Reshape your anticipation curve for planned hard conversations.
By Assertive Way
Most of the anxiety we feel in hard conversations does not come from the actual conversation moment that usually lasts only a few minutes. Rather, it comes from the anticipation stress hours, days, weeks, even months before that dreaded conversation. And the hours, days, weeks, months of rumination after the hard conversation.
Most of the anxiety we feel in hard conversations does not come from the actual conversation moment that usually lasts only a few minutes.
The anticipation curve relates to how you experience the before and after a perceived intense situation.
Knowing how to reshape your anticipation curve can increase your joy in positive situations and decrease anxiety and frustration in negative situations.
The anticipation curve for vacation travel
Consider the anticipation curve for vacation travel with family.
Before
You start to plan your vacations many months ahead or even a year ahead. You make a list of 10 dream destinations you’d like to visit. You joyfully research them all and decide on one place.
As you put more time into planning flights, hotels, and places you want to visit, your excitement builds up.
The anticipation of this trip creates excitement and something to look forward to. You share your plans and get tips from friends, research, watch Youtube videos, and read about the food, culture, and local highlights. Sometimes the enjoyment during this dreamy phase is even greater than the actual holiday itself.
During
If all goes well, your vacation is the absolute highlight moment. You feel excited, energized, and happy.
If the experience doesn’t go as well and reality doesn’t meet your expectations or if you get into a fight with people you are travelling with, you might feel frustrated and it will detract from your overall experience.
After
After getting back to work, you’ll chat about your favorite moments of the trip with everyone you meet on that first day back or perhaps only in the first hours.
Because you were out for many days, your email and to do lists are full, and there is absolute urgency to get productive at once.
The second day after your returned from holidays, the positive emotions are over. All you have are the photos as memories.
To ‘milk’ the positive memories of the experience, you talk about it with friends, review your photos and videos, and write a journal of your experiences.
The second day after your returned from holidays, the positive emotions are over.
The anticipation curve for a hard conversation
A challenging conversation could be an interview, letting someone go, telling your boss you are quitting, sharing negative feedback or negative performance scores, downgrading someone, disagreeing with a colleague you respect, or asking for a promotion.
Before
As soon as you make the decision that you’ll have this hard conversation, the anxiety starts to take over. It progressively builds up until the moment of the conversation. The planning and rehearsal phase increase your anxiety. The more you think about the conversation, the more worried you get.
You sleep poorly the night before and experience indigestion the day you plan to have the conversation.
During
Your hard conversation may play out as you planned, or it may go in a new direction.
Many things can go different than expected. The timing, location, the other person’s reactions, and your own ability to perform according to your plan. When unexpected situations happen, you get more nervous.
As you deliver your message, you hesitate, tremble, and can’t find the right words.
After
Right after a conversation you immediately judge yourself. Was my performance good? Did I get the result I wanted? Did I look stupid or confident? What are the consequences of this conversation? Will they reject me?
Some people will feel proud of themselves for having the hard conversation despite their fears.
Others will find what went wrong or could have gone better and will ruminate for a long time afterwards.
What type of person are you?
Do you feel good about taking action or do you ruminate on what you could have done better?
You interpret vacation as positive experiences that you want to extend and remember.
You interpret hard conversations as negative experiences that you want to shorten and forget.
There are ways you can reduce unnecessary anxiety from hard conversations by better managing its anticipation curve.
5 ways to reduce anxiety before, during, and after
Here are 6 tips on how to reduce the anxiety involved in the before, during, and after phases of hard conversations.
- Interpret anxiety as excitement
Anxiety and excitement have the same physiological response: stomach butterflies, sweating, and nervousness. However, one is positive and the other is negative, based on our interpretation of what the situation represent for you: fear vs. opportunity, threat vs. progress.
Focus on the positive change you expect from the conversation. What will you achieve? A more productive team? More personal time? Clarity on the requirements to be promoted?
- Let go of strict expectations
When a situation does not go as expected, we tend to get frustrated. However, if you expect a situation to change and to go in a different direction, then you are less likely to be frustrated and more likely to successfully adapt to the changing situation.
- Be present in the moment
When you give a speech, you can focus on yourself or on the audience. If you focus on yourself and on your performance, you will be more anxious, less effective, and more judgmental about yourself.
If you focus on the audience and their needs, you’ll be relaxed, flexible, adaptable, and you’ll measure success by impact rather than by your performance.
Having a hard conversation is similar. Focus on the purpose of the conversation and on the person you are talking to. Don’t worry about your performance.
There is a great quote from Maya Angelou that says “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Make them feel special, heard, and respected by being present in the moment of the hard conversation. You’ll find your anxiety will drop and you’ll be more effective.
- Reduce the time between decision and action
Waiting without action increases anxiety or excitement. If you feel anxious, have the hard conversation sooner rather than later. There are very few situations where delaying an action is helpful for you or for the other person.
- Write down your learning points
To release your rumination after the conversation, ask yourself if you achieved your goal (even if your performance wasn’t to your standard). Then take note of your learning points. Get your reflection on paper. That is how we develop and grow.
Then next time you have a hard conversation, you’ll have guidelines and a plan on what to tackle. This will make you feel organized and making progress, and therefore less frustrated about yourself and more motivated to improve.
To crush anxiety and frustration from planned hard conversations, purposefully reshape your anticipation curve. Reduce the before and after phases for negative experiences. That way you’ll get the most from the experience and may even feel good about it.
SUMMARY
Realize that most of the anxiety you feel in hard conversations comes from the anticipation and rumination stress. It comes from the time before and after the challenging conversation.
Crush that anxiety by reshaping your anticipation curve.
- Interpret anxiety as excitement
- Let go of strict expectations
- Be present in the moment
- Reduce the time between decision and action
- Write down your learning points
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, American civil rights activist
What’s worse for your: the anxiety before or the rumination after a hard conversation?