Does workplace performance anxiety dominate how you feel about your career, your workplace or the job that you do? It’s more common than you think. In fact, psychotherapist and business performance consultant Jonathan Berent says that in Australia it has reached epidemic proportions.
Studies suggest that symptoms can be significant, and may relate to any or all of the following:
- Feeling excessive worry around work-related tasks or deadlines
- Feeling like you are trying to hide weaknesses from bosses or co-workers
- Feeling fearful of contributing during meetings
- Feeling worried about asking questions or speaking up about learning new skills
- Feeling worried about being seen as incompetent or underqualified
- Being fearful of interacting with bosses or colleagues
Other symptoms include being worried about the practical experiences across a workday such as eating lunch in front of colleagues, using the work toilets or remembering people’s names when being introduced. These feelings can have an immense impact on your time spent at work, and can overflow to impact your time away from work as well.
So it’s really important to acknowledge that you’re not alone, and that there are many things you can do and experts who can help you to feel better about managing these anxieties. Take a look at these 10 steps you can take to start getting on top of excessive anxiety today. This list is specially-designed to target workplace performance anxiety in a natural way; it gives you some accessible and easy-to-implement ways to feel better about heading in to work each day:
- Understand your symptoms and recognise your triggers – this is the very first step in moving forward and overcoming your experiences of anxiety.
- Do you have a trusted colleague or boss you can talk to? Having someone to talk to is important, and the right person can provide valuable support when you need it.
- Involve a therapist: if you don’t feel that there’s someone appropriate and supportive at work to talk to, you should think about engaging a therapist who you can speak freely with about the kinds of experiences you’re having.
- Recognise unhelpful or negative co-workers and limit your interactions with them. There’s a lot to be said for surrounding yourself with positive people, and equally there’s nothing wrong with staying away from the negative ones as much as you can.
- Know your strengths, and recognise when you’ve achieve something new or done something well. Congratulate yourself and foster those feelings of positivity.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help – everyone needs it sometimes! If you’re feeling under pressure, talk to a colleague or superior who can help.
- Practice good time management to help you feel in control. It’s remarkable what an impact this can have on your daily experiences of work.
- Set boundaries that mean work stays at work. Your down time is your own – it’s not for emails or work calls!
- Nourish your body with good food and a good night’s sleep. Getting some exercise and staying healthy will help you to feel alert, refreshed and clear headed through the day.
- Get professional help: it’s available to you easily and can help you achieve a happier, calmer work life. Beyond simple therapy sessions, you can get support with practical ways to help you overcome workplace performance anxiety.
Anxiety is often very complex and professional help can be key in management and recovery. Based on the natural approaches given these 10 steps are things you can implement today to help manage your anxieties around the workplace. If that still doesn’t help consider finding a reputable professional to help you for anxiety treatment.