By: Travis Bradberry
There are two kinds of
people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen and those
who believe things happen to them.
The first group are
convinced that the outcome of their lives and careers is more or less in their
own hands, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
The second group take more
of a Forrest Gump approach—they sit around and wait for the bus to take them
somewhere.
University of Florida
psychologist Tim Judge and his colleagues have shown overwhelmingly that people
who feel that they control the events in their lives (more than the events
control them) and are confident in their abilities end up doing better on
nearly every important measure of work performance.
In Judge’s studies, these
individuals—we’ll call them “the Empowered”—were found to do the following:
Sell
more than other employees do
Give
better customer service
Adjust
better to new assignments
Take
home an average of 50 to 150% more in annual income
In Good Times
And Bad
Of course, when good times
are rolling, nearly all of us believe we have the world by the tail.
What makes the Empowered
in Tim Judge’s studies special—whether they work the shop floor or in the
C-suite—is that they don’t get overwhelmed when the going gets tough.
Just like you, the
Empowered feel intense anxiety when hard times strike, but they use this
anxiety differently.
Since the Empowered
believe that they have control over the outcomes in their lives, their anxiety
fuels passion instead of pity, drive in lieu of despair, and tenacity over
trepidation.
Whether the Empowered find
themselves presiding over a division with tanking revenues, on the receiving
end of a scathing performance review, or staring yet another job-hunting
rejection in the face, they refuse to wave the white flag.
They redouble their
efforts.
Here’s How It Works
Anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion. If you
don’t think you experience it, you simply don’t understand it.
Our brains are hard-wired
such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel some level of anxiety.
In fact, performance peaks
under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of anxiety
The trick is to manage
your anxiety and keep it within optimal levels in order to achieve top
performance.
If you don’t have the
tools in place to keep your anxiety in check when it comes on strong, you’ll
never realize your full potential.
You can get better at
managing the anxiety you inevitably feel when facing difficult and uncertain
situations.
You just need to follow
the steps that successful and empowered people take to keep their anxiety from
taking over.
The key thing to
understand before getting started is that you are indeed facing uncertainty—the
outcome of your future has not been decided.
It’s up to you to develop
the beliefs and mental toughness that will make you one of the Empowered.
Here’s How You Do It
Step 1: Expect and Prepare for Change
People change and businesses go through ebbs and
flows. It’s a fact that even the Empowered in Judge’s study can’t control.
They’ve found themselves out of work.
Their companies have
fallen on tough times. The difference is that they believe they are fully
capable of dealing with changes and making something positive happen.
In other words, they are
mentally prepared for change—and you can be too.
If you don’t anticipate change naturally, you need to
set aside some time regularly—either every week or every other week—to create a
list of important changes that you think could possibly happen.
The purpose of this task
is not to predict every change you’ll face. Rather, it will open your mind to
change and sharpen your ability to spot and respond to impending changes.
Even if the events on your
lists never happen, the practice of anticipating and preparing for change
will give you a greater sense of command over your future.
Step 2: Focus on Your Freedoms, Not Your Limitations
We’ve all had the old mantra life isn’t fair beaten into
our brains since we were young.
This mantra is a voice of
despair, anxiety, and passive inaction.
While it’s true that we
sometimes have limited ability to stop negative events from occurring, we are
always free to choose our response.
On your list of possible
changes from step one, jot down all of the positive ways in which you can take
action and respond to each change.
You’ll surprise yourself
with how much control you can wield in response to seemingly uncontrollable
circumstances.
Step 3: Re-write Your Script
Step three is going to be
the hardest because it requires you to change the mode of thinking that you’ve
grown accustomed to.
Over time, we all develop
mental scripts that run through our heads and influence how we feel about our
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.
In order to be empowered,
you’ll need to rewrite your script.
To do this, recall a tough time you went through
recently. What was it you believed about your
circumstances that prevented you from making the most of your situation or
responding more effectively?
Write this script down,
and label it your hard-luck script.
Since hindsight is 20/20,
go ahead and write a more effective and empowered mental script that you wish
you had followed next to it.
This is the empowered script you will
use to replace your hard-luck script.
File these away so that
you can pull them out and study them whenever you are facing stress or strong
anxiety.
When you do pull your
scripts out, compare your present thinking to your hard-luck and empowered scripts.
This will keep you honest
and enable you to adjust your thinking so that you’re operating from an empowered script.
These periodic reminders
will eventually rewrite your scripts completely, enabling you to operate from
an empowered script at all
times.
Step 4: Stop Negative Self-Talk
A big step in managing
anxiety involves stopping negative self-talk in its tracks. The more you
ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them.
Most of our negative
thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts.
When you find yourself
believing the negative and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it’s time
to stop and write them down.
Literally stop what you’re
doing, and write down what you’re thinking.
Once you’ve taken a moment
to slow down the negative momentum of your thoughts, you will be more rational
and clear-headed in evaluating their veracity.
You can bet that your
statements aren’t true any time you use words like “never,” “worst,” or “ever.”
If your statements still
look like facts once they’re on paper, take them to a friend or colleague you
trust and see if he or she agrees with you. Then the truth will surely come
out.
When it feels like
something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural threat
tendency inflating the perceived frequency or severity of an event.
Identifying and labeling
your thoughts as thoughts by separating them from the facts will help you
escape the cycle of negativity and anxiety and move toward a positive new
outlook.
Step 5: Appreciate What You Have
Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for
isn’t merely the “right” thing to do; it also lessens anxiety because it
reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.
Research conducted at the
University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to
cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy and
substantially less anxiety due to lower cortisol levels.
Bringing It All Together
Overwhelming anxiety and empowerment are mutually
exclusive.
Any time you are overcome
with enough anxiety to limit your performance, just follow the five steps above
to empower yourself and regain control.
How do you turn anxiety
into action?
Please share your thoughts
in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from
me.
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