Planning Anxiety

How many times have you found yourself anxious about change – no matter how big or how little – simply because the uncertainty ahead appears daunting? Many of us make up a colossal fact pattern in our heads with anticipated upset (emotionally, financially, organizationally, etc.)  involved in the final outcome. In my experience, when you take the plunge and dive into the deep end of the pool versus easing into the shallow end, you find it wasn’t as rattling as you expected. 

Two weeks leading up to heading east from Colorado to New York, I had an unnecessary amount of anxiety about making the “big trip.”  I was scripting an elaborate story about how hard it was going to be to walk into the family home of 43 years that my parents built when I entered this world (child #4 of 6). The last time I was there was in February, when my mom passed away in our family living room.  It was one heck of a year for 35 Cannas Court: Mom and dad both passed away eight months apart, leaving our family home for the final time.

Truth be told, the moment I walked into my folks' back yard – where the in-ground pool (encircled with my father’s master gardening) was traditionally overflowing with my nieces and nephews, parents and  siblings on any given Sunday afternoon – I instantly felt a calm come over me. I knew this was exactly where I needed to be. It felt very healing. I knew I was not only going to get through this, I could learn and grow from my time here.  I would be better for it. There would be therapy in helping my sisters pack up the home and get it ready for the escrow closing at the end of the month. Cutting my father's grass, though not as well as he would have, would help me to properly say goodbye. 

I quickly remembered the most accurate definition I think I’ve stumbled upon for the term  “anxiety.”  “The root of all anxiety comes from lack of information.” The only information I had in preparing for the trip was from everyone else’s perception. “Wow, that’s going to be really hard,” they told me. “I don’t know how you are going to get through packing up your childhood home.”  And many other renditions of the fear of the unknown, the fear of change and the fear of goodbye. 

I hear attorneys and team alike spout the workplace version of this  every day: “I am nervous to add another person to the bus, I don’t know how I will pay for them.” “If I let him go, everything is going to crumble.” “I really would love to X but I fear Y.”  And as we all know, yet must forever relearn and remember, every time we move forward we find that the dread was worse than the actual change. 

“When you take a deeper look at all the things that you fear, notice that fear is an emotion that exists only in regard to the future,” says Ariane De Bonvoisin, author of “The First 30 Days: Your Guide to Making Any Change Easier.” “Worry and anxiety come from imagining terrible scenarios that could occur in the future instead of focusing on what is actually happening in the present moment.”

Making a move (change) in life is absolutely daunting, especially for those who have lived in an area/situation self-imprisoned by the mental fear of the worst-case scenario. But making the actual move (change) is worth every step versus the alternative of living in the planning anxiety phase, the lack of information (guarantee) about the outcome. The breakthrough is always just on the other side of the breakdown.

Where in your life or practice are you living in planning anxiety?

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Molly L. Hall, Co-Founder, Lawyers with Purpose, LLC, and author of Don’t Be a Yes Chick: How to Stop Babysitting Your Boss, Transform Your Job and Work with a Dream Team Without Losing Your Sanity or Your Spirit in the Process.