Excessive stress and anxiety can hurt you mentally, emotionally and physically.

Excessive negative stress will actually block your use of the executive part of your brain, the most advanced portion of your brain where your willpower and ability for higher consciousness thinking exists.

In sport and performance psychology, it’s well known that there is a very specific relationship between performance and anxiety or stress (shown in the accompanying graph).

Only the vertical axis is performance from low to high; from low to high stress is shown in the horizontal axis. We can have two vertical lines running from the middle of the horizontal axis up to the top of the curve; the space between those two lines we can label “zone.” “Boredom” and “burnout” are illustrated in the space under the curve to the right of the zone.

Being nervous or anxious (uncomfortable) is neither helpful nor hurtful, in and of itself.

The Zone of the Performance

Using your discomfort to be in what experts often call “the zone of the performance” is the huge opportunity. When you’re in the excitement part of the curve or peak performance zone, you are experiencing what is known in psychology as challenge stress, which gears you up to be your best and compete well versus what’s on the right side of the curve which is threat stress and will douse your enthusiasm and desire.

When you experience threat stress, you may not believe you can handle the situation. This can trigger the classic fight-or-flight response from the emotional brain. Your perception of a given situation will determine whether you experience the stress of the situation as excitement (challenge stress) or fear (threat stress).

Exercise.

Think of a challenge or an upcoming event that makes you feel uncomfortable.

Now, looking at the peak performance graph, where would you be on that graph at this moment? Where would you predict you will be during the most challenging moment leading up to or during this event?

The first key to mastering anxiety and being uncomfortable is to make the decision that you are taking on the challenge you face.

Make it your choice to take on this challenge, even if initially the challenge came from someone else or was imposed on you. When you make it your choice to take on the challenge, it empowers you. You own it. It decreases your anxiety and increases your motivation to be successful.

Next, we’ll explore the benefits to leaders of being uncomfortable.

What do you think? How comfortable at this point are you in being uncomfortable? Thanks for sharing.

For questions about this post or for information on becoming a fearless leader, contact Dr. Cathy Greenberg and The Fearless Leader Group at (888) 320-1299 or by email at hello@fearlessequalsfreedom.com.