The empowered one feels intense anxiety when hard times strike, but he uses this anxiety differently from other people. Since the empowered believes that he has control over the results in his life, his passion turns his anxiety into fuel instead of pity, decision instead of despair, and tenacity rather than fear.
If the empowered one is presiding over a company with low or declining income, or if it is developing a scathing performance evaluation, or feeling another rejection of job search in the face, it will refuse to wave the white flag, and, otherwise, it will redouble its efforts.
THAT’S HOW IT WORKS
Anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion. If you do not think you experience it, you just do not understand how it works. Our brains are wired in such a way that it is difficult to take action until we feel a certain level of anxiety. In fact, performance peaks generally come with moderate levels of anxiety.
Step 1: wait and prepare for the change
People change and companies go through ebbs and flows. You can find them without work or with companies that have fallen on hard times. The difference is that they believe they are fully capable of dealing with the changes or invent some new products. In other words, they prepare mentally for the change, and you can do it too.
Step 2: Rewrite your script
This step is going to be the most difficult since it requires that you change the way of thinking for invention that you have become accustomed to. Over time, we all develop mental scripts that run through our heads and influence how we feel about certain circumstances and what we do in response to them. These scripts go so far as to tell us what to say and how to act in different situations.
Step 3: Stop the negative self-talk
A big step in the management of anxiety involves stopping the negative internal dialogue. The more we ponder negative thoughts, the more power we give to those thoughts.
When you encounter negative and pessimistic things in your mind, it’s time to stop and write them down. Literally, stop what you are doing, and write what you are thinking. Once you have taken a moment to stop the negative impulse of your thoughts, you will be more rational and lucid in the evaluation of their veracity.
Step 4: Appreciate what you have
Taking the time to contemplate the things, people or situations for which we should be grateful is not simply something “morally correct” that should be done, but also something healthy: anxiety decreases.
Mix all ingredients
The overwhelming anxiety and empowerment are mutually exclusive. Each time your anxiety levels are as high as to limit your performance, you just have to follow the four steps above to empower yourself and regain control of a successful life.