This guide outlines strategies and tactics for business owners — and executives — to deal with anxiety more effectively.
Did you know that anxiety affects over 15 million people every year? That equates to 7.1% of the US population, and it’s more prominent in women than men. It’s one of the most common mental health problems, yet also one of the hardest to deal with.
Anxiety in everyday life is tough, but it’s even more challenging to deal with anxiety when you run a business. Your feelings of anxiousness can affect your decision-making and lead to potentially catastrophic errors.
What if you don’t decide to do something or make a change in your business because anxiety takes hold of you? You’re overly worried about the possible outcomes, so you don’t take a risk. In not taking that risk, you could doom your business to failure.
Being a successful business owner is all about being confident. You need to have faith in your decisions and you must have the confidence to lead your company forwards. If you suffer from crippling anxiety, this becomes much harder to achieve.
There is some hope, however. Anxiety can be treated and you can find ways to cope with your symptoms and stop them from negatively impacting your professional life.
Tactics to deal with anxiety
In the guide below, we’ll go through some of the best ways to deal with anxiety as a business owner.
Break Down The Worst-Case Scenarios
In business, you will always have decisions to make. As mentioned above, suffering from anxiety can make decision-making way harder than it has to be. You see a choice in front of you, but the voice in your head tries talking you out of making the right decision by telling you everything that can go wrong.
One way to counter this and to deal with anxiety is to break down the worst-case scenarios when making decisions. Ask yourself, what is the worst possible thing that can happen if I go ahead with this decision?
For example, imagine you’re considering hiring a new employee. It’s a big decision as it will cost a lot of money. As a result, the anxiousness kicks in as you worry that it’ll be a waste of money and the employee won’t be a good fit. This can be enough to talk you out of hiring someone that may benefit your business.
In this scenario, think about the worst thing that can happen, as well as the potential benefits. In the positive column, a new employee can lessen your own workload, supercharge productivity, and help you generate more leads/sales. In the negative column, the absolute worst-case scenario is that you fire the employee because things don’t work out. Realistically, this will only result in a minor loss of money. The potential rewards outweigh the risks as this isn’t a business-ending decision!
Take this approach with any decisions and it eases anxiety and helps you rationalize your thinking.
Implement Contingency Plans
Effectively, a business contingency plan is a backup strategy for your company. It details what you’ll do and how you’ll react to potential disasters or events you couldn’t have seen coming. Having one of these in place is critical for any anxious business owners.
As we’ve said already, you’re constantly worrying about the bad things that can happen. Even when your business is profitable and things are going well, there’s a nagging anxiety in your brain that makes you worry about the future. What if things go wrong? What if you suddenly lose all of your customers?
A contingency plan lets you deal with anxiety because you can prepare for these scenarios. You have systems in place that will make it easier for you to pivot or adapt if business starts drying up.
There’s a modern-day example of the power of contingency plans if we rewind three years ago. The global pandemic came around unexpectedly and shut businesses down for months. Those that survived did so because they had good contingency plans in place. They were able to adapt and change things to cope with the loss of revenue. Companies with no contingencies struggled and failed.
Every business needs a contingency plan and yours will help you calm any fears. It’s harder to be anxious about things when you know there’s a backup plan in place to help when your biggest fears do come around.
Take Care Of Your Mental Health
It goes without saying that you must take care of yourself. Don’t spend 100% of your time working on your business – make time for self-care too, which will help you deal with anxiety.
There are loads of little things you can do throughout the day to make time for yourself and to look after your mental well-being. The concept of mindfulness is a really smart and effective idea you can use every single day.
In fact, many recovery centers that treat mental health disorders are using Mindfulness in Recovery as a treatment method nowadays. The idea is that you take a moment to breathe deeply and center yourself. Close your eyes, and become more aware of where you are. It’s a relaxation technique that uses meditation to help you destress and feel more at ease within your mind.
Another daily self-care tip to deal with anxiety is to make an anxiety journal. Jot down the main things causing anxious feelings. Then, go through them all and try to rationalize them. You’ll find that a lot of your feelings are simply irrational and you shouldn’t be worrying about them. It helps you clear your head and avoid letting your anxiety get the better of you.
Get Help
Finally, you should get help when dealing with anxiety as a business owner. Yes, this can mean going to a therapist, but it can also mean hiring more people to help you run your company.
A lot of the time, anxiety grows because you’re the sole person responsible for this business venture. If you outsource tasks or hire some support staff, it makes your life a lot easier. You no longer have to rely on yourself to run the company – others are there to help as well.
Conclusion
Remember, anxiety is extremely common and it is likely to be more prevalent in business owners than the general population. When you have big responsibilities, anxiety comes along to haunt you.
With the tips above, you should find it easier to deal with deal with anxiety and quell your constant fears and worries. Therefore, you will be a more confident business owner that makes better decisions and can steer your company towards successful times.
