Often in our lives, we come across instances where we might feel anxious or nervous about uncertainties that lie ahead. There is a myriad of scenarios, including big (or small) life events that can spark these feelings. Perhaps you’re returning to your car after an evening out, crossing a dark, empty car park, and you suddenly feel nervous for your safety. Maybe you’re sitting waiting for a GP appointment, turning over your thoughts, worrying relentlessly about the pain in your abdomen that won’t go away… What could be causing it? What will I do if it’s something serious? What’s the doctor going to say?
From social events to daunting work presentations, sometimes we get so nervous or anxious about our plans that we might be encouraged to cancel or drop out at the last minute. However, we often choose to go ahead anyway, making ourselves keep calm and carry on in spite of the anxiety we might be feeling. This choice to forge ahead despite our fears is down to our personal reserves of internal strength and resolve – the products of a lifetime of experiences that give us the ability to move forward, regardless of our feelings. Of course, this ability varies depending on the person and the level of anxiety being experienced. However, for many of us, when presented with an intimidating situation, we’re often able to think logically and navigate the threat that we perceive, continuing with our plans anyway.
It is particularly important for us all to learn how to channel our fear positively and constructively. Although daunting, stressful situations or crises can actually be extremely enlightening as they offer the opportunity to discover how our inner selves affect the way we live.
In the past, ancient Japanese warriors practised the skill of calmly seeing through and accepting strong emotions (like fear) in the face of uncertainty. They worked on acknowledging and allowing the experience of these feelings to be felt through the practice of Zen, which offered them a sense of calm and clarity. This philosophy was an essential part of their training, helping them to remain grounded and focused even in the most challenging situations.
Don’t be afraid to be afraid!
Fast forward to the present, and the world we currently inhabit is (somewhat justly) being described as existing in a state of ‘VUCA’ – it’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Indeed, with so many factors at play, rapid and unpredictable changes can make understanding the world and navigating the challenges it presents difficult. The uncertainties that our VUCA world presents us with can mean that fear is often a companion for many of us. Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that no one should strive to be fearless, as this is as unattainable as it is undesirable. Instead, we can choose to learn to harness fear and use it to our advantage. After all, when channelled positively, fear can help us manage difficult situations. So, don’t be afraid to be afraid!
Understanding Fear
Leading management consultant, educator, author, and ‘father of modern management’, Peter Drucker, led extensive research into this area. He believed that when working, we are, more often than not, striving to achieve a specific goal. However, while it is important to focus on achieving our goals. Drucker also emphasised the importance of being aware of our emotions and acknowledging their role in driving our reactions. He believed that this self-awareness is critical to success, as our emotions and responses can significantly impact the work we do and the people we work with. In other words, by paying attention to our inner management, we can better navigate the challenges of the modern workplace, achieving our goals more effectively.
Many leaders believe the best way to make decisions is the ‘logical’ way, using facts and quantitative data to confirm choices. However, according to neuroscientists, the physical body processes information and emotions just as well as the brain, yet many people overlook this. In the professional context, this means that those who best achieve their goals at work, therefore, are often those who learn how to utilise all the information available to them from both their mind and their body.
So, when it comes to fear, there are specific questions we should ask ourselves, including “How do I handle things when I’m under pressure or feeling anxious and fearful?”, and “How do I physically react to these life experiences?”. These questions are essential to understand better how we live and approach our work.
Fear is an emotion that not only generates innate energy but actively creates physiological support mechanisms that are designed to help you fight, flee, or freeze (reactions which are also known as the stress response). This means that the emotion of fear can help you defend yourself, escape an attacker, or even play dead and hope that the predator walks past you! Its role is to protect you. However, with fear, you also have to adopt an approach regulated by moderation, a theory that Greek philosopher Aristotle named the ‘Golden Mean’. This involves striving to be in a balanced relationship with your fear so that it does not distort your actions. Instead of letting fear control you, you should be in control of it, making it work for you!
How to Manage Your Fear
Fear emanates from the outer world. Examples might include public speaking, heights, enclosed spaces, or anything else! These fears tend to affect the entire spectrum of our inner world. Not only this, but the thoughts that run through our mind when we ruminate on these fears can also manifest as physical sensations in our bodies (e.g., tightness of the chest; temperature changes; pain, numbness, or weakness in the muscles; or a dry, restricted feeling in the throat).
To break the flow of fear and prevent it from engulfing us, we need to observe and learn to really feel the bodily sensations caused by these strong emotions. For example, you could teach yourself to become mindful of the sensations that commonly arise with your anxiety, like that twitch in your eyebrows or the way you unconsciously clench your jaw. You should also pay attention to the negative narratives you involuntarily and repetitively tell yourself when you’re feeling afraid, e.g., this isn’t going to go well, I’m going to mess this up, or what if they don’t like me? An awareness of what’s going on in your mind and your physical reactions to the situation you’ve found yourself in is one practical way of channelling your fear into positive energy.
Negative Narratives can sound like:
- What if they don’t like me?
- I’m out of my depth
- This isn’t going so well….
- What if I mess this up?
- I am not good enough…..
If you are in a state of heightened anxiety, alertness, or threat, you’re going to perceive your circumstances completely differently compared to if you were feeling calm. When you’re relaxed and composed, your mind is clear, and you’ll feel more grounded. In summary, the construction of your experience of a certain event, and the quality and nature of that construction, depends on your inner state – how you’re feeling inside. If you go into a situation already feeling stressed, you’re going to perceive it totally differently compared to if you were feeling happy and relaxed.
Taking a few deep breaths, relaxing your jaw, and thinking about a happy memory are certain techniques that can help manage fear in the heat of the moment.
In the long run, practising meditation and mindfulness, self-awareness, regular exercise, and pranayamas (deep breathing with long exhalations) are all techniques that can prepare you to deal with fear more constructively.
How Can You Put This into Practice?
Follow David’s example… David is a Carbon Emissions Analyst Manager at a Cardiff-based sustainability solutions firm. He’s feeling nervous about a presentation he’s got to give to a major potential client. If he presents well, there’s a very high chance that his firm will secure the contract. The evening before the presentation, his divisional lead calls him into his office and explains how important this presentation is. If he doesn’t deliver, the company may have to go through a significant financial crunch. He also mentions that if this happens, employee layoffs may not be a far-off reality. On the day of the presentation, David is aware of the stress in his mind and body. However, he starts speaking, and things kick off well until the client raises some critical, challenging questions that throw him off course, making him falter. The client becomes frustrated, and they start to collect their belongings. David finds himself trapped in a classic fight or flight moment! The context might look different, but most of us have found ourselves in a pressured situation similar to David’s at some point in our lives.
However, David pauses, takes some quiet, slow, deep breaths, and calmly collects himself. Rather than reacting and saying something immediately, he makes an effort to listen very carefully to the client’s questions. Then he makes a conscious decision to physically relax his body, momentarily pausing whilst he formulates a suitable response. He smiles and chalks out a sensible and articulated answer to the client’s queries, narrated in a calm, clear, and confident voice. When the presentation comes to a close, the client leaves feeling impressed, and their company quickly follow through with placing the contract. As for David, his boss praised him for his resilience and calm manner in such a crucial moment and rewarded him appropriately for his hard work.
It is a historical and anthropological fact that, as human beings, we’ve outpaced our biology. Our modern world is far more sophisticated than what we are biologically prepared for. In contemporary times, instead of tigers chasing us down boroughs, we find ourselves in highly sophisticated yet equally demanding situations – excruciatingly tight deadlines, tense digital miscommunications, or make-or-break pitches. However, we’re still equipped with an outdated nervous system and inner alarm system that dates back to the Stone Age, so controlling our responses to fear is bound to be a challenge! Yet with the right outlook, it can also be an opportunity!
- Don’t be tempted to push fear away. Accepting, rather than resisting, the presence of a tough situation and learning to redirect your attention towards what nourishes you instead is one of the fundamentals when learning how to manage your response to fear. Instead, focus on cultivating an effective response that builds upon the stimuli that positively feeds you in the larger context of your own experiences. This will help you to develop a larger bandwidth in dealing with whatever’s bothering you.
- If you continue to respond to situations that fill you with fear in the same way as you always have done, with no awareness of what underlies your response, you will always get the same results. This will significantly hamper your progress on the pathway towards experiencing optimum health and wellbeing.
Challenge Yourself at Multiple Levels to Manage your Fear
How do we start making a difference? How do we experience more clarity of mind and make better choices?
The answer to these questions lies in choosing not to react mindlessly but to respond consciously to situations that challenge your sense of calm. The challenge of managing and mastering yourself has different layers. It involves taking in more information than emotions and focusing your attention in the right direction. When faced with a challenging situation, rather than feeling trapped in a flight or fight response, it’s critical that you pay attention to the tools at hand, think calmly, be aware of your goal, and be ready to respond effectively. In a nutshell, be more like David!
It’s essential to remember that although you should strive to be resilient and adaptive like David, you must also be wary of being like his boss. Whilst at work, the energy and emotions you bring to certain situations will extend outwards, being felt by your colleagues. This can affect the shared pace, direction, and momentum of your work and other people’s. In other words, if you’re feeling anxious or stressed, it’s likely that these emotions will rub off on those around you, so learning to deal with them is critical.
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By increasing your capacity to deal with various kinds of emotional states, you’ll function much more effectively within the workplace.
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This is not just about cognition or how intelligent you are; building your capabilities of managing intense emotions will have real long-term benefits for your work.
- In his book titled The New Leadership, Bob Johansen, the leader of the Institute for the Future (a California-based think tank), talks about fundamentally recognising all emotions, with fear resting at the top of the pile. For Johansen, it’s essential that you familiarise yourself with what your emotions feel like at various intensities, because once you’ve done this, you can increase your capacity to accept them.
- Meditation and mindfulness practice are two of the most effective tools for developing your ability to feel and accept your emotions.
Managing Your Breath
- In his book Breath, author James Nestor focuses on how we breathe, explaining the role of the breath in meditation and mindfulness exercises. With 50 years of research substantiating his findings, he emphasises the impact quality of breath can have on our health and minds. He concludes that how you breathe really does matter!
- For example, Nestor highlights how habitually breathing through your mouth exposes one’s lungs to unfiltered air. In the long term, this increases the risk of lung problems and offloads excessive carbon dioxide, constricting circulation. This issue is also associated with health problems like hypertension, sleep apnea, allergies, asthma, chronic sinusitis, and even depression.
- Therefore, it’s far better to prioritise breathing through your nose. This is because nasal breathing filters, warms, and humidifies the inhaled air. Furthermore, your nose also acts as the first line of defence against airborne pathogens. Moreover, when you breathe through your nose, more oxygen is absorbed, meaning your blood pressure decreases. An all-around better choice!
Meditation and mindfulness practices are two of the most effective tools for developing your ability to feel and accept your emotions.
Summary
In summary, fear is a natural and necessary emotion that can help us to stay safe and alert in dangerous situations. However, when it becomes overwhelming or chronic, it can interfere with our abilities to think clearly and make good decisions. To manage it effectively, it is therefore vital to identify the source of your fear and come to understand it. Acknowledging and accepting fear is an important step in learning to manage it effectively and find ways to cope with it long-term. Not only this, but it’s also important to focus on the things that nourish and support our minds and bodies, which will build our resilience levels and better equip us to cope with fear when it arises.
