How to Optimize Your Anxiety, Rather Than Let It Hold You Back

By Matt Higgins

For my entire life, I’ve struggled with anxiety, insomnia, and obsessive worries about things I can and can’t control. My friends chide me as the most paranoid risk-taker they know. Sometimes it helps me, but sometimes it absolutely doesn’t. When I’m facing a big moment, I can become absolutely paralyzed and completely unproductive. My body rebels, putting my success at risk simply because my brain won’t shut off and let me get rest. It’s a fight-or-flight response, a constant need to be at high alert—to look for danger.

Here are my top four tips for getting through anxiety.

FIND A STUDY TO REASSURE YOU

Data is power. If I can find a study to show that I’m actually doing something right, in whatever I’m trying to pursue, then that knowledge can be enough to move me past my doubts. I have no better example than when I ran a marathon in Paris.

I found a compelling piece of research that while mental performance is absolutely impacted by a lack of sleep, physical performance can withstand 30 to 72 hours of being awake. Bingo—I was reassured, and all was once again good in my head. I ran the race and improved my time by 10 minutes over my speed when I ran the New York City Marathon.

Will there always be data to reassure you, in any situation? Of course not. But with 8 billion people in the world, someone, somewhere, has gone through what you are going through right now. Find that study, or find that person, and save yourself the trouble of repeating their mistakes. Inform your decisions and overcome your worry with facts.

MEDITATE DAILY

I have found that most of the wildly successful CEOs I know practice transcendental meditation. From Ray Dalio to Bill Gates to Arianna Huffington, there is no shortage of successful people who rely on this tool to relax their minds. Meditation has been shown to boost resilience, emotional intelligence, creativity, relationships, and focus—and I’m going to be another voice telling you that it should be a key tool in your anxiety tool kit. I believe really strongly in this, and think it’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.

I’d be lying if I said I’m perfect about meditating every day, but I do make an effort as much as possible, and hold myself accountable, because self-care is incredibly important. I tell my founders and employees over and over again about how treating yourself well is critical to maintaining peak performance. For me, personally, it’s an area where I often fail.

Denying ourselves the gift of self-care is not helping our professional pursuits, it’s hurting them, and it’s making life harder in so many ways. The sooner you form good self-care habits, the more likely you’ll stick to them in the long term. Start small, but be consistent.

I think you should meditate, but at the same time I want to assure you that not meditating will not be the reason you don’t burn the boats. Try different things, figure out what works best for you, and stick with it. Do what you can, forgive yourself when you don’t achieve perfection, and keep trying.

PICK THE RIGHT PERSON TO JOIN YOU IN THE FOXHOLE

I make it a point to meet someone’s partner in the course of doing my due diligence on an investment, because you can often tell so much right away. How’s the relationship—is it a source of strength or a source of conflict? If I see signals of contempt such as undercutting jabs or subtle eye rolls, I know there’s trouble coming.

What we need to look for is one sensibility, one voice, one unified passion. And if someone has picked the right life partner, frankly it tells me a lot about how they choose their business partners and employees, too. Great people can identify that same quality in others. On the other hand, when I hear someone say about their partner, “They ground me,” I think of planes stuck on a runway and ask myself, Why is this a good thing? Planes are meant to fly, and so are you.

EXPOSE YOUR ACHILLES HEEL— AND ASK FOR HELP TO FIX IT

It’s the simplest strategy, but the one we don’t always think to pursue, worried that others will judge us or penalize us for admitting our weaknesses. My friend Mike Tannenbaum is now a highly praised football commentator on ESPN.

But it wasn’t easy. Mike’s anxiety about creating and maintaining that success fueled his rise, but also manifested in extreme intensity. Mike would get a rabid look in his eyes when the pressure was on, only to end up targeting anyone and anything that rubbed him the wrong way.

I admired the depth of Mike’s commitment, but I also knew that this fiery intensity, his greatest asset, might one day sabotage his career. Our greatest asset can also become our fatal albatross. Eventually, I had to intervene. I told Mike that his anxiety was presenting in a way that was jeopardizing his success, and perhaps even his job.

A couple of months after we talked, I walked into Mike’s office and there was a massive fish tank built into the wall. The lights were dimmed and he had ’80s music playing softly from a boom box. He had learned coping mechanisms and put them into practice. For Mike, a change in his office environment worked wonders, and relaxed him enough that he wouldn’t be consumed by his rage.

These tips can work no matter your organization. They can keep you on the right path after you’ve set out on your journey. Most of us can’t avoid dark emotions—however, if they can drive us to work harder and smarter than everyone around us, we’ve just used the fear to put ourselves in an unmatched position to succeed.