How high achievers overcome their 'Anxiety'.

?A surprising number of successful people feel anxious or, as they call it, thought traps. Worrying about bad things happening, every little thing that could go wrong, and comparing oneself to others. Anxiety at work can be a good thing because it makes them work hard. But if we don't control it, it can make us unhappy and hurt their work.

I also feel this way sometimes. Whenever I receive an invitation to join a panel of experts or give a presentation, I experience a mix of gratitude and anxiety. I feel scared and question myself: Do I belong there?

When shared with others, I got to know that many of the hardworking, anxious achievers fall into the same condition, the 'thought traps' - patterns of thinking that are negative and not true. They can make it hard to think clearly and make good decisions.

I did some research, and apparently, some common thought traps affect anxious achievers:

1. All-or-nothing: Seeing things as either perfect or a total failure.
2. You are giving yourself labels like "loser," “failure,” “incompetent,” “unqualified,” and “undeserving” when you make mistakes.
3. Jumping to conclusions: Thinking that others think negatively about you or predicting bad outcomes without evidence. Like a less-than-perfect performance review means you’ll be fired.
4. Catastrophizing: reaching the worst possible conclusion on the basis of little or no evidence
5. Filtering: Focusing only on negative details and ignoring the positive. “You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water.” - David Burns.
6. Discounting the positive: Believing that your successes are just luck or not deserved.
7. "Should" statements: Setting unrealistic expectations and feeling frustrated when they are not met. I should be further along in my career by now. It shouldn’t be so hard to get ahead at this company. I should know better.
8. Social comparison: Comparing yourself to others and feeling anxious or competitive, mainly when it results in fatalistic self-assessments: He’ll always have higher sales than I do. She’ll always earn more money.
9. Personalization and blaming: Taking too much or too little responsibility for problems.
10. Ruminating: Obsessive, repetitive thoughts about negative events in the past, problems we’re having in the present, or ones we anticipate in the future. It is a huge anxiety amplifier, and it’s all too common.
11. Emotional reasoning: Believing that your feelings are facts, even when they are not.

Now, to escape these thought traps, you can:

• Understand which traps you fall into.
• If you’re finding it hard to reason your way out of irrationality, try taking a small but meaningful action to stop the mental spiral.
• Replace negative thoughts with more balanced ones by Keeping a record of your accomplishments and positive feedback. If you think you’re a failure rather than an average person who makes mistakes or bad decisions, you’ve given up already.
• Ask for advice from someone you trust. Please
• One Task / Tab at a time, especially when feeling low and anxious. Avoid the temptation of juggling multiple tasks, as it often leads to achieving nothing by the end of the day. Instead, dedicate your full attention and effort to completing one task before moving on to the next. Even making small progress on a single task can help refocus your mind and lead to more productive work.
• Focus on who you are and what you want to accomplish rather than get anxious and distracted by others’ achievements.
• Sometimes, the best way to get out of your head is to move your body. Daily walks with loud music helped me a lot.
• Write your thoughts down to better see when they’re irrational or illogical. Your feelings of incompetence, for example, are very likely to be exaggerated or false.
• Try guided meditation to shift your focus away from negative thoughts.
• Use a simple word like "No" to interrupt anxious thoughts or find humor in them. Comedy is also a therapy.

Anxiety can be a source of information and motivation if you learn to understand it. Practice self-compassion, find humor in irrational thoughts, and care for your physical and mental well-being. By doing these things, you can harness your anxiety to achieve success without being constantly stressed.

Read David Burns’s the New Mood Therapy and The Feeling Good Handbook.