Anxious? For relief, ask yourself this question.

Think about the most recent time at work when you were feeling anxious or stressed.

Not a fun memory, right?

I'm guessing you felt uncomfortable, awkward, shaky, unsure, off-balance, ungrounded, or something like that.

Today, I'm sharing a tool for helping you transform that anxiousness into something positive.

I'll do that by starting with a story of how I discovered this powerful tool for shifting from anxious to confidence.

Can you relate to this anxiousness?

A little over four years ago, I was in a group coaching program for experts, consultants, and coaches to learn a particular marketing methodology.

I joined the program because I was going through a rough patch in my business. I was eager to boost my revenues.

Six weeks into a 10-week program to learn and apply this revenue-generating methodology, I was sure none of it was working for me - not the storytelling we learned, not the outreach approach they shared. While some people were already earning two to five times their pre-program monthly revenues, I had only one prospect and zero new clients.

In a weekly check-in call, I mentioned my prospect to the lead coach and told her, "This woman is a Senior VP at a major biotech company. But she hasn't been getting back to my emails or my text messages over the past three weeks. We had a great first exploration call and an initial email exchange. But I haven't heard from her in three weeks. She's not going to sign on. I just know it."

"Susan, how are you feeling?" the coach asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" I blurted back. "I'm hurt, I'm sad, I'm frustrated. This isn't working for me. I shouldn't have invested in this program. I feel like a loser, especially when I hear all these other people making sales and I'm not. Why am I wasting my money, especially if this woman isn't going to become a client and I don't have any sales to show?"

The coach asked, "This program isn't working for you?"

I wanted to scream back, "Well, duh! No, it's not working. This is lame. You're a fraud. You don't care about me." I had a litany of things I was thinking, each one worse than the next. But I bit my tongue as tears of frustration started rolling down my face.

The coach's assistant chimed in next, "Susan, we're on our sixth week of a ten-week program. You're working the steps. You've done all the homework. You've written and sent at least 100 emails. You've had at least 5 phone calls with prospective clients. Am I correct?"

"Yes," I said, my voice dripping with annoyance.

"I hear that you're anxious, Susan, even scared," the assistant reflected to me in a very calm, caring tone.

"That's for sure," I acknowledged.

The next thing the assistant said floored me.

"So, Susan, what are you making this mean?"

I thought for a moment and said, "I take her lack of contact to mean she doesn't want to work with and she thinks I'm not a good coach."

The assistant asked in a compassionate voice, "Oh. Is that true?"

I had to admit, "No."

In that moment, I got a big lesson in how easily I took a bunch of facts (like how I'd reached out to this biotech SVP and she hadn't replied in three weeks) and made them mean all kinds of awful things about me. My interpretation of the objective facts was just that -- an interpretation. I didn't really know if the SVP wanted to work with me or not.

Five weeks after our original conversation, the SVP sent an email apologizing for going quiet. Her mother had passed away. She was eager to work with me, but she needed a few more weeks to be ready.

The meaning I had assigned to the gap between our conversations? It was way off, and it was seeped in anxiety. That misinterpretation was also the catalyst for me to regularly remind myself to check out the meaning I assign to how people behave, what unfolds in situations, and even how I perceive myself.

Question your anxious interpretations

"What are you making this mean?" is a powerful question you can ask yourself whenever you feel anxious. It's particularly helpful at work, because our brains are wired to interpret events and situations negatively, unless we're self aware.

Just this week, I had a client say to me, "My boss has been in a foul mood. She isn't happy that our new product isn't selling well. She snapped at me in a meeting. I bet she's going to take me off the new product launch."

Understandably, with that interpretation, my client was feeling anxious.

So I asked her, "What are you making this mean?"

Her first reaction was to furrow her brow and say, "I already told you. It means I'm going to be taken off the new product launch. My boss doesn't think well of me, clearly."

We backed up and looked at the objective facts, instead of my client's evaluations and interpretations. Her boss's "foul mood" became "she hung her head most of a conversation, and she raised her voice at three out of five employees."

"She isn't happy that our new product isn't selling well" became "She said she wanted to have sales be at least 10% higher."

"She snapped at me in a meeting" turned more objective with "My boss said 'I expected more of you.'"

And that bet about being taken off the new product launch? My client was able to admit she hadn't heard that from her boss, and turned it into "My fear is that I'll be taken off the new product launch, and that would be upsetting, because I care about this launch and I really like the team."

One way to take charge of anxious tendencies is to be objective with the facts of a situation, and to question your judgments, assessments, evaluations, and predictions by asking yourself, "What am I making this mean?"

What are you making it mean that...

• You haven't heard back after a job interview?
• Your manager hasn't reached out to you for a week?
• You haven't hit your sales quota?
• Your co-worker groaned as you made a remark in a meeting?

The next time you get anxious at work, I invite you to ask yourself, "What am I making this mean?" Look at the situation that's got you feeling stressed, wound up, worried, nervous, queasy, uneasy, and explore the meaning you've assigned to the facts.

You just might find that you can reduce your stress simply by exploring new meanings to assign to the same facts.

Now, I'd love to hear from YOU: Who helps you to see things in a balanced or positive light? Tag them in the comments and send some appreciation their way!

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Could you use support to harness the positive power of anxiety at work?

If you’re an anxious professional and you have a dream or goal you want to achieve – like getting promoted, building your influence at work, pursuing a new career direction – but anxiety’s been holding you back, I’d love to help you break through like I did, so you can celebrate your dream.

I invite you to sign up for a complimentary coaching exploration call, to explore how working with me can help you to stop feeling frustrated that you haven’t pursued that dream of yours, and start feeling excited, eager, and ready to move forward.

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