Why is it so difficult to deal with our anxiety in the first place? If anxiety is a fact of life, why do we try to hide from it? Or let ourselves get hijacked by it?

I believe the problem lies with our faulty thinking. It goes something like this: Change and uncertainty make me anxious. Anxiety is bad, a sign of weakness. Therefore, I have to avoid change and uncertainty. I have to do whatever I can to avoid anxiety. Our faulty thinking comes from centuries of viewing change as dangerous, even life threatening. It comes from medical models that frame anxiety as a mental health problem. And it comes from years of outmoded leadership practices that ignore the human side of business.

Our limited logic leads us to reject change, uncertainty, and anxiety as inherent and acceptable parts of life. We associate anxiety with fear, stress, and instability. We are afraid we can’t understand or manage our anxiety, so we avoid, deny, resist, run away from, or medicate it. And we refuse to see our anxiety as a major source of energy, in ourselves and our organizations.

It’s time to change our perspective on anxiety. It’s time to make better use of our brain power to manage the anxiety that accompanies change and uncertainty.

I’m basing this conclusion on five decades of life and my thirty- year career as a psychologist, entrepreneur, and CEO adviser. It is grounded in the face-to-face meetings I’ve had with more than 250 top business leaders. In fact, my research has led me to three fundamental insights about leadership and life:

• It’s time to embrace change, uncertainty, and anxiety as facts of life.
• We can use our healthy anxiety as a positive force for growth.
• Just enough anxiety is the key to living and leading in our complex world.

Let’s face it: The world is changing at an unprecedented pace. Nothing is static, certain, or predictable. Anxiety is rapidly becoming our constant companion. If we continue to struggle against this natural process, we will remain locked in a closed loop of our own making. We will stop growing, as individuals and organizations.

Wait a minute. Is it possible to evolve intentionally? Can we overcome our inherited, fear-based response to change and uncertainty? Based on two decades of research and my personal experience, I believe the answer to both questions is an emphatic “Yes!”

Excerpted from JUST ENOUGH ANXIETY: THE HIDDEN DRIVER OF BUSINESS SUCCESS by Robert H. Rosen by arrangement with Portfolio, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright (c) Robert H. Rosen, 2008.