Then your anxiety becomes a strength in working life

CAREER

Worry and anxiety can be an obstacle both in private life and in career. But there are strategies to get control of anxiety and actually turn it into a strength.

Earlier in his career, worry, anxiety and insomnia could take over and “paralyze” Matt Higgins before important achievements in his professional life. In a artikel i Fast Company now tells Higgins – CEO and co-founder of the investment firm RSE Ventures – how he manages his anxiety while still managing to perform.

Among other things, Higgins takes support in science to calm his anxiety before a performance. Like when his insomnia created anxiety about running the New York Marathon. Then he found research that showed that a person’s physical performance can be maintained with up to 72 hours of sleeplessness, and with that knowledge managed to put the worry about his sleep problems behind him. “I ended up improving my time by more than ten minutes,” he writes.

For his most important tip, he takes inspiration from what he calls “wildly successful” CEOs such as Bill Gates and Arianna Huffington. Both are engaged in meditation. Higgins writes that he meditates almost daily and that it increases his resilience, creativity and emotional intelligence. Higgins sees it as a form of self-care, something he believes is a cornerstone for a long-term successful career.

“The sooner you find good self-care habits for yourself, the greater the chance you’ll stick to them,” writes Matt Higgins.

Take hold of reflexive reactions

I CNBC tells the health writer Morra Aarons-Mele, who previously worked in political marketing, about how she overcame her anxiety problem.

Aarons-Mele advises everyone to “be detectives” and to try to “note when and where” concerns arise. “Then you will perhaps realize that it arises for unexpected reasons”, she writes.

Next, it is important to understand one’s reaction. It may be that one ignores a troublesome email to escape the discomfort it causes, an avoidance behavior that can lead to “building a mountain of unread messages” in the inbox, exemplifies Morra Aarons-Mele.

“Your goal is to see which of your reflexive reactions have become habitual. They are the ones you should deal with first”.