



Anxiety and fear are inputs that generate a reaction. Usually, the inputs are or are said to be negative or difficult. Think “performance anxiety” as an example. The most significant contributor to mojo is motivation, either internal or external. If an actor's mojo is strong enough, that actor can overcome the anxiety and perform anyway or contribute more to a team's performance. The best directors and coaches choose the actors with the most mojo to perform the hardest tasks Their superior mojo allows them to resist anxiety and fear and inspire other team-members.  The result is a better team output (performance).  

Group performance with anxiety and fear inputs
Figure 2 Resistiung Anxiety and Fear

 Consider figure 2. Larger shapes indicate larger quantities.  Bolder arrows indicate stronger effects. There are two different anxieties and two different fears, affecting four different actors to varying degrees (including zero effect).   For example, actor#1 has more mojo than anyone else.  This actor gets anxiety#1 and fear#1 inputs, but not too much.  The result is a major contribution to the group's output (performance).   If you can, you overcome the anxiety and fear, but you don’t use them to motivate yourself.

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