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Dear Quota Team, 
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This is my second year working in sales. I’m doing inside sales for an electronics manufacturer, selling to small and mid-sized companies. Before this, I was a bartender for six years, half of them when I was in college. I got into sales after a friend of mine showed me how much money he was making, and I’m making great money now too, without having to work nights and weekends like I was in my “industry” days. 
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But I’m having a really hard time with the mental aspect of the job. I’m not sure if this is happening to anyone else, but I get so stressed out about quotas and putting out different fires all the time that I’m having literal panic attacks. This has happened to me at least twice in the last few months. I’m basically resorting to self-medicating (thc) to keep myself functioning well enough to do my job. 
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Don’t get me wrong, making this much money has been amazing. For the first time in my life, me and my fiance are able to take weekend trips and hang out with other professional friends of ours without having to worry about schedules or money, but I just feel so much pressure all the time, and am always worried that I’m not gonna hit my goals and get fired and end up worse off than I was before. Do you have any tips to help me deal with the constant pressure? Is this just gonna be how it is for the rest of my career? I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick around if this is my future. 
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Worried in New York 

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Dear Worried, 
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Congratulations on making it through your first year in sales. Lots of new sales reps don’t even make it that far, so you’ve definitely shown a level of commitment and grit that not everyone does, even though you’re having a hard time right now. 
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To answer your question: being stressed out in sales is perfectly normal, but having panic attacks is not, and there’s no way you should accept it as part of your career. No paycheck is worth putting your health in jeopardy, so it’s important to get things under control as soon as possible, before your health problem gets worse. 
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Our first bit of advice is to talk to your doctor and to potentially enlist the help of a therapist. They are professionals and can help you work through some of these issues -- which are by no means uncommon. 
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Our second bit of advice is to take a step back and think about why you’re letting yourself get so stressed out. Oftentimes, our lizard-brains -- survival instincts we’ve retained from our cave-dwelling ancestors -- convince us that we’re in serious danger when we get stressed, despite the fact that there’s no real risk of imminent harm. 
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So take a moment and think it through. If you don’t hit your sales goal, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Chances are, you won’t get fired, not after one bad month anyway. But even if you did, it’s likely that you could land another sales job fairly easily. And if not, you could always take a temporary job bartending again, right? The point we’re trying to make is that the worst case scenario (ending up broke and homeless?) is very, very unlikely to happen, despite what your instincts are telling you. 
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Another thing that might be helpful to keep in mind is that you’re at your job by choice. Nobody is forcing you to stay there, and if you wanted, you could walk out the door tomorrow and never go back. When you realize that you’re in control of your destiny, it can take some of the pressure off and make things easier. 
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We hope this helps, and we wish you the best in your career, whether it’s in sales or not. Good luck!