How do you get overwhelming emotions under control? Chip Conley, in his book Emotional Equations, simplifies emotions into equations. That way you can apply logic to them to help.
My favorite: Anxiety = uncertainty x powerlessness
Next time you feel anxious, spend 10-minutes creating an Anxiety Balance Sheet. Divide a paper into four columns and brainstorm as many items under each as possible:
Column 1: What I do know
Column 2: What I don’t know
Column 3: What I can influence
Column 4: What I can’t influence
You will feel better. First, you most likely have more items in the positive columns than you realized. Second, column 2 becomes a work plan on what you need to learn. Finally, you can ask yourself how you can increase influence for Column 4, which already puts you in a position of more power.
Score.
