Posted on August 14, 2024
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Understanding Meeting Anxiety
Experiencing anxiety before meetings or when meeting new people is more common than you might think. It's not just about being shy or introverted; it's a complex interplay of your brain's chemistry and how you perceive social situations. Meeting anxiety, often tied to social anxiety and performance anxiety, can manifest in many ways, from a racing heart to a complete mental block.
What Happens in Your Brain During Meeting Anxiety?
When you experience anxiety before meetings or while meeting someone new, your brain's amygdala, the part responsible for the fight-or-flight response, hijacks the system. Oxygen is diverted to prepare your body for a threat, which unfortunately leaves your neo-cortex and hippocampus—responsible for rational thinking and memory recall—offline. This is why you might find it challenging to think clearly or remember details during a meeting.
Common Symptoms of Meeting Anxiety
- Inability to Think: Your mind goes blank, making it difficult to recall even basic information.
- Scattered Thoughts: Formulating coherent sentences becomes challenging.
- Memory Issues: Struggling to remember details, including your own contributions.
- Lack of Focus: Difficulty maintaining attention during the meeting.
- Feeling Detached: After getting too anxious, you may feel removed and unmotivated from the meeting.
These are just examples, but they can make it particularly challenging being a presenter in a meeting. These symptoms can be particularly challenging for those who speak English as a second language, compounding the stress experienced in both native and non-native environments.
Practical Strategies to Overcome Meeting Anxiety
Deep Breathing Techniques
A simple yet effective method to manage meeting anxiety is to practise deep breathing. Running a finger along the outline of your hand while taking slow, deep breaths can help regulate your nervous system and restore oxygen flow to your brain. This practice can significantly improve your ability to think clearly and remember information during meetings.
Preparation and Practice
- Arrive Early: Being early allows you to acclimate to the environment and start conversations with fewer people, reducing the pressure. It also allows you to warm up to your surroundings and feel more comfortable with your physical environment.
- Preparation: Prepare your talking points and questions in advance. Having a notepad to jot down ideas can help keep your thoughts organised and focused. For an important presentation, it may also help to run a pretend ‘mock’ presentation in advance with a trusted colleague or mentor to get feedback and make improvements to ensure you get your most important points across and keep everyone on track.
- Visualisation: Visualise the meeting going smoothly. This can help reduce anxiety and increase your confidence by setting yourself up in the right state mentally and emotionally.
Reframing Meeting Stress
Cognitive reframing involves changing your perspective on meetings. Instead of viewing them as stressful events, try to see them as opportunities to share your ideas and connect with others. Remember, everyone has their own anxieties and concerns, and it's not just you who feels this way.
Utilising Mindfulness
Daily mindfulness practice can help you manage anxiety more effectively. Techniques such as meditation, yoga, or even a short walk before the meeting can calm your mind and body, making it easier to handle stressful situations.
For example, experts recommend acknowledging that you feel nervous or anxious, understanding why and telling yourself it’s okay. “I’m anxious, I feel anxious about this presentation because it’s important for my team and that’s okay and normal. I can do this meeting a bit anxious.” Acknowledging and suppressing these thoughts help you tolerate and act even with the stress or pain of these challenges in your professional career.
Psychological experts also recommend practising the ‘3-3-3’ rule for anxiety, which is another mindfulness technique. This can be a technique that really helps if you’re feeling very overwhelmed. To practise, look around and identify 3 objects, 3 sounds and then move 3 body parts. This gets you to pay attention to your physical senses of seeing, hearing and moving (you can also throw in touch) and helps ground you to your body and the tangible ‘now’ instead of racing too far ahead into possibilities or behind into past mistakes.
A Supportive Environment for Meetings Helps
The venue of your meeting can also help to placate and alleviate meeting anxiety.
Cliftons provides a supportive and comfortable environment that can significantly reduce anxiety business leaders often have in meetings. Cliftons meeting venues in Sydney provide a professional, technologically-seamless and welcoming atmosphere. This exudes a sophistication to business meetings that capture attention, encourage engagement, and help all your participants feel at ease. The event management and IT support also ensures you don’t have to worry about the extra details like what your participants will eat or whether your audio-visual equipment will work.
Here’s how our staff and venues at Cliftons can help:
- Modern Facilities: Cliftons' state-of-the-art meeting rooms are designed to create a calm and professional atmosphere.
- Supportive Staff: The friendly and professional staff at Cliftons are always ready to assist with any needs, ensuring a smooth and stress-free meeting experience.
- Comfortable Spaces: The comfortable seating and well-lit rooms help create a relaxing environment conducive to productive meetings.
Tips for Common Issues from Meeting Anxiety
“I Can’t Process Anything in Meetings! My Mind Goes Completely Blank.”
This is a common experience when the amygdala takes control. Using the deep breathing technique mentioned earlier can help you regain your composure. Additionally, carrying a notepad with pre-written points can serve as a useful prompt.
“Formulating Coherent Sentences Becomes a Challenge.”
When your thoughts are scattered, it helps to slow down. Take a moment to breathe deeply before you speak. Practising speaking out loud before meetings, even in the car or while getting dressed, can improve your delivery and verbal recall.
“I Struggle to Remember Details From Meetings.”
Writing down key points during the meeting can aid memory retention about what was discussed during the meeting. Reviewing these notes post-meeting can reinforce your recall abilities, but it’s also a good way to ensure that everything has been covered so you can ask follow up questions for anything that was not properly addressed.
Tips for Introverts and Those with Imposter Syndrome
Embracing Introversion
Introverts often find meetings stressful because they feel put on the spot. Preparing a day or two in advance can significantly reduce this stress. Embrace your introverted skills such as deep listening and thoughtful responses.
Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
Imposter syndrome can exacerbate meeting anxiety, making you feel like a fraud. Remember, your contributions are valuable. Focus on your strengths and practise positive self-affirmation to build confidence.
Short, Confident Contributions
Start by making brief, confident statements. This can help you ease into the conversation without feeling overwhelmed. Ask questions and show interest in others’ points, which can shift some of the focus away from you.
Fear of Saying the Wrong Thing
The fear of saying the wrong thing can be paralysing, stemming from a desire to be perfect and avoid criticism. It's crucial to remember that everyone makes mistakes. Here are some ways to cope:
Prepare Thoroughly
The more familiar you are with your material, the more confident you will feel. Have solid facts, examples and numbers ready to pull out to back your points. Try to also put in some preparation in understanding your participants ahead of time, if possible. This allows you to refine your preparation notes to what will interest them and help you answer what questions they might bring up.
Stay Positive
Focus on your knowledge and strengths. Positive self-talk can significantly boost your confidence. Remember to be also realistic with your goals and be gentle with yourself. If you make a blunder, it’s likely not the end of the world. Take a breath, and correct yourself. If you find yourself talking too fast, quickly or rambling, pause, and take a sip of water and continue again at a different pace.
Seek Feedback
After meetings, ask for constructive feedback to learn and improve. This gives you an opportunity to not grieve over your mistakes, but use this as a learning to grow as a professional.
Fear of Judgement or Criticism
Fear of judgement or criticism can be daunting and often arises from a lack of self-confidence and fear of rejection. To manage this fear:
Build a Support Network
It helps to have the right people in your corner. Having supportive colleagues can make you feel more comfortable and less isolated.
Focus on Constructive Criticism
View feedback as a tool for growth rather than a personal attack.
Maintain Perspective
Remember, everyone is focused on their own contributions and is less likely to judge you harshly.
Anxiety About Meeting Someone New
Social anxiety can make meeting new people especially challenging. This anxiety often comes from a fear of negative evaluation or social mistakes. Here are some tips to help you meet someone when you have social anxiety:
Practise Social Skills
Role-playing conversations with a friend ahead of time can help build confidence. It gives your a chance to practise as well as get some feedback, reassurance and suggestions.
Use Relaxation Techniques
Before a meeting where you’re being introduced to someone new, try deep breathing and mindfulness. These are techniques that can calm the nerves both before and during social interactions.
Take It Slow
Gradually increasing your social interactions over time can help build comfort and reduce anxiety. You can take it easy with simple ‘getting to know you’ questions, and go from there.
Focus on Common Ground
If you find shared interests or topics, that’s great! Finding common ground can help ease the conversation and give you some additional things to talk about to alleviate the quiet awkward tension.
On-Camera or Virtual Meeting Anxiety
Meeting anxiety isn't limited to in-person interactions; virtual meetings can also be stressful. This anxiety can stem from unfamiliarity with technology or the lack of physical presence. It can be harder to get back the usual physical and visual cues that you’re holding your participants’ attention, or if you aren’t. Here’s how to manage it:
Test Your Technology
Ensure your equipment works properly to avoid technical issues that can increase anxiety. Try to ‘turn up’ to your online meeting earlier than expected to give yourself time to not just check your mic and video is working properly, but choose your background settings and ensure that the software or platform that is hosting the meeting is properly set up and connected. Our studio
Create a Comfortable Environment
Set up your space to be comfortable and free from distractions to help you feel more at ease. Try to go for a white wall or an unbusy background space if possible. It also helps if you can find a space that has good natural lighting and air. If it helps, you can also make yourself a glass of water or cup of tea to have on the side (be careful not to spill anything). Making other people in your online meeting feel comfortable can also help. Don’t fret while you’re in the room waiting for everyone else to arrive, take in a gentle breath and greet people as they come in and ask them how they are doing.
Engage Actively
You can use visual aids to actively engage with participants to keep the meeting dynamic and reduce feelings of isolation. Some examples are having tabs up with informative visual information or other related pages up for your matter of discussion, and ready to screenshare to.
Anxiety About Wasting Time
Many people worry that meetings are a waste of time, often due to unclear objectives or lack of engagement. To combat this:
Set Clear Objectives
Ensure each meeting has a clear agenda and goals to maintain focus and productivity. Have bullet lists ahead of time about what points you want to cover. Frameworks can also help filter questions and information that comes in to help your meeting retain focus. Here are some examples of framing ideas to help you ensure your meeting has focus.
- What is the one thing you must get across (if it can only be one)?
- How can you put the bottom line, in regards to your matter, upfront?
- And here’s 5 Key Questions to guide your thinking for every meeting:
What is the goal? What are the problems? What is the solution? What alternatives are there to this? What are the trade offs?
Keep It Short
Aim for concise meetings to keep participants engaged and respectful of their time. Stay within your allotted meeting time and if someone has a lot of questions, try to let the rest of your other guests go first and then you continue the discussion in private.
Follow Up
Send a summary of key points and action items to all your participants to reinforce the meeting's productivity and value. This is also to help ensure follow through on all these items.
Consider If Your Matter Can Be An Email
Not everything needs to be a meeting. Before scheduling one, see if you can cover the subject in enough detail with brevity over an email, and ask the receiver if they have any more questions. Sending an email ahead of time can also help ensure that most of the things that you need to say can also be received and understood ahead of time, saving the meeting time for collaborating, answering questions and creating further strategies to action your insights.
Anxiety About Losing Control or Getting ‘Off Track’
Worrying about losing control of the meeting can cause anxiety, often stemming from a fear of being seen as incompetent. To manage this:
Plan Thoroughly
Anticipate potential issues and plan how to address them to feel more in control. This also includes getting familiar with any tech or presentation tools you’re planning to use. Some of the frameworks that we mentioned above when dealing with anxiety about wasting time can also help give you clarity about what the meeting needs to achieve, to help you keep the rest of your participants on topic.
Stay Focused
Keep the meeting on track by consistently referring to the agenda. Remember what is your ‘one thing’. A good way to ensure you keep your presentation and participants focussed is by repeating your key point/s again at the end of your presentation or meeting.
Engage Participants
Involve participants to keep the meeting dynamic and focused, reducing the burden on yourself. On top of the points you want to discuss in your meeting, ensure that you can answer these questions for the people you invite to the meeting:
- “What’s in it for me?” (benefits)
- “What do you need from me?”
- What information can you also ask them to provide in the meeting for better clarity and alignment with your goals
Anxiety About No One Listening
The fear that no one is listening can be frustrating and often comes from a lack of confidence or past experiences of being ignored. Here’s how to ensure engagement:
Be Engaging
Use stories, examples, and visuals to capture and maintain the audience's interest. Try to look for unusual, ‘out of the box’ ways to communicate your message. Maybe there is a recent news story that a lot of people in the office have been talking about that can have some relation or significance to your point. Look for numbers, statistics and figures to add specificity and direct impact to your agenda. You can also be unconventional by creating a ‘theme’ for your presentation to present all your points in the frame of a story, or by something familiar and to everyone like following a recipe or building a lego tower.
Invite Participation
Encourage questions and feedback to involve participants and keep them engaged. It also helps to ask questions of your audience yourself, specifically to highlight anyone’s expertise and insight that you know will help back up your points. This can also be a great way of keeping participants focussed if you see them getting a little distracted during your meeting.
Follow Up
Again, it’s also useful to send out meeting notes and action items to reinforce key points and ensure everyone is on the same page. This also helps follow through, and ensures that the points discussed in the meeting can be easily looked up again later.
Anxiety When Speaking in Meetings
Feeling anxious about speaking in meetings is a common experience, often rooted in the fear of saying the wrong thing or being judged. This anxiety can stem from past experiences, lack of confidence, or the pressure to perform well in a professional setting. It's important to remember that you are not alone in feeling this way. Here are some strategies to help:
Practise Active Listening
Engage fully with what others are saying. This means focussing simply on your conversation, which takes the focus off your anxiety. This also grounds you in the present and helps you fulfil your role in keeping your participants engaged and involved in the meeting. Showing interest in what others are saying takes the focus off you and also provides you a break from speaking.
Keep It Brief
Start by making short, confident contributions. This allows you to ease into the conversation without feeling overwhelmed.
Use Humour
If you can, try cracking a joke or pulling out a storytelling example of your point in a fun, unusual way that breaks the ice.
Practical Tips to Enhance Meeting Experiences
Use Relaxation Techniques
Practice relaxation techniques such as deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, or a short walk before the meeting. These can help lower your stress levels and prepare you for the interaction.
Engage with Participants
Focus on engaging with other participants. This can take the attention off yourself and help you feel more comfortable. Asking questions and showing genuine interest can make the interaction more natural.
Keep Hydrated, Avoid Excessive Caffeine
Stay hydrated and avoid excessive caffeine before meetings. Caffeine can increase anxiety levels, making it harder to stay calm and focused.
Use Visual Aids
Using visual aids during your presentation can help keep the audience's attention and reduce the pressure on you. It can also make it easier to communicate your points clearly and effectively.
Fostering an Inclusive Atmosphere
Creating an inclusive and supportive atmosphere can help reduce anxiety for all meeting participants. Here are some strategies to foster inclusivity:
- Encourage Participation: Ensure that everyone has the opportunity to speak and contribute. This can help reduce anxiety about meeting new people and speaking in meetings.
- Be Supportive: Acknowledge and validate others' contributions, creating a positive and encouraging environment.
- Set Clear Expectations: Provide a clear agenda and objectives for the meeting. This helps participants feel prepared and reduces uncertainty.
Active Listening
Active listening not only helps you stay engaged but also reduces the pressure to speak constantly. When you focus on understanding others’ perspectives, it takes the focus off your anxiety. Here’s how to practise active listening:
- Maintain Eye Contact: Show that you are attentive and interested in what others are saying.
- Minimise Distractions: Stay present by avoiding distractions like checking your phone or working on other tasks.
- Ask Questions: If something is unclear, ask for clarification. This shows engagement and helps you better understand the discussion.
Long-Term Strategies for Managing Meeting Anxiety
Reflect and Learn from Each Meeting
Reflecting on your meeting experiences can provide valuable insights and help you improve over time.
- Keep a Meeting Journal: Write down your thoughts, feelings, and observations after each meeting. Note what went well and what could be improved.
- Set Goals: Before each meeting, set specific goals for yourself. After the meeting, assess how well you achieved these goals.
- Identify Patterns: Look for recurring patterns in your meeting behaviours and anxiety triggers. This can help you address the root causes of your anxiety.
Continuous Learning and Practice
Regular practice and continuous learning are crucial for managing meeting anxiety. Engage in public speaking courses, join groups like Toastmasters, or practice with friends and family.
Professional Support
Seeking professional support from a therapist or counsellor can be beneficial. They can provide tailored strategies and support to help you manage anxiety effectively.
Building a Support Network
Having a support network can make a significant difference. Surround yourself with colleagues who understand your struggles and can offer encouragement and feedback. Share your meeting anxieties with someone you trust and respect. They can offer guidance and support. After meetings you can also ask for constructive feedback from colleagues or the meeting organiser. This can help you identify areas for improvement and build on your strengths.
Self-Care and Stress Management
Incorporate self-care and stress management techniques into your daily routine. Regular exercise, a healthy diet, and sufficient sleep can improve your overall well-being and reduce anxiety.
Final Thoughts
Meeting anxiety is a common issue that many people face, but with the right strategies and mindset, it can be managed effectively. By understanding what's happening in your brain, preparing adequately, and practising relaxation techniques, you can overcome meeting anxiety and become more confident in your interactions.
Remember, the goal is not to eliminate anxiety entirely but to manage it in a way that it doesn't hinder your performance. With continuous practice and the right support, you can navigate meetings more comfortably and make valuable contributions to your team.
Whether you're dealing with anxiety, these strategies can help you regain control and improve your overall meeting experience. On top of these tips and strategies, a safe, comfortable and inclusive meeting room venue with supportive and professional event staff behind you, also doesn’t hurt. At Cliftons, we offer a comprehensive service for face-to-face meetings in our venue and live hybrid events with Cliftons Studio.
We’re here to assist you in thoroughly preparing and creating productive meetings to help you and your business thrive.
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