Four Stoic Tips For Nervousness

Stoic strategies for any moment

Aug 06, 2024

Welcome to The Stoa Letter, the newsletter on Stoic theory and practice.

I wrote these brief notes to myself before preparing for a martial arts competition. I hope you find them as useful as I did.

🏛️ Theory

What strategies do the Stoics have for nervousness at the moment?

Experience. Accept it as it is objectively.

Reframe. Nervousness is energy and excitement.

Combat. This is more advanced – taking on a negative emotion head-on can be difficult work. Don’t fight the feeling, but the thoughts surrounding it. Socratic questioning opens up this space. Why are you nervous? Which judgments and opinions ground your emotions? Are they true?

Avoid the trap of rumination or expecting immediate change here.

Refocus. What really matters where you are now? Turn your attention to that. And hold your attention on it.

Each of these strategies work well together. Socratic questioning is, in a sense, at the heart of it.

Test your impressions:

Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, "You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be." And then examine it by those rules which you have, and first, and chiefly, by this: whether it concerns the things which are in our own control, or those which are not; and, if it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

Epictetus, Handbook 1

If you find yourself ruminating or expecting change that is not forthcoming, turn to the other strategies. Accept negative feelings. After all, they are not truly bad. Reframe them – see them as positive emotions. Finally, set your focus on the external world. Get out of your head and focus on what matters.