In an opposition, several people come to the same place with a common but exclusive objective: to gain a place within an organization. Like any situation in which one is being examined, it is common for us to experience the typical symptoms of anxiety, such as sweating in the hands, rapid breathing, and even in some cases, the feeling of suffocation and difficulties maintaining concentration. at that precise moment.
Due to the high levels of anxiety that this type of circumstance generates, many people end up becoming confused when attending an examination, believing themselves incapable of developing the topics requested of them. For this reason, in this article we will see some strategies to control anxiety in oppositions and how to start putting them into practice.
Let’s start from the beginning: reacting from anxiety to opposition is normal. The discourse that we must fight the anxiety, delete it either face it. However, anxiety is an emotion that evokes a set of physiological reactions in our body and allows the body to prepare to fight or flee from a stressful stimulus. Anxiety, furthermore, has a premonitory nature that has the potential to provide us with information to anticipate difficult situations or in which we could be hurt. Therefore, from it we can generate an action plan. Anxiety is highly adaptive—which is why it has persisted with our species—and, therefore, we should not try to get rid of it.
This position on anxiety can, at first, seem shocking: why shouldn’t I fight something that makes me feel so bad? Well, the reality is that Feeling anxiety will never be pleasant, but just because we deny it or try to avoid it does not mean that it will disappear We cannot willingly get rid of anxiety. On the contrary, accepting that pain is part of our life is essential to see what actions we can take even in the presence of that anxiety, because behind anxiety may lie something important to us. Following the case that concerns us, during an opposition extremely valuable factors are coming into play for us, for example, it has an impact on the work environment (since, if we stay, we could move towards a professional and/or personal project), also on the interpersonal sphere (because the family’s financial support could depend on that work), etc. That anxiety comes to tell us to prepare to act. She is not our enemy.
Now, it is also true that many people feel that they get “blocked” or “clouded” because of this anxiety when they have to present a topic in front of an interviewer or an audience. In more psychological terms, they are having difficulty retrieving information from their long-term memory to solve a specific task because either they have not encoded and stored the information correctly—due to the use of ineffective preparation strategies—or because The emotional state in the present is very high or intense.
When thinking about useful strategies for an opposition, as we have been developing, it is important not to pretend that these eliminate anxiety. If a person has always had excessive levels of anxiety when speaking in front of a crowd, or in front of a person who is judging them, it is most likely that they also experience anxiety in an opposition. Even the most extroverted people can feel this way, really. However, it is possible that even if she feels anxious, she is able to make certain decisions wisely that bring her closer to getting what she wants and that do not involve eradicate the anxiety. In any case, we could talk about check anxiety, if we understand control not as a way of demanding that emotion be reduced or disappear, but as a way of taking action to achieve our goals without being tied to an emotional state that we cannot completely manipulate. Most likely, if we use these strategies that we will point out below, anxiety will decrease a little, but this is not our primary objective (we could see it as a side effect). What we seek is to equip ourselves with tools to solve the opposition’s challenges even when we feel anxious. That said, the strategies we can use are the following.
This strategy is useful for storing and consolidating information effectively, even more so if it is in front of another person or a mirror. It has been proven that practicing out loud before a presentation or exam improves our ability to learn a speech, a much more efficient strategy than passive reading. It can also help to do it in front of a trusted person and ask for feedback. Furthermore, by practicing in front of others we are exposing ourselves to the physical sensations of our anxiety and the feared situation, so, by sustaining public practice over time, we will end up not only expressing ourselves better, but also, as we said, in a secondary way, being a little calmer.
2. Smile and show your hands
Many researches agree that accompanying speech with a smile can modify our mood. However, resorting to smiling as a strategy to curb anxiety could be inefficient, since it is difficult to calm us down in a context in which we are being evaluated. Of course, this does not mean we should discard the smile. It can be a great ally when we feel anxious, as it can be useful as a tool to communicate what we want to say and alleviate the difficulties of anxiety. By smiling and emulating gestures in accordance with what we are communicating, we have a greater chance of obtaining what we want from the other. In addition, we can generate greater closeness with whoever is listening to us.
3. Seek anchorage to the present moment
Staying in the present is essential when preparing for an opposition, since it will allow us not to get hooked on all those thoughts that precede the longed-for moment and that tend to be catastrophizing or to overestimate the risks of the situation. When that day arrives, it will be useful to practice exercises to be in the here and now: feel the temperature of the objects we touch, pay attention to breathing, feel the friction of clothing against the skin, identify sounds, colors, aromas. Anchoring in the present has the objective of expanding our field of attention to what is happening right now, although that may be unpleasant (as we said, it can make noticeable the fact that our physical sensations respond to a state of anxiety), but ultimately In the end, it will help us experience that moment as it is and function better in that event.
