What I call ‘management anxiety’ is a situation in which uncertainty, fear and anxiety about the future, failure and the inability to achieve goals create a kind of paralysis.
In such a situation, it feels like everything has been tried and the situation is hopeless because none of the solutions work. This is often compounded by tensions, fears and anxiety about personal life.
As there is nowhere to put the responsibility outside to give peace to your nervous system, there is also the anxiety. Perhaps one cannot point to
a) some failure to do something, from which one might derive a sense of guilt and learning and the possibility of doing something differently
b) a specific culprit outside oneself, on whom anger could be directed to calm oneself and hope that the other person would do something about it.
It is a jumbled grey mass of anxiety, fuelled by hopelessness and fears of the future, born of uncontrollable events.
The key ways out of management finance, based on my own and my clients’ experiences:
💡 Reminding myself why I do this work (and then either find inspiration again or step out of the situation accordingly. This may need someone’s support, as we don’t dare to ask ourselves certain questions.)
💡Setting small goals (e.g. hourly, to regain the feeling that something is under my control, to have small successes)
💡Take small steps (NB! Avoid mind drugs and sugar-cakes etc when celebrating, which will cause a physiological backlash the next moment)
💡Creating hope and faith (usually with the support of someone – a mentor, therapist or acquaintance from a completely different area of life where there seems to be hope and faith. Listening to some inspiring podcasts. For example, I was helped a lot at the time by the “Totally Screwed” podcast with stories of people who, despite things being screwed up, came out of it)
💡Finding inspiration (usually, again, with the support of someone)
💡Root-level self-management. For example, being aware of the roots of your own emotions (usually needing the support of a therapist as the roots usually lead back to the first 6 years of life)
💡realising that vulnerability and asking for help makes us strong. Not being vulnerable makes us weak because then there is nothing to attack. Taking ourselves “naked” or acknowledging the need for help and asking for it makes us strong.
💡joining a self-development community where things are done in a group, preferably by physically meeting (going to Holistic Training saved me)
💡consciously reducing stress (e.g. consciously walk more calmly)
💡stop scrolling on the phone (i.e. reduce the amount of new information entering the system)
💡being in nature (there are no judgements in nature that create new stresses)
Being alone is the most difficult and daunting thing to do in this situation. There is usually someone to inspire us with questions or ideas, so we need someone to talk to.
And if this post has already given me hope that there is a solution somewhere, that’s great 😊
