You can do nervous
Some situations can make us nervous like flying, job interviews, or having one-on-one conversations with teammates in the role of a manager.
When feeling nervous, what can you do to feel more relaxed? One very practical approach is by telling yourself; "I can do nervous."
You've been nervous before in your life, we all have, and each time you felt nervous you survived. You're alive now, aren't you? :) So there is proof: you can DO nervous.
How come this approach is so effective? Telling yourself "I can do nervous" does two things:
It normalizes the emotion. Being nervous is a normal human emotion and it will go away, just like other emotions
It slows down your thoughts. By realizing you're perfectly capable of handling nervousness, you will slow down or stop the thought process around the emotion or the external circumstances which you think are causing the nervousness. You will notice feeling calmer
The latter effect is most important to realize. The external circumstances aren't the reason you're feeling nervous, it's the meaning you attach to these circumstances.
For example, if you consider a one-on-one meeting with your team members to be scary, it is probably because of the expectations you have of yourself. Like, "I'm the manager, so I have to perform." In this example, you connect having to prove yourself as a manager to a conversation with your subordinates.
When you slow down your thoughts, you're able to be OK with feeling a bit nervous. And secondly, you'll be able to create new meaning, like "during this one-on-one meeting, my team member and I are able to connect, and he/she is given the opportunity to be heard, learn, and get inspired." This feels much better, doesn't it?
Interested in learning more about this subject?
This article made a former client of mine, Marta Marszal, think of Self-Efficacy. In psychology, self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in their capacity to act in the ways necessary to reach specific goals. The concept was originally proposed by the psychologist Albert Bandura.
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