Dear Dr. Karyn,
My daughter is 26 years old and although she is an adult, she still lives at home with us and suffers a lot of performance anxiety at her new job. Growing up she was an overachiever — always struggling to be at the top of her class and sport teams, and now I see this in her professional life. The irony is that all my friends think I have this dream child, but really I am deeply concerned for how much pressure she puts on herself and her overall happiness. She seems miserable and very unhappy. Any suggestions would be helpful!
You may be surprised how many people actually experience anxiety or performance anxiety. In fact, years ago when I was speaking at a human resources conference in Ottawa, I shared that we are seeing epidemic rates of anxiety among those from Generation Y (those born generally between early 1980s and early 2000s), and I was approached by a millennial immediately after my presentation. She thanked me for helping her better understand herself and admitted that the week prior she had been out for dinner with several of her Gen Y colleagues, and learned that she was the only one not on anti-anxiety medication. She was concerned that employers needed to hear more about this, because it is such a prevalent part of the millennial experience, and that more sick days should be made available to employees who struggle with anxiety.
Regardless of what you think of her suggestion I will tell you that it’s easy to criticize and point fingers at this generation until you start to understand why they are this way! I strongly believe that the root of this anxiety epidemic is that we have not done a great job at helping and teaching these next two generations, Y and Z, to learn how to cope with adversity, failure, and rejection. Anxiety is one of the most common topics we work with at our counseling center and we consistently see outstanding results; we have found the first and most important step is to simply understand it. I trust you will find these five tips helpful!
Understand anxiety
Many people think anxiety is bad or wrong, which is simply not true! Part of managing emotions is understanding them. The truth is we have hundreds of emotions (some experts say up to 3,000) and anxiety is simply one of them. Feelings are not good or bad — just pleasant or unpleasant. I often say anxiety is our “friend” not our enemy — it’s simply trying to tell us something and we need to stop and pay attention!
Thoughts drive emotions — so when someone is feeling anxious it’s usually because of a toxic thought that is underlying it (ex. what if I don’t pass this test?; what if I don’t get this promotion?; what if I don’t get into this university?) The feeling is not the problem — it’s the thought! Anxiety tends to be driven by thoughts related to the future and “what if’s.”
Understand the performance anxiety ‘lie’
Performance anxiety is a more specific type of anxiety in that it is connected directly to performance (school, sports or work). I see this a lot when I work with high-performing students, athletes, professionals and entrepreneurs. The irony is that on the outside, these people (usually over-achievers) appear great! They are often the top of their class, receiving the highest professional awards or getting the latest promotions.
And I want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong or unhealthy about achieving, but the challenge arises when these high-performers start to attach their self-worth to what they do — that’s the real problem! Their thinking is “I’m okay if I achieve,” so they often struggle with issues of confidence and perfection. In fact, I often say that anxiety, low self-esteem, and perfection are three best friends who often hang out — they are all separate issues that are very inter-connected.
Focus on what you can control
The secret to changing how we feel (we can’t do it directly) is to change how we think. Our minds are extremely powerful, and the great thing is that we can control the thoughts we are telling ourselves! If we feed ourselves toxic thoughts, we will feel terrible! If we feed ourselves healthy thoughts, we will feel confident, happy, and peaceful.
When I speak at schools and organizations or work with individuals, I emphasize that we need to change the thinking from “I’m okay if _____” to “I’m okay as I am! Yes, I may like to work on _____, but my self-worth is not based on my achievements.”
When we have the courage to change the things within our control (and have a plan to do so), we will start to feel our anxiety decrease.
Re-define failure
Part of healthy thinking is re-defining failure or negative feedback. I once heard someone say that when he fails he simply studies the failure as data. He doesn’t personalize it, it’s simply information for him to study and learn from so he can improve. This type of thinking is extremely healthy!
When I started speaking professionally many years ago, I decided it was imperative to always (and I mean always) get feedback sheets from my audience. This can be a little risky, because feedback includes both the positive and the negatives! At first when I started asking for this feedback, I will admit that I often took the negative feedback personally, but I quickly realized I needed to stop doing this. People were simply commenting on my speaking ability, not my character or who I am.
I had to make sure my self-worth was not connected to whether or not I was a good speaker. Speaking was simply a job I was doing and I needed to be able to study the data so I could improve, not obsess over whether people liked me!
Accept what you cannot control
When I think about the high-performing individuals I’ve worked with regarding their anxiety, the common thread is that they are living their life opposite to what I suggest for tips four and five. They are focusing on what they can’t control, which will drive their anxiety through the roof. We cannot control whether people like us, whether we get the job promotion, or anything else that is in the future.
But we can control today — how we think and what we do! We can control whether we are telling ourselves healthy thoughts, detaching our self-worth from our performance, trying our absolute best, or surrounding ourselves with those we can learn from and simply learning from our “failures.” These are the strategies that will not only minimize anxiety, but also lead to greater success!
Many of my anxious high-performing clients have admitted to me that they were afraid to let go of their unrealistic, unhealthy, unloving thinking that their self-worth is based on their achievement. They were afraid that if they didn’t think this way their performance and drive would decrease (even though they would likely be happier). Can a person change her thinking? Absolutely!! We’ve helped thousands of clients radically reduce their anxiety and increase their confidence! What surprises most of them is that not only are they much happier, but they also often achieve more because they are more fearless and courageous with taking risks. What a great side-effect of eliminating anxiety!
Dr. Karyn Gordon is one of North America’s leading relationship and parenting experts. She is a regular contributor to “Good Morning America,” founder of dk Leadership, best-selling author of “Dr. Karyn’s Guide To The Teen Years” (Harper Collins), and motivational speaker to a quarter of a million people. Visit her at www.dklea
