How To Ask People Out To Coffee If You Have Crippling Anxiety
By: Angely Mercado
Tags: Life Lessons, Work, Health, Mental Health, Job Hunting

How To Ask People Out To Coffee If You Have Crippling Anxiety

Networking is hard when your brain chemistry is off.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

When I was a college student, a lot of professors mentioned that my classmates and I should be networking. I was too nervous to raise my hand in class and ask what exactly was networking and why was it important. All I knew was that I should email or call people or walk up to them at events and ask them to talk and then that would somehow lead to an internship or a job one day.

I didn’t get how reaching out to someone led to a job.

So for most of college, I didn’t really try to network. I didn’t know where to get started and I was too scared to reach out to people that I followed online and really admired or wanted career advice from. I cringe when I think about some of the missed opportunities that could have happened if I had more confidence.

Now, I understand what networking is and how it can lead to different opportunities. The only problem is… I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to reaching out to people. I have anxiety in general (and so do a lot of other people). So it’s not easy to just DM or email someone and ask for a meet up, but it’s important for a lot of industries, especially creative ones.

Every time you feel nervous, take an action.

If you’re like myself (I’m so sorry if you have bad anxiety), you might feel nervous about your career trajectory on a regular basis. You don’t just feel a pit of stress in your stomach once or twice a week, but on a regular basis… try to take that moment to do a thing. It’ll help you set up a habit of taking action instead of being crippled by the anxiety (which has happened to me more times than I’d like to admit). So if you feel that anxiety creeping in… send that DM or email, ask someone out to coffee, send a pitch, or apply for that job you don’t feel 100 percent qualified for.

Remind yourself not to take every rejection personally.

When you reach out to people and ask to speak over the phone or to meet up, they might see the message and forget to respond with a yes or no. They might have had a busy week, an emergency, or any other issue come up.

Sometimes, an inbox feels like a black hole and things get lost or forgotten.

I can’t the number of times I’ve embarrassingly forgotten to text someone back or had intended to respond but then got swept up in a crazy work day. It happens. And it doesn’t mean that someone hates you (hope not), or will never respond… it just means it might have been rough week, or they don’t respond to emails from people they don’t exactly know and that’s fair. But don’t give up on trying to reach out to people.

Take a mental health day whenever you can.

Job hunting and networking is taxing and sometimes, it just sucks to have to do so much and put yourself out there for rejection. It’s easy to feel a little burned out during that search for a mentor or a work buddy, so learn to listen to yourself and take a break or two. If you have to work more than usual hours the first year or so to pay the bills and make connections in your career, take one evening off every week or a day where you do half as much work as you usually do.

Try to challenge yourself to be as organized as possible and finish as many tasks as you can in order to enjoy an evening off. It may not always be possible, but it’s important to prioritize your health during the job search. You can’t put your best foot forward unless you’re feeling ok. Take care of yourself while you send out all of those messages and ask all those people for coffee (or tea).