The High-Achiever’s Anxiety Pattern

Everyone has experienced anxiety at one point in time. But as high-achieving individuals, we need tools to be able to get us out of anxiety and back into action. 

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

• Why you experience anxiety
• How anxiety shows up in high-performing individuals
• Recommendations for managing anxiety
• Tools you can use anywhere at anytime to manage your anxiety 

Mentioned on the show

Box Breathing Technique

Mental Health Resources

• Worldwide Support Hotline
• U.S. Suicide Prevention Hotline 1-800-273-8255

Mental Health & Suicide Resources 

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) on Suicide Prevention
• Mental Health List of Educational Programs
• Befrienders Mental Health Resource

Final Local Support

• Mental Health Center Locator
• Early Serious Mental Illness Treatment Locator
• Substance Use Treatment Locator
• Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Why Anxiety Matters
• 0:18 Defining The Anxious Achiever
• 1:46 Stigma, Leaders, And Culture
• 3:17 Personal Stories Of Everyday Anxiety
• 5:33 The Useful Side Of Anxiety
• 7:25 Fight Or Flight Explained
• 8:45 Mindfulness And Brain Science
• 9:39 Tools: Name, Allow, Or Pause
• 10:20 Breathwork You Can Use Anywhere
• 12:09 Aromatherapy And The Limbic System
• 14:03 Visualization And Thought Work
• 15:22 Processing Emotion & Closing Links
• 15:50 Mission, Feedback, And Goodbye

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey friends. Welcome. I love that you're here to join me today. Thanks for sharing this podcast with other people. I really appreciate your emails and your feedback. It means a lot to me that this content is helping you and that you're sharing it with others. I appreciate you giving me your time and your attention and that you're letting me in your ear. Today I'm going to talk about anxiety and being the anxious achiever. The majority of my past and present clients have all listed that anxiety is one of the conditions that they want to get a handle on. Much of the career coaching that I do focuses around anxiety and the current job, getting a job, interviewing for a job, and what's next after this job. Anxiety is pretty common, but it does mean different things for different people. Anxiety becomes problematic when it feels unmanageable, which also means different things for different people. For me, anxiety swings from a low-level hum to a much more intense type of thinking and sensations in my body. Over the years and through a lot of trial and error, I have learned how to manage my anxiety to remain a high-performing individual. What I mean by an anxious achiever is that this is someone like myself and probably like you, if you're listening, who is professionally ambitious driven and who feels anxiety in their life. The anxiety could be short-lived or situational, but it is present and it's no joke. I'm not a mental health expert, and I have resources in the show notes if you are thinking that you may need more professional help. I am, however, an anxious achiever in recovery. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting over 40 million adults age 18 and older. That's almost 20% of the pop, which is technically 18.1% of the population, but almost 20% of the adult pop. The millennial and the Gen Z cohorts have been dubbed the most anxious generation. All of us, but these cohorts especially, are in desperate need of a shift in a leadership style. Our most visible leaders have a style that is centered on power and bravado. Talking about our well-being or our emotions has often been viewed as a sign of weakness. And from what I've seen, the only leaders who talk about anxiety and their mental state are entrepreneurs. So, hi, I'm Jill Griffin, and I'm a recovering anxious achiever. I want to change this stigma and I want to continue to help my clients and my former peers in the industry find the words and choose to dispel the myths and judgments in the workplace around anxiety. Our culture subtly, sometimes not so subtly, tells us that those of us who suffer from anxiety that we can't succeed, or that we shouldn't take a risk on these people, or that, you know, we shouldn't be leading. So it's kind of makes sense that no one would be talking about it. I was thrilled that just this past week I read in a fast company that a quartet of companies are launching Mind Together, which is a coalition aimed at improving workplace culture around mental health. Verizon Media, Snap, Spotify, Kellogg are all founding members, and their aim is to destigmatize mental health at work. When I was in agency land, I rarely talked about the anxiety I experienced. I did, however, have quite a few peers who I did feel comfortable in disclosing my anxiety to, and I certainly wasn't surprised when they share their own experiences because I knew I found my people. Anxiety is part of life, and it's certainly part of a high achiever's life. To the achiever, you need to take risks, push yourself, and drive towards a goal. And anxiety is inherent in this process. The key to managing anxiety is learning how to identify it, understand it, and respond to it with self-compassion. For months, maybe even years, I would wake up with a low hum, a vibration in my body of anxiety, a general feeling of worry or apprehension. Nothing in particular needed to be going wrong to feel this way. It could just be Tuesday. But when I was filled with apprehension, I had less resilience to manage my mind. And if I wasn't able to manage my mind, then it would be challenging to be innovative, creative, collaborative with my colleagues and clients. Other times I'd experience anxiety around a specific work event, like the time I was asked to write and shoot a spot in less than 24 hours. I didn't have a studio, I didn't have talent, I didn't have a director, I didn't have copy. After a migraine and a sleepless night, we ended up getting together, figuring out, and hiring an improv troupe. The disaster was averted. But this type of anxiety made sense to me. It was an insane ask and an insane task. But the anxiety for no reason any given Tuesday was what confused me. How come I felt the same apprehension whether there was a reason for it or not? Because it all comes down to my thoughts. From a survival standpoint, anxiety has served us well when we need to be alert and act quickly in order to stay alive. Today, the upside of anxiety is that it can serve us in our line of work. We're attuned to what's going on. We may be more prepared. We may be able to predict other people's actions, making us more attuned, a better communicator, we're able to empathize and we stay focused. My clients who work in special events or production tell me that there is a dose of anxiety that really helps them and their craft. That low level of worry helps them think of all the things that could go wrong and get ahead of them. So there's always a plan B, a plan C, a plan D, and they're able to pivot when needed. There's that little bit of neuroses that most executive producers will tell you keeps them on their game. The feeling of anxiety feels intense, but the sensation can be harmless. Now I'm not talking about a serious mental health disorder when I'm referring to the anxious overachiever. And if you are experiencing a serious mental health disorder, I do have resources for you to consider in the show notes. I am talking about the anxious overachiever, where anxiety is a sensation in your body. What causes problems is our resistance to anxiety. When you start to feel anxiety, it's going to feel uncomfortable because there's a natural fight or flight response. Evolutionary biology shows us that anxiety makes us think we are in danger. We tense or freeze to protect ourselves. We're getting ready to resist and go to battle. The response only triggers more adrenaline, more neurochemicals, and more discomfort. Over time, I learned how to incorporate thought and breath work, visualization, meditation, aromatherapy, and exercise to process what I was feeling to manage the anxiety. And I used different tools at different times. I began to look as my anxiety as high tide and low tide. Nothing is wrong here. It's just a cycle. And I know that when I'm in low tide, that high tide is coming because it happens twice a day. The mental image of this helped me accept that my thoughts and feelings are here now, but they will soon shift just like the tides. This helps me get into the flow of acceptance that anxiety can be present and I can still carry on and excel in my day. It comes and goes. High tide or low tide. The brain can't be in fight or flight and calm you down at the same time. It's just not possible. Research shows that mindfulness techniques like breath work can reduce anxiety and improve cognition. It helps us tap into the part of our brain responsible for awareness, concentration, decision making, and this puts us into a much more calmer, more focused state. So by dropping into a mind hack tool, we're able to think more clearly and make better, more thoughtful decisions rather than relying on a part of our brain that views anxiety as a threat. The way to manage anxiety is to have tools that are ready for the discomfort. As an anxious achiever, finding the tool or tool that works best for you is the key to getting out of apprehension and back into positive action. So the next time you're feeling the sense of anxiety tightening in your chest, tensing your neck and shoulders, or you feel like you need to scrub the bathroom to work it out, I suggest that you acknowledge it and name it. Oh, here it is. Okay, I'm feeling really intense. I'm feeling the anxiety. Say to yourself, well, at least what I do, oh, hello, anxiety, and notice where you feel it in your body. Allow yourself to feel it. You may have to shut your Zoom camera, you may have to take a walk to process that, and you need to do what you need to do to take care of yourself. And I'm gonna tell you this sensation may get a slightly more intense because you're allowing it, but it will dissipate in a few minutes. Alternatively, you could temporarily ignore it. And by temporarily, I mean you can ignore it right now, but you need to come back and address it later. Only you know what's best for you. But sometimes when you have to perform, like if you're an event planner or you're about to present to a packed Zoom audience, processing the sensation in that moment may not be possible. But breath work is a really helpful tool that you can do quickly and use anywhere. I only recently learned how to breathe correctly. I know that sounds crazy, and it's super curious for me as someone who's meditated for 25 years, is a certified meditation instructor. I also sang in a gospel choir for 10 years, for gosh sakes. You'd think I'd know how to breathe. When I learned to breathe correctly, I was able to reduce the amount of strain on my voice and the stress on my mind. You can take a deep breath in for the count of four, hold it for the count of four, and then exhale the breath for the count of four. If you Google box breathing techniques, there's tons of videos. I'll also include one of my favorite links to the video in the show notes so that you can see the technique firsthand. It takes seconds to do, and you could easily do this if you're starting to feel stressed before like showtime. There are both physiological and psychological benefits to using breath techniques. This is anywhere from regulating your heart rate to removing the attention from the agitator and focusing on your breath. Again, what does that do? It gives your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of your brain, a hot second to catch up and then get into solution. Another tool I have found that has really helped me is aromatherapy. I'm a clinical aromatherapist because, as a brain injury survivor, you can have really like intense sensitivity to smell. And years ago, there were very few plant-based products on the market, so I decided to study botanical chemistry so I could create my own and actually clean my house. Inhaling essential oils stimulates the olfactory system, the part of the brain that's connected to the smell. This includes both the nose and the brain. And here's how it works: molecules enter your nose or mouth and pass through the lungs. From there, it goes to other parts of your body. As the molecules reach your brain, they affect the limbric system, the system that is connected to the emotions, the heart rate, the blood pressure, breathing, memory, stress, hormone balance. If you want some of my favorites, putting a few drops of like a cardamom, a frankincense, orange, or lavender on your palms, or even on a cotton ball and inhaling. You can even stick the cotton ball in your shirt pocket so that you have the aroma with you on the go. But that constant scent, that scent memory, is going to create a response in your body that is going to help you calm down. I love essential oils. Um, Enflarage in New York City, right here in the West Village, or Still Point Aromatics and Beautiful Sedona are two companies that I completely trust. I have no relationship with these companies. They are distillers. I am strictly just a loyal customer, but they create both beautiful and reasonably priced products so you can have a little pocket pal to help you manage your anxiety. I used to formulate for anxiety regularly and then diffuse the aroma in my office. And everyone would come by and be like, it's so nice in here. I'd be like, Yeah, no duh. Another tool is visualization. I'm going to do a special episode just on visualization, but in the meantime, visualization is a technique of using your mind, your imagination to create whatever it is that you want in your life. You frequently use the power of your imagination unconsciously, and you're using it regularly for worst-case scenarios. Pausing and using the power of your imagination consciously and creating how you want the presentation or the project or the experience to go. You have the opportunity to be in the room where it happens before it actually happens. Your thoughts, when practice, create your results. Remember that you are feeling anxious because you are having a thought, and there that thought is creating a sensation in your body. When I feel this way, I get really curious about what I'm thinking and I write down all my crazy thoughts. Don't try to change anything, just get curious. You can look at your thoughts on paper and see, like I find it really helpful to see what's illogical or fear-based, and then you get to decide how you want to think about the situation. If you don't process the emotion, you can't release it. You have to process the emotion in order to manage anxiety. All right, my friends, check out the show notes. I'll put some details in there about what I've talked about during the show, some of the links I've mentioned. I love hearing from you. Let me know what you think by joining me on Instagram or emailing me at hello at Jill Griffin Consulting.com. And have a fab day. I'll see you next time. I'm Jill Griffin, your host of the Career Refresh Podcast. My mission is to make workplaces more successful for everyone. So if you have ideas for topics or future guests, please email us at hello at Jill Griffin Coaching.com. Until next time, embrace possibility, be generous, intentional, and kind.