Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / High-Functioning Anxiety: The Anxious Achiever's Hidden Struggle
Transcript
- Hi there. Welcome to the episode of Rise Up Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening. Thank you for taking some time to just hang out here with me. So I'm curious. On the outside, do you appear that you've got it all together? Are you the go-to person, the achiever, the one who handles everything with grace and confidence, but maybe on the inside it may feel like a completely different story. The constant worry or maybe the overthinking, the relentless pressure to keep. [00:01:00] Everything under control. This is what high functioning anxiety looks like. So today I wanna go kind of behind the mask of the anxious achiever and explore why a lot of successful individuals actually secretly battle anxiety and how acknowledging it can lead to living a more fulfilling life. So let's first talk about what high functioning anxiety really is. So unlike traditional anxiety, high functioning anxiety doesn't always look like panic attacks or visible distress. Oftentimes, it appears as hyper productivity, perfectionism, and appearing as always being on. You're successful, reliable, and often praise for your discipline and your dedication. But what's happening is internally, there's this constant cycle of this anxiety driven productivity. Clinical research identifies high functioning anxiety is characterized by persistent worry, racing thoughts, and the fear of failure hidden beneath this composed exterior. So, while it's not officially listed in the DSM five therapists and psychologists widely recognize it as a distinct [00:02:00] experience that profoundly can impact the quality of life. And it's important for us to talk about it because, uh, this type of anxiety is really prevalent amongst high achievers and much of it stems from societal conditioning. So our culture glorifies productivity and hustle and achievement and often ignores the emotion on psychological. Toll that those things can take. And so high achievers often internalize the pressure believing that their worth is directly tied to their accomplishments. And so then as a result, they mask their anxiety, afraid to reveal vulnerability because they don't wanna look weak, or they are afraid to admit that they're struggling because fearing that they would do that would actually undermine people's perception of their success. Uh, in the book, the Healthy Mind Toolkit, the author underscores this hidden emotional cost. Noting that high functioning anxiety often does lead to perfectionism or chronic procrastination, actually due to the fear of failure, and then that also leads to burnout, and it's an exhausting loop that traps the most [00:03:00] capable individuals. One powerful framework that actually can help anxious achievers is acceptance and commitment therapy. A CT. It focuses on not eliminating the anxiety, but on accepting it, recognizing it, and then committed to taking action through. Action based on your personal values. Uh, even in my coaching, I call that values based, values based actions because this approach emphasizes psychological flexibility and, and emphasizes your ability to respond effectively to the challenges in your life while staying grounded with what me is most meaningful to you. So in Practice, act encourages anxious achievers to recognize and name their anxiety instead of suppressing it and just. That simple practice of acknowledging it reduces the anxieties. Kind of control or power over you accept the difficult feelings and thoughts rather than, um, you know, just accept them. That they're as, like, they are part of life. They're not you, but they're a part of you. Because if we avoid them, that actually increases the anxiety. [00:04:00] And then clarify your core values. Aligning actions with what truly matters to you, rather than being DR. Solely driven by anxiety or the fear of failure can shift things for you. Implementing these ACT practices can help these anxious achievers. Break the anxiety achievement cycle and create space for genuine connectivity with what you're doing. It creates space for self-compassion. It creates space to build your resilience and also to create that sense of genuine contentment. So how do you begin breaking free from this if that's what you, you're noticing like, oh gosh, I think I might be dealing with high functioning anxiety. Well, here are three things that I wanna just offer today. The very first thing is to practice emotional honesty. Regularly check in with yourself. How are you? Truly feeling beneath the surface and go ahead and journal that because it's actually putting pen to paper can be a really powerful tool to give you some space between your feeling and yourself and allows you to observe it. The second thing is to set clear emotional boundaries, high achievers. Often continue to say yes almost as a [00:05:00] reflex. So pause before committing to new tasks. Ask yourself honestly, is this aligned with my capacity and is it aligned with my values? And then create intentional downtime. Allow yourself genuine rest without, without guilt. You know, downtime is not a luxury, it's a necessity. And so really giving yourself permission to have some downtime and even just start small. Maybe it's just 10 minutes of unstructured time where you're not really on or doing something, and just gradually increase it as it becomes more and more comfortable. Recognizing that your anxiety does not define your worth or your capability is where the transformation happens. It's the first courageous step to towards actually living your authentic life and moving from this place of, um, surviving into thriving. So if you are, any of this is resonating with you and you're just like, you know what? I think I might be stuck in that loop of high functioning anxiety. I do invite you to reach out to see how coaching could support you in order to actually. Implement some [00:06:00] personalized tools and to move through it. And to navigate and what I like to say is change. Change the relationship with your anxiety. If you'd like to, to talk about that and see how coaching could be sup, a supporting factor in moving you through, feel free to reach out to me anytime@coachwithcomy.com and until next time, stay well.