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Daily Anxiety

Written by: James Chan

Article Overview: For independent professionals who work alone, finding a way to handle isolation and daily axiety is key to sanity.

Daily Anxiety

Everyone feels anxieties, and we entrepreneurs have many reasons to feel anxious. When business and profits are coming in, we worry whether they will continue. When the world seems to have forgotten that we exist, we fret over whether we~{!/~}re in the right business, or even whether we will survive.

Some of us may be able to suppress such anxieties, or ignore them. Most, though, will always have them. The real issue is not how to make the anxieties go away but rather how to at least keep them from being destructive and ideally put them to good use.

I think it~{!/~}s possible to use the daily anxieties of self-employment the way actors use stage fright, as a way of sharpening and giving urgency to the way they perform. Indeed, many people seem to use their careers as a means of overcoming their anxieties. For example, a shy person who is afraid to use the telephone becomes a journalist and needs to call people continually. The computer whiz who likes to work out technological puzzles by himself goes into business fixing other people~{!/~}s computers, knowing that everyone will be looking over his shoulder. Such anxieties never go away, but necessity keeps them under control.

Anxiety is most acute at those moments when you don~{!/~}t know what to do next. You can help tame it by establishing routines. A bonus is that, in the name of banishing your fear, you can also accomplish necessary tasks that you don~{!/~}t much feel like doing. When left undone, such uninspiring chores can themselves be a source of anxiety.

Anxieties come when we are alone in silence. The solution is to talk to other people. This can be not merely calming but very informative.

Our workplaces can be hives of anxiety. It~{!/~}s important to get out regularly so that we don~{!/~}t feel trapped in what we are doing. Go for a walk. Take a vacation. When you do, you elude your anxieties, at least temporarily, and return with answers to questions you didn~{!/~}t even know you had.

Anxieties are the constant companions of the entrepreneur. Properly used, they can help us fight complacency and force us to get to work. But when they are bad enough, or allowed to loom too large, they can get in the way. They fester when we are isolated, and attack when we don~{!/~}t know what to do.

I have found that anxieties are less troublesome when I~{!/~}m busy. A regular routine helps keep them at bay. So does keeping in touch with people. Making the phone ring combats the terrors of silence and isolation. So does getting out of the office, so that you can exercise and perhaps jog your thinking in unexpected and productive ways.

It~{!/~}s worth remembering that what we sell to or do for others is a result of their anxieties. Most of us would be out of business if everyone stopped worrying. What we can~{!/~}t do, though, is let our customers~{!/~} fears, worries and irrational behavior threaten our precarious stability. Our own anxieties are troubling enough. We can~{!/~}t afford to take on others~{!/~} terrors as well.

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Article Tags: actors, answers to questions, anxieties, bonus, chores, computer whiz, control anxiety, fear, journalist, necessary tasks, profits, puzzles, self employment, shy person, silence, stage fright, urgency, workplaces



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