When I wrote JEE, I was absolutely confident I won’t pass. Each time going on stage, I played while embracing my tensions like a well known companion. ACT and similar research confirms that ‘we are normal’ to do so.
Letting Things Be and Still Doing
Existence and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and related approaches align deeply with my values and experiences. Having been drawn to Zen practices, and being familiar with mindfulness, awareness, and a subculture that values watching, observing, and letting things unfold, I find these methods particularly resonant.
It may not sync with you. I myself may have accepted other methods ten years from now. No spoon feeding. Grow to disagree.
In my 20s and 30s, I believed that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and its structured lists were extremely useful. They were like the underlying errors check lists that helped awareness.
Just had to be careful not to try actively change our thoughts to improve our experience. Looking at my own experience of getting things done, though, I knew that allowing things—including the problematic—to exist while still taking action is more realistic and effective.
We bypass the whole correction, yet present and acknowledging.
We hear many who are good at execution tell the same: we need to go directly into the discomfort, the mistake is the path, the pain is the way.
Generalize it to include not avoiding experiential avoidance.
Exams and Performance: Tension Isn’t the Enemy
For example, before exams, I used to feel some stress. I was probably trying to guess the question paper. But I quickly realized that trying to fight the tension or force myself to calm down only made it worse. The pressure didn’t need to be fixed.
What helped was knowing that once I was in the exam hall, I would simply start answering the questions. Whether I felt tense or not didn’t matter in the moment of doing.
The same applies to going on stage. Telling myself “there’s no reason to be tense” or “anxiety is just excitement in disguise” wasn’t particularly useful.
Even when I didn’t feel confident, I could focus on specific parts of the performance—clear categories or elements I had practiced. That kind of targeted focus made it possible to act despite the overall anxiety. And if I knew I had prepared, that I could rely on my training and familiarity with the material, then I just had to go up and be present.
Action Over Emotion
From experiences like these, I’ve learned that it’s not helpful to obey difficult emotions—to avoid the exam or the performance. But it’s also not helpful to try to forcibly change my emotional state. The solution is to act anyway.
Include tiny changes
We maybe able to do the action only for 5 seconds. If you are able to do that despite other thoughts, that is great success. Include habit methods like tiny steps into the process. I am normal when I can’t change my thoughts. I am doing well when despite, I act.
The normal part I learnt later. I was thinking always that something is wrong with me that I am not always confident, that not all positive thoughts.
Accepting and moving on, we are given the permission to accept problems to be normal. Research shows that to be true. Mind will do what it wants. We can do what we want. We don’t try to remove the feelings. We just move on. Like in a space where others exist.
We take action, we get results, we learn something, and we move forward.
I’m grateful that I started with CBT. It taught me to recognize common thinking errors. These patterns, once identified, increase awareness. Over time, they become part of the mental landscape—something familiar, even friendly. We don’t necessarily have to correct them. We just recognize them and proceed, like we would in any emotionally intense situation.
What Makes Action Reliable: Practice
What makes performance or action reliable is not emotional control, but preparation. We improve our chances of success by practicing in low-pressure environments—by going through each step, each phrase, each movement with care and repetition. Then, when it counts, we can rely on our training rather than trying to manage or suppress how we feel.
Disagreeing with former selves
Growth Means Changing What We Once Believed
I hope that by the time I’m 70, I’ll look back on what I’m saying now and see it as limited—that I’ll have found even better solutions. If I haven’t, it will mean I didn’t really grow in the years between now and then.
The fact that I’ve grown to appreciate ACT, mindfulness, and action despite anxiety is evidence of development. I’ve moved beyond trying to avoid discomfort or change my inner state. This kind of existential or experiential avoidance no longer makes sense to me. Growth also means I don’t want to be spoon-fed answers. I prefer to engage actively and critically.
It’s not about judging the person, the author, or the book. It’s about extracting what’s useful—distilling first principles. Over time, I might even return to ideas I once disagreed with and find them valuable. Disagreeing with a former version of myself—from a few years or a decade ago—is a good sign. It means I’m evolving.