Go Slow, To Go Fast. How Coping with Anxiety Has Made Me a Better Change Agent

When working through anxiety, I have developed a handful of tactics. Every day, I realize more and more, that these tactics for coping with anxiety have some pretty broad application.

 As I have shared in past articles, I recently developed anxiety after leaving a career of 9 years, in order to start my own business. Shortly after making the decision, which was initially fueled by excitement, fear set in, and anxiety took over. This sudden, and unexpected onset caught me off guard. Up to this point in my life, I had never really experienced anxiety. Because of this, I lacked the skills to cope.

 Reflecting on the onset of my anxiety and the continuing events of my anxiety, I have realized a few things. The most profound discovery I have had is that my immunity to anxiety up to this point in my life was because I was masking my emotions, experiences, and my true self by staying busying.

 I realize now that I never experienced anxiety, because I never stopped long enough to think about what I was doing or where I was going. I was just always busy. Occupying my time with tasks, challenges, and other distractions. Once I allowed myself to stop being busy, I realized I had drifted pretty far from the actual career path and happiness path I wanted to be on. Once I allowed myself to think about the future, and the endless possibilities of what that future could become, good and bad, overwhelmed me.

 In a recent conversation with a friend, I explained that I have stopped dreading anxiety, and that I am learning to embrace it. That when I lean into the anxiety, I usually walk away learning something new about myself.

 Another discovery I have had, is that leaning into anxiety is actually helping me growth and that it is making me better in my new endeavors of serving organizations as a change agent.

 How you ask? Let me tell you about VUCA.

I recently learned about an acronym VUCA. Which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. I stumbled across the acronym while preparing an organizational change management plan for a healthcare organization. Below are my notes and key takeaways from VUCA.

Many organizations have found themselves in environments that can be perfectly summarized as VUCA. As such, I wanted to share some recent insights I have had about facilitating change, punching VUCA in the mouth, and managing anxiety.

In most cases I have seen, the organizational response to VUCA is fear and shortsightedness, when facing VUCA most organizations apply a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset forces one to believe that resources are scarce and that the current reality being experienced is the only reality that exists. The opposite of a fixed mindset is a growth mindset, which focuses more on abundance and future possibilities. These two mental models are pretty similar to what Simon Sinek explains as finite thinking vs. infinite thinking in his new book, the Infinite Game.

 I can’t speak to how you may experience anxiety, but for me, it is fear and shortsightedness. Once triggered, I can convince myself that my world is caving in, and that my only option is to let it all collapse, I simply feel inadequate and trapped by my limiting beliefs (finite thinking).

One of the ways I have learned to break this pattern when feeling anxious is to adopt a growth mindset (infinite thinking). When facing anxiety, I have developed a couple of tactics that have been really helpful. As I recount these tactics, I can’t help but notice that they don’t just apply to coping with anxiety, they can be applied to dealing with VUCA – specifically ambiguity and uncertainty.

Below are three tactics I rely on to cope with anxiety, along with ideas on how these tactics can be applied by an organization facing VUCA.

Ground yourself

Use as many of your sense as possible to ground yourself in your current reality. Try to identify 3 things you can see, 3 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, and 3 things you can smell, and 3 things you can taste.

This technique slows the volatile response one has when feeling anxious, often referred to as “spinning out”. “Spinning out”, if you have not experienced it before, feels like everything is happening quickly, and in a giant blur. By grounding yourself through your senses you are better able to account for what is actually happening, not what you think is happening.

Focus on the facts and the things you do know. In VUCA, like with anxiety, it is easy to misinterpret the situation and “spin out”. By focusing on what you do know, and sharing what you know, you invite others to share what they might know. The more information sharing that happens, the clearer the picture of reality becomes.

Meditate and practice mindfulness

Stop thinking and start thinking. Allow yourself to be still and to clear your mind. Assess how you are thinking by setting a timer and commit at least 5 minutes to experience and evaluate every thought you have, and then push it out of your mind, to clear room for the next thought. Thought by thought, you are trying to evaluate if the thought is representative of your true self, or if the thought is more of an untruth, or limiting belief.

For me, anxiety has served as a signal that there is conflict occurring between my authentic self and my social self. Your social self is the layered-on impact of other people’s beliefs on what is acceptable and unacceptable. The social self is created to help you fit in, quote, “keeping you safe”. The creation of the social self often starts as a child and continues to develop through adulthood. Through meditating, you can quiet your mind and evaluate who is doing the thinking. The limiting beliefs of your social self, or the true you. If the thought is a limiting belief, be sure to thank it for trying to keep you safe, and then close your eyes and hit “CTRL + ALT + DEL”.

When facing VUCA, focus on your organization’s core values and the vision. Interact with the situation in a way that represents the greater good and stay true to your organization’s purpose. Don’t be fooled in to thinking that being busy is being productive. Take time to stop and intentionally thinking about the appropriate next steps. Then act. Always evaluating how you are thinking, pushing out those mental models that are not reflective of the customer’s definition of value or true to your organization’s vision.

Think positive and trust the Universe

Stop trying to control the future, and trust that good things can and will happen. Give positive energy, and positive energy will be returned.

Anxiety is often caused due to uncertainty about the future, or a desire to control future outcomes to which you have no influence over. It usually has to do with my energy for embracing or resisting change. By staying calm, through relinquishing control of the situation, and practicing faith in something bigger than myself, I have been able to change my energy from being negative and fearful, to being positive and hopeful. When I experience anxiety, I try to get clear on what outcome I want to see happen, then I “put it to the Universe” and move on, as if it is a done deal.

When facing VUCA, it can be tempting to fear for the worse, and move into conservation mode. Energy in the organization can transform quickly, and the air can quite literally be sucked out of the room by this fear. When in conservation mode, the organization defaults to protect and defend, and an “every person for themselves” mentality arises. Instead of reacting with fear, organizations need to hardwire a more hopeful response. They need to stay calm and practice faith that good things can and will happen - if they are able to create the right energy to embrace change and evolve.