The classic anxiety story about traveling involves being on the road for a while just to suddenly remember that you forgot to turn off the oven. While this is a local story, there is as much or more concern that can go into getting on the road for a commercial purpose as it is for private travel. The details to pay attention to to putting a business trip on the road can be overwhelming.
It's easy to develop an anxiety knot when going on a business trip and getting to where you're in a constant state of stress and worrying that you've forgotten something or that there are important details that have been undone before you leave. This stress anxiety can be devastating to your business goals for the trip. So you need some basic concepts that you can get back to right before starting business trips and as you walk down the road, you have some ammunition to combat travel anxiety on the way.
* Call troops. One great way to stop travel anxiety on its routes is to take advantage of your business partners to help you prepare for the trip. A number of people in your chain of command or in your department will likely have a vested interest in seeing the journey you plan to accomplish a success. Use their help to plan the trip and develop detailed checklists of what should happen before you leave and what should go with you. Then the day before you leave, meet these partners and review those listings. While checking everything, insist that your partner prepare the list to verify that the details have been taken care of. Then take the menu with you. By consulting her often, you can calm yourself down that you have taken care of every detail along the way.
* Have you forgotten your head? Well, you have a good system to make sure you cover all your business needs, and the next level of anxiety comes when you sit on the plane and wonder if you've packed everything you need to travel in person. There are two types of antidote to this type of anxiety from travel. First of all, use a similar checklist system to make sure you have what you need on board. You can develop and update the travel checklist you keep from business to business trip. As you use this list on each trip, you'll discover any missing items or things to do and update the list. And by checking every need while taking care of it before traveling, you can calm down that nervous system that you've done everything until it's time to relax.
* What do you really need after all? Secondly and above all, if this checklist system has dozens of items and issues, then much of that can be eliminated through this simple question. The truth is that there is so little you really need that you can't get there if you forget something at home. You must have your airline tickets, driver's license, credit card and any special medicine that cannot be found at your destination. If you have a lot of credit, there's a little else you can't buy at your destination point if you forget something or something else. Reassure yourself that the trip will not stop if you forget something.
* But what if? This question literally can drive you crazy. If you allow yourself to start thinking about whether the plane will crash, if your dog dies in your absence, or hundreds of other "what if" that may occur, you'll turn into a ball of anxiety before you finish the first flight. So the answer to "But what if?" is "This hasn't happened yet and the odds of it happening this time are far away." Use some logic and adult thinking to combat the emotional desire to worry.
The desire to worry is normal in all of us. It's part of your burning desire to do a good job on the road. But make one of the things on this checklist of things that should happen for this business trip a success just one word: "relax."
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