When Anxiety Starts Making the Decisions

In the 1954 film On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando plays Terry Malloy, a former boxer who realizes that fear, bad choices, and other people’s influence kept him from becoming what he might have been.

Looking back, he says: “I coulda been a contender.”

What makes the line so painful isn’t simply that he failed. It’s that he never really found out what he was capable of.

Most of us won’t face Terry Malloy’s circumstances. But we can face a quieter version of the same risk.

We let anxiety decide whether we speak up, pursue an opportunity, have a difficult conversation, make a change, or step into a bigger role.

Anxiety and Avoidance

Consider a junior executive preparing to present a recommendation to senior leadership.

“I keep thinking I’m going to sound unprepared,” she tells me. “I’ve changed my slides six times. Part of me wants to ask my boss to present instead.”

What does she really want?

To be seen as credible. To know she can hold her own in that room.

But she also wants to avoid embarrassment. And anxiety offers a strategy for that: Keep revising, find a way to delay or let someone else do it.

If she doesn’t present, she can’t look foolish. In that sense, anxiety is doing its job. It’s trying to protect her. But that protection comes at a cost.

If she avoids the experience, she also avoids the opportunity to build the very confidence and credibility she wants.

Feelings Are Information, Not Instructions

Instead of treating anxiety as something we must eliminate before acting, we can get curious about what it's trying to protect us from.

Anxiety contains information: This matters to me. I might fail. I could be judged.

That information deserves our attention, but it's not necessarily an instruction to not do it.

Feelings are information, not instructions. Anxiety can come along for the ride, but it doesn’t have to drive.

Follow the Strategy

So rather than waiting to feel confident, this executive needs a reasonable plan she can follow while anxiety is still present:

1. Identify the three points the audience must understand.
2. Anticipate the toughest questions.
3. Prepare clear responses.
4. Rehearse aloud with someone she trusts.
5. Stop revising and present.

None of those steps requires confidence. They require action. And action begins producing something anxiety cannot give her: evidence.

I can prepare. I can tolerate discomfort. I can answer difficult questions. I can recover when something doesn’t go perfectly.

That evidence is what begins to build confidence.

Choose What Happens Next

The next time anxiety starts influencing what you do, ask:

• What is this feeling protecting me from?
• What do I actually want beyond that protection?
• What reasonable plan would move me toward it, even while I feel anxious?

Then follow the plan. One clear step at a time.

Potential isn’t discovered by thinking about what you might be capable of. You discover it by entering situations that ask more of you and finding out how you respond.

So before asking: “Do I feel confident enough?”

Try asking: “Do I have a sound enough strategy to take the next step?”

You don’t need confidence before you move forward. Often, moving forward is how confidence gets built.

In the next two newsletters, we’ll apply the same principle to anger and guilt: what those emotions may be trying to accomplish, what they can cost us, and how to choose our response instead of automatically following their instructions.

Let’s do this together.

Jo-Aynne Von Born, Leadership/Executive Coach

​READYSETMORE​