MBA anxiety is a not just a passing emotion but rather a condition that develops over time and following one’s struggles with the programme studied. It can develop as an accumulative process from a few or many challenges that the MBA is facing. Stress and anxiety are very frequent in among MBA students. This is because tutors will not make provisions about their grading of assignments or the students’ performance on whether they are anxious or not. Hence, this is creating a challenging barrier for students to overcome. The belief that you are not able to address your challenges is intensifying your fear of not passing. These thoughts create a chain between them that somehow binds you and you are not able to escape from it.
How to address anxiety
MBA anxiety can generate severe complications for a student. This is because it is not easy to ‘go back’ onto the modules studied. You cannot re-do your modules unless you fail them. However, this might mean that you will delay to graduate and this thought can be associated with even more stress.
First Step
The first step you need to take as soon as you can is to produce a storyline about yourself and what happened that made you feel so anxious. It is important to do this in writing so that you have the opportunity to articulate your thoughts but also to reflect on the situation and how it affected. Writing out what happen means expressing exactly how you felt about a certain situation. It is most likely that you will frustrated by the amount of time that you need to dedicate for discussing and expressing your ideas in writing. In fact, you might think that it is a complete waste of time and that you do not want to continue doing it. However, this would be a great mistake that you need to avoid at all costs. The more you keep yourself concentrated to doing this simple activity the better is going to be and you will see testify this as you are working through the exercise. Writing out your ideas means that you become honest with yourself and that you try to spell out the exact issues that are bothering you. If this is how to organize and assignment or how to approach an exam situation it is something that you need write out. Writing out your thoughts will help you concentrate on your inner self and for how circumstances are affecting your thinking and emotions.
Second Step
The second step is to aggregate from the information you have written out the most plausible causes that contribute to your stress causes. Identifying the key relationships between your negative experiences written out, means that you are making an important effort to distinguish the event that has significance for you personally. The story is important but the details are more important. By focusing on the key information means that you have identified some type of correspondence that you can identify as being particularly significant for you. In doing so you are likely to be questioning about the value of this exercise and where it is taking you. You might feel angry and frustrated with yourself as you are not able to identify the quick solution to the problems. This might make you even more anxious indeed. However, by working through your anxiety you are already making an important impact to yourself. You realise that your anxiety did not develop at an instant but it took time to develop. In a similar way dealing with it, it is going to take time and your management of it will be crucial.
Third Step
The third step is to develop a ‘feasibility action plan’ FAP in which you design a set of actions that remain feasible for you to do in order to address the stress causes. For example, if there is a particular subject area that you don’t understand it is stressing you out then you need to identify how to approach the tutor. Knocking at his/her door without having considered your FAP is not going to be productive. However, by identifying the key questions that you need ask will help you. We have helped students in working with them for the development of an essay and this has been a tremendous cause of help and support. As we developed the logic of the essay’s development the students were able to identify with the framing of their work. It is important to make these three steps to work together. It is not good enough to have an action plan unless you have spent time considering and reflecting on the particular stressors. Anxiety is described as the experience of one’s ‘blockages’ that prevent you from achieving your goals in the specific way you want to achieve your goals. By finding alternative routes to bypass these blockages takes considerable time. However, this time is valuable to invest because it comes from within you and its involves the whole of you. This kind of change remains stable and helps you to make the adjustments you need. Remember that there is not life that is lived without some type of anxiety involved in it.
Please note: This is not a full anxiety management guide and we are able to provide you with more information and help in person. MBA Winner is the dedicated service for helping undergraduate business and MBA students to overcome their academic difficulties. If you experience stress you’re your studies then email us at support@mbawinner.com
