I recently heard a respected therapist describe anxiety as being “a disturbed relationship with certainty.”
For entrepreneurs, this definition hits close to home. The life of a business owner is riddled with uncertainty, and yet our instinct is to fight for control over outcomes we can’t fully predict. Here’s what you need to know about combating business owner anxiety throughout your career.
What Does Business Owner Anxiety Look Like?
Most people think of anxiety as being similar to fear, but there are actually many different ways that anxiety can manifest in your business. It goes beyond the normal doubt and stress that everyone experiences and can become something more sinister. These are just 5 common expressions of entrepreneur anxiety to look out for in your workplace.
Persistent Worry
You may find yourself trapped in endless “what if” thought spirals, mentally rehearsing unlikely disasters. This mental energy, which could be put towards productive problem-solving, is instead consumed by unproductive rumination. Often, these thoughts may keep you up at night.
Micromanaging
This often emerges as an attempt to rid yourself of business anxiety through obsessive control. You may struggle to delegate because you believe only you can ensure the “right” outcome in a given situation. This illusion of control becomes more critical than actual effectiveness, as a burned-out entrepreneur is rarely the best person to do every task.
Constantly Seeking Reassurance
Seeking reassurance can take many forms. You might constantly check your bank account balance to remind yourself you’re in the green, refresh your analytics obsessively, or bombard your team with questions about their progress on a project. In all of these cases, you’re not really seeking information. You want to cover all of your bases compulsively.
Procrastination
This can seem like a paradox, but often, entrepreneur anxiety manifests as procrastination. Rather than committing to an outcome, you delay as long as possible. Refusing to make a decision feels safer than making a choice that might be wrong, but this avoidance only makes your anxiety worse over time as deadlines approach.
Physical Symptoms
Over time, your body can react to prolonged stress even when you’re not consciously worrying. Some of the physical symptoms of anxiety include heart palpitations, insomnia, excessive sweating, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, muscle tension, and even chest pain.
It’s important to note that anxiety can have negative impacts on your health long-term if not dealt with properly. Some of these symptoms can mimic those of a heart attack or other medical problems. It’s a good idea to consult a doctor if you’re exhibiting physical symptoms to rule out underlying causes or other health issues.
How to Deal with Business Anxiety as an Entrepreneur
If you’ve noticed any of these outward expressions of entrepreneur stress in your day-to-day life, you need to learn how to control it before it controls you. The key to dealing with business anxiety isn’t to eliminate uncertainty. Instead, it’s about fundamentally changing your relationship with the unknown.
Fortunately, there are proven ways to combat and manage anxious thoughts. Here are 5 practical strategies for entrepreneurs.
1. Identifying the Emotion
Our minds can magnify our business anxiety until it feels much larger than it really is. If you catch yourself in an anxiety spiral, try identifying precisely what it is you’re feeling. Is it anxiety or fear? Fear is a response to explicit, immediate threats that mobilize you to act. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a fixation on ambiguous future possibilities.
If there is a concrete, immediate problem in your business that you need to address, you should take action. If not, becoming aware that you’re just ruminating on the uncertainty of the future is the first step towards letting that anxiety go.
2. Exposure Therapy
You can build a tolerance for business uncertainty through deliberate, repeated exposure. If you’re anxious about a specific project or event, face your fear, then schedule a debrief with yourself after it’s over and reflect on what you were worried about versus what actually happened.
Each time you face uncertainty, anxiety, and survive, you show your brain that ambiguity isn’t dangerous and that the worst-case scenario usually doesn’t happen.
3. Mindfulness for Anxiety
When you notice your anxiety spiraling, pause and anchor yourself in the here and now. Your business anxiety is related to an imagined future, not reality.
Simple practices like taking deep breaths can interrupt the worry cycle. A common technique is to stop and name five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. Your senses can pull you out of your thoughts and into the present moment.
4. Cognitive Retraining
Your anxious brain makes assumptions: uncertainty equals danger, ambiguity is always bad. It’s essential to challenge your catastrophic thinking. Ask yourself: What evidence is there to support this worst-case scenario? Could other explanations exist? What would I tell a fellow entrepreneur in this situation?
5. Changing Focus
It’s essential to focus on what you can control. You might not have power over the market conditions, customer preferences, or economic trends. But you can control your daily routines, your response to challenges, and your investment in your own personal growth.
Focusing on what you can change will not only make you a better leader, but it will also prepare you for future uncertainty. Having a firm foundation of discipline and self-control will keep you from being shaken when the winds change.
Success as an entrepreneur means accepting that fear of uncertainty is not a temporary condition to overcome, but rather a permanent feature of the business landscape. Your goal isn’t to achieve certainty—instead, it should be to get comfortable with being uncertain.
The work of building a business will always involve unknowns, but your relationship with those unknowns can change over time from one of fear to one of acceptance. Eventually, if you become resilient enough, you may even be excited about the possibilities that uncertainty can hold.
Want to learn more about becoming a more resilient leader? Sign up for my weekly complimentary blog articles to learn more about entrepreneurship and personal growth. If you want to talk through your business owner anxiety with an experienced coach, click here to sign up for a free video call with Coach Dave.
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