What, Me Worry?

I’m afraid of needles. Yet, this year, I was persuaded to get a flu shot. The week leading up to it, I obsessed; my nerves were frazzled. And, afterwards, I told the nurse how easy it had been. She replied, “Well, it’s better this way - to worry in advance and have it be much better than you anticipated than not to worry and have it be a terrible experience.” While I believe she’s right, I’m having trouble reconciling this with a quote I’ve often shared – including with coaching clients: “Worry is misuse of the imagination” (attributed to business executive, Dan Zadra).

Which is it? Is it a good idea to worry because worry might help to prepare you, or might make what you’ve been dreading seem like a piece of cake? Or because it might help you to think of alternatives to the situation in advance? Or does it waste valuable time on something that may never come to pass, or that’s inevitable? Does worry keep you from trying certain things?

I’ve decided to think of worry just as something to pay attention to: What am I nervous about? Why? And how does being nervous help or hurt me?

Unlimited Possibilities

I hosted a career advancement panel at work the other day where the concept of limiting beliefs came up. Here’s how the conversation went:

An employee said she was scared to move from a Union position at NYU to a managerial role because, as a Union employee, she was “protected” and once she became a manager, her “head would be on the chopping block.” One of the panelists asked her how often she’d used the Union’s protections and when she said she really hadn’t, he replied, “Well, that’s like keeping the bumpers up in your lane even though you keep bowling strikes. You don’t need those protections - and your belief that you do is limiting your options.”

That’s when another panelist talked about his limiting beliefs.  “I often say ‘I can’t run.’  Of course,” he continued, “I haven’t tried running…”

What limiting beliefs are you holding on to? Are they true? Could the opposite also be true? What do you want to do with those beliefs? I know I’ve asked these questions before in this blog – and of myself – but it’s a good idea to check in periodically and to clear out those thoughts that are limiting for unlimited possibilities.