Fear Funk

Sometimes it comes on gradually—the pressure you feel to find work, get your business in the black again, or restore stability to your financial future accumulates, causing sleepless nights or mornings when you sit at your desk not knowing what to do next.

Or there may be a trigger—one rejection too many, a bill you can’t pay, or a depressing headline saps your belief in yourself and better days ahead, and you have that sinking sensation of fear taking you over for a few days or a week or longer.

Fear is a natural reaction to change, and you can expect it to be particularly active when your work-life, that part of your existence that provides sustenance, purpose and identity, has been shaken like a snow globe.

You’re most likely to slip into a funk when you allow your fears to merge. You can see this happening when someone asks you what’s wrong and you say, “Everything!” Then you rattle off a litany of problems and you feel yourself sinking ever deeper into them as you do.

There’s no sense in trying to avoid it, but you can shorten the time you spend in its immobilizing grip by naming it, normalizing it, and negotiating around it.

You can learn how to get fear out of the driver’s seat and strap it into the passenger seat so you can take it for a ride instead of the other way around.

Over the years I’ve used this image with clients whenever they start a session with, “I’m really having a hard time,” or “I haven’t done much.”

When they keep circling back to a worse-case scenario, it’s a sure sign that fear has its foot on the gas pedal.

To go anywhere they will first need to get themselves back behind the wheel, and so we begin with giving our full attention to addressing fear with a three step plan.

STEP 1—RELAX
Imagine you’re at a large party where the music is loud and people are all shouting at each other, trying to be heard.

Now think about how wonderful it feels when you decide to get away from the overpowering noise by stepping outside to enjoy the cool quiet of the evening.

Such moments of calm are equally accessible in a fear funk, when the noise and the loud voices are coming from inside your head. You simply have to be with someone who settles you down.

The decision of who to pick needs to be made consciously. You do this by asking yourself, “Who is my best resource for support around the fear I am experiencing now?”

You need someone who will both allow you vent your fears and help you gain perspective. When you seek out someone who cares about you with the clear intent of reducing fear’s grip, the conversation will be restorative.

STEP 2—REGROUP
You’re most likely to slip into a funk when you allow your fears to merge. You can see this happening when someone asks you what’s wrong and you say, “Everything!” Then you rattle off a litany of problems and you feel yourself sinking ever deeper into them as you do.

Once you become aware of being dominated by fear-driven negativity, you have a choice: you can either feed the fear by continuing to voice your woes indiscriminately, or you can look for ways to contain it.

The best practice I know of for containment is the creation of a master list.

Write down all the fears, anxieties, and stressors you are feeling and assign a point value to each one on a scale of 1 to 10. For example, running out of unemployment might be an 8; talking to your spouse about finances, a 7; out-of-date technical skills, a 5; not hearing back from someone you left several messages with, a 2.

Now add up all the numbers—in this simplified example the total is 22. Somewhere below that number is the tipping point which has caused you to you slip into a fear funk. It may be 20, 19, 17, or less. It’s there somewhere. The goal is to do whatever you can to reduce the total so that it falls below the fear funk threshold, whatever it is.

You can’t do anything about unemployment ending, but you could decide to make one last call to the person who didn’t get back to you and then scratch the name off your list. This would reduce the total to 20, and maybe that would be enough to help you re-establish your equilibrium.

If not, you could begin to upgrade your technical skills by using a tutorial or working with a friend, and that would reduce the total to 15. Maybe that would do it.

Now that you’ve started, you could make a breakfast date to talk about finances with your spouse, and that would reduce the total all the way down to 8.

STEP 3—RESUME
This has nothing to do with documenting your qualifications on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper. I mean re-ZOOM, begin again, restart.

Once you’ve reduced your fear to a manageable level, you can pick up where you left off with your work-search or business goals.

But you’re likely to be stopped in your tracks again if you charge up the hill with bravado, attempting to take it all back on at once.

The safest approach is to use a flanking maneuver of small steps forward, taking into consideration the fact that you are still under the influence of a receding fear funk, and understanding that, however small those steps may be, they are nevertheless courageous and important.

If you’re recovering from a serious illness or surgery, something like getting out of bed, preparing a simple meal, or walking out to get the newspaper may be a milestone.

Likewise, after you have come through a fear funk, so is writing a follow-up email, or setting up a meeting, or starting to play with ideas for a new proposal or presentation.