Fear Setting

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

This morning I woke up in a mild panic. Twice actually. I have an event coming up and I am afraid I am not going to make my flight. Usually this isn't of concern, but because I am flying up the day before the event, instead of *two* days before, if anything goes wrong , I am potentially out of money.

Does this sound like something that happens to you? Do you wake up in the morning or spend part of your day with your stomach in knots or your brain spinning because of something that may or may not happen? The official name for that is anxiety, though most of us call it worry. Anxiety seems deep, and it is! At some point in our lives, we've wired ourselves to think over and over and over about future things that are not in our control. Obviously some things like missing a flight are more serious than say the cable guy not showing up on time, but depending on the circumstances, the cable guy coming late can be just as worrying if you have to be some place else a a specific time.

In my couching sessions, one of the exercises we do is called fear setting, where we think of all and I mean *ALL* of the things that can go wrong. And then we think of all the options we can do to either prevent or alleviate that potential disaster. In the case of my plane flight, the options are to leave a day earlier, take an earlier flight, take my original flight, and if I get stuck in the my connecting city, see all my options to get to where I am going the next day and not just the ones provided by the airline. The next step is to think of what happens if the worst case happens: I get stuck in my connecting city. I make a list of who I know who lives there so I can crash on their couch. I look at all my options for making it to my connecting city. Write down flight times and set my alarm so I will make it to the airport in time to catch the earliest flight. Write down my contact's name and number so if heaven forbid my phone dies, I can still call my contact and let them know the change of plans.

And if after all that, I still don't get to my destination? I can be sad. I can feel the emotion, but not beat myself up about it because I did everything in my power to do what I can. If the event producer decides to never hire me again, well, there's nothing I can do about that. And disappointed fans? They can find me online and while I may not be in their city, this won't be my last performance.

This should help calm down the anxiety because I have a road map. There are so many variables - hell my Lyft driver can decide to take the scenic route to the airport and make me late. But the choice I have is how I respond after doing all of this. I can stay in what if land and be miserable for the next 24 hours, or I can say hey, I've done all I can, lets move on to enjoying my day.

Not going to say that this is easy or that the what ifs won't creep in, but its a start to taking control over your life, your goals and your emotions.