If you are a high-performer, I want to defend your anxiety. Because in my 20+ years as a sport and performance psychologist I have learned that your anxiety is necessary and beneficial.
Your anxiety isn’t the problem, it is how you react to anxiety that’s the problem.
Let me explain …
Your mind has one job: to warn you of danger. It is our survival instinct. Turtles have shells, porcupines have quills, skunks have sprays and we have a mind that looks out into the world and tells us what could go wrong, not what will.
In this way worry is our survival instinct.
If I wasn’t afraid of getting hit by a car, I wouldn’t look both ways before crossing the street.
If I wasn’t afraid of failing, I wouldn’t study.
If I wasn’t afraid of losing, I wouldn’t practice.
Anxiety alerts us to potential (not probable) danger so we can take protective action.
Staying in anxiety without taking action is where the problem lies. Ruminating about what can go wrong actually causes it to go wrong because your focus is not on what you need to do for it to go right!
We worry most about what we care the most about. This is why I work with top athletes sometimes crippled by perfectionism or fear of failure. They actually have a much lower chance of losing or making a mistake, but they care so deeply about their performance, the anxiety comes out of that emotional investment.
The more you care, the more it will hurt you if it doesn’t go well. So the more you will worry about it. Not because the likelihood is greater, but because the pain will be greater if the worst happens because your level of investment is greater.
This is why I say you should worry. Trying not to worry increases anxiety because your mind knows it is unsafe to ignore threats. So lean into your anxiety, see what it is trying to tell you, and choose your response:
