Having anxiety in your daily life can be crippling, but if your whole job revolves around meeting new people, you may find yourself avoiding important networking opportunities. While managing anxiety isn’t something that will become easier overnight, you can try one or more of the following coping strategies that can alleviate social concerns at work or before meeting new clients.
Manage Avoiding Behavior
When an anxiety attack starts to rear its ugly head, your immediate reaction is to avoid that situation that’s causing your discomfort. Even coming to a meeting overly-prepared can be avoidance behavior because it implies you’re afraid something bad will happen without your script. It’s important to trust yourself that you can respond spontaneously to questions.
When learning how to find clients online, you may have seen experts suggest cold emailing to find new clients. Before falling back on your script, research their website and find out what problems you can fix before simply asking for their business. Knowing what problems to tackle can really help elevate your anxiety and prevent avoiding behavior before it occurs.
Exercise Self Love
Start becoming aware of your thought patterns before a meeting: Are you focusing on the negatives? Do you feel only the worse thing will happen? While these thoughts can be helpful in life or death situations, they will limit you if you aren’t looking at a problem fairly.
Tell yourself that there are many ways your meetings can go right. Focus on one of your wins: What happened, and why did that meeting with your client go off without a hitch? Although it will be challenging to focus on the positives of meeting a new client during an anxiety attack, try and tell yourself that no matter what happens, you’ll be okay and your team will still have your back.
Practice Infront of a Mirror
Have a few key phrases in your tool belt that you can say regardless of what situation your potential client says. For example, when someone asks you how your day was, you usually say, “Great, and yours?” immediately. If your client asks you a business-related question, have a response prepared that you’ve written down or practiced verbatim in the mirror.
Remember: being too prepared can cost you your confidence, but it can never hurt to know what you’re going to say. Even having knowledge about the conversion you’re discussing with your client can boost your confidence significantly.
Get in the Right Mindset
Your mind can get the best of you and place you in a state that won’t be productive before your business meeting. When your body releases stress hormones, it’s all your brain can think about because it’s trying to pull you out of that uncomfortable situation. Try the following breathing technique to help you get into the groove before meeting your client.
Take long, deep belly breaths and only focus on the exhales to trigger a relaxed response. Try not to focus on your worries but the way your body is releasing tension. Using this technique can reprogram your mind and control your thoughts, so they’re less likely to control you.
Ask Your Friends or Medical Professionals For Help
It’s completely okay if you feel your anxiety is overwhelming you and require outside help to get into the right mindset before your meeting. Sometimes taking your mind off the situation is precisely what you need before speaking to a new client. You don’t even have to tell your colleges you’re nervous; just ask them to talk to you about their day or weekend.
If your anxiety gets to the point where it affects your quality of life, it’s a good idea to seek out mental health foundations, an employee assistance program, or a doctor for help. A regular meditation practice can reduce anxiety and help you prevent anxiety attacks.