Fear of the Unknown Creates Significant Anxiety
Fear of the unknown often plagues employers and employees alike, as well as parents and teens. Whether you’re a CEO concerned about payroll, or a caretaker wondering how to handle your parent’s latest medical crisis , fear of the unknown can absorb far too much of your time and energy. Not knowing what will happen and then projecting worry, or worse, catastrophizing, is a huge stressor for those who don’t know how to handle it.
Here’s what you can do to handle this stressor:
- Do a reality check. Worried about cash flow? Check your numbers carefully. Analyze receivables and projections, bills and outflow. If there truly is an issue, consider renegotiating agreements with vendors, tapping into a line of credit, or asking for help. Whenever you contract about money, make a written list of all you are grateful for right now. What are all the blessings in your life? Review them. That will shift your focus off of lack and into abundance. We create more of what we focus on.
- Put your attention on the present moment. One of the biggest stressors is worrying about the future, of what could happen. Most of the time, we cannot control what is going on in the world; we can only control our attitude. Stay optimistic and handle what you can right now, in your immediate future. Visualize a good outcome. The more progress you make today on your highest ROI activities, the better tomorrow will be.
- Take control of something small where you can see an immediate result. That might mean cleaning off your desk and filing all your documents. Or washing the dishes. Or completing a short report. Do something that gives you a sense of completion, and that will help you reframe your sense of futility and powerlessness. It will also get your moving physically, which shifts the negativity.
- Analyze challenging times in your past. How did you prevail? What or who got you through them? Reference previous successes and coping strategies, and employ them now to help you deal with the most recent stressor.
Know that you are incredibly resourceful, capable and powerful, when you set your mind and heart to it. Get clear about what’s happening, ask for help, tap into your resources and previous strategies and you will thrive, no matter what the future brings.
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©2019, Snowden McFall, Fired Up! You may reprint if you credit me with content
