What
keeps you up at night? Agonizing over some thorny decision? Overthinking possible
outcomes? Tormenting over the possibility of failure? You are not alone. The
hyper-competitive work environment in which we live feeds our imaginations
overtime, and, hence, our worries.
The
great Samuel Johnson, a
chronic worrier, labeled worry a “disease of the imagination.” We are capable
of imagining the worst, allowing a stream of dark thoughts to crowd our mind.
Is it worth it? Is worry its own reward? If we fret about an upcoming
presentation in front of a large, forbidding audience and it turns out well, do
we attribute it to all that effort we invested in imagining the worst?
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| GUEST BLOGGER: Dr. J. Gerald Suarez |
Great leaders
and strategists use worry to imagine potential implications and consequences of
their decisions. By doing so, they are able to anticipate what can go wrong and
design better plans. Successful entrepreneurs masterfully use worry to sense,
respond, anticipate and effectively deal with uncertainty and risk. Other
executives see worry as a catalyst to prevent obsolescence or stagnation.
However,
when worry escalates and becomes omnipresent, it can lead to postponement,
paralysis, fear, distress, all forms of dysfunction,
and even medical problems.
How
can we manage our worries? Recoding our apprehensions each day is a good way to
start. Keep an inventory of worries and become mindful of the things that we
can influence and the ones beyond our control. Revisiting our journal will help
us assess the actual danger from the imagined peril. We may find that it was
never as bad as we imagined it to be. Get the facts and look for evidence since
worry is often rooted in misinformation. Avoid the paralysis of perfectionism
and learn from failure. Stay socially engaged and share your worries with your
executive coach or a trusted colleague. Doing so, can help us see our worries
within a new context and help us calm down.
Can
we worry less but worry better? Yes, but first we must acknowledge that worry
is a type of thinking that is self-imposed. Since worry results from our own
mental creations, we must shift our thinking in a serious way, even turn it
upside down, and instead imagine positive outcomes, and believe in them. It is
our choice: We can be immobilized by fear of failure or motivated by a vision
of success, even if success doesn’t actually pan out as we wished. At least we
can sleep at night.
