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Examining the Link Between High Achievers and High-Functioning Anxiety · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hi there and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, I want to say thank you for taking some time out of your day to be here with me.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And today I wanted to explore a topic that I know I've talked about before, but it's so important.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's high-functioning anxiety.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Anxiety is just so common right now.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that continually comes up in my coaching calls.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And this idea of high-functioning anxiety has been one that has come up recently.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I really just wanted to talk about what it is, what it looks like, how to recognize it, and then to offer a few strategies of how we work through it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I am a firm believer that we need to step away from this idea of getting rid of anxiety.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that if we can expand ourselves out and learn that we can live with it, we don't have to constantly feel like there's something wrong with us.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Cause every time that we say we need to get rid of something, it's almost like we're we're stepping into shame.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a covert shame to say there's something wrong with me and I need to get rid of a part of me.
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  SPEAKER_01: So let's just talk about what high functioning anxiety is in the first place.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It is a term that is being used more commonly now.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's not a formal diagnosis.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And even as a coach, I don't diagnose anything.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, really, what I create is space for people to understand themselves and to understand their own pattern behaviors.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: But when we're talking about high functioning anxiety, we're really talking about people who might be holding down really demanding jobs.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're excelling in their careers or excelling in their personal lives, and they're appearing as though everything is well perfectly put together.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so to the outside world, it looks like everything is fine, but beneath the surface, they are grappling with intense, often relenting anxiety.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are the signs of this high functioning anxiety?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: Here, I want to just talk about seven common indicators.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the very first one, which I fully admit that I have experienced, is perfectionism.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's when you set impossibly high standards for yourself, and then you feel that anything less than perfect is an absolute failure and it would not be acceptable.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that cycle of over-preparation and really high self-criticism can lead to burnout.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It can also lead to creating this sense of anxiety.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's this constant sense of worry because if it's not perfect, it's not okay.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Another common indicator of high-functioning anxiety is overthinking.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that really could look like replaying conversations that you've had, decisions that you've made, interactions that you've had, and analyzing every detail and worrying about the mistakes or perceived mistakes that you think you have made, or you're worrying and overthinking about how others perceive you.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: So oftentimes this will appear in people's lives where they get to the end of the day and then every single conversation they've had over the course of the day of their day gets replayed in their head.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then they start having internal dialogue of like, well, I should have said this, and why didn't I say this?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so then that high inner critic comes up.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's an indicator that you might be uh you might be dealing with a little bit of that high functioning anxiety.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: People pleasing.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is where you might mean you might notice that you struggle to say no to people and you often prioritize their needs over your own, or you are overly concerned that they are happy or they are okay.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be driven by a fear of disappointing them, by upsetting them, by creating conflict.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: It could be driven by a fear of even abandonment that could be underlying.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it's important to pay attention to that because that could be an indicator that you might be one who might be dealing with some high-functioning anxiety.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, other people might see themselves as procrastinating and not being as productive as they'd like to be.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And while this may sound a little contradictory, um, it's actually quite common where if you find yourself procrastinating and you get curious with it, you might notice that you're procrastinating out of fear.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then you might overcompensate by working excessively later to make up for that lost time.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's almost this uh toxic cycle that happens where you're procrastinating, painting things off, and then you're working really, really diligently, like over the top working, and then you feel exhausted.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be an indicator of some anxiety, some high functioning anxiety in the background.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you find yourself or if you find it really hard for you to uh relax, even during downtime, you're finding that your mind is racing of thoughts, of what needs to be done, or you feel like you just can't sit down, even for um you can't sit down and just be, but you have to be doing something, that could also be an indication of high functioning anxiety.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, the inner critic, which I've mentioned a couple different times here.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: When your internal dialogue is so harsh and critical, and you're constantly feeling and telling yourself that you're not doing enough or that you aren't enough or that you're not achieving enough, those could also be indicators that you might have a little bit of that high functioning anxiety.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, number seven, the fear of failure.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: This fear, if it's there, may drive many of your actions and also your inactions.
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  SPEAKER_01: It may push you to work harder and longer than others.
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  SPEAKER_01: It can also, like I mentioned before, lead you to procrastinate and put things off.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: But what it does is it leaves you in that constant state of anxiety about what could go wrong.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just really important if you're noticing some of these things for you to get curious with it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's never about shaming yourself or saying that there's something wrong.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's just, okay, I'm recognizing that I might have some of these traits.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And they might be helpful in achieving success, again, on the short term.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if I don't pay attention to them long term, what could be, what could be the consequences?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so the first step in addressing this high functioning anxiety is self-awareness.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because once you become aware of it, you have the ability to start reflecting on it and to ask yourself, well, now that I'm aware of this, what actions am I willing to take?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what actions of self-care, what actions towards boundaries am I willing to take?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So when we think about our way through it, we, you know, we work on different strategies that we can employ employ in order to work through it.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Self-compassion, I talk about this all the time.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that I didn't know anything about until I got deep into my own personal development.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is the act of being kind to yourself over judging, judging yourself.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we cannot stop our inner critic, but it's to notice the inner critic, to pause and to ask ourselves, what is this inner critic telling me that I value?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so that we can release the harshness of what the inner critic is saying and just take that value out of it and then remind ourselves that that's the thing that we can take action on.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really shifting from this place of uh from judgment into kindness.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing that is so important when you're dealing with high functioning anxiety is to pay attention to boundaries.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: We have to learn how to say no without guilt.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a tough one.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if if we could do that, we would have done it already.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it's important to start building that muscle of even really small things that you can say no to that you're not gonna feel overly guilty about.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Start there and start building on it.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: But remembering that it's not your job to please everybody and setting those healthy boundaries is so crucial for protecting your own emotional well-being.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Mindfulness and being in the present moment, when you can shift from a place of, you know, ruminating on what has already happened and you know, quiet the future tripping, the what's gonna happen and be in the present moment, that's where it's at in terms of working through anxiousness and anxiety.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so the way that we can practice mindfulness is simple things, like, you know, I oftentimes people talk about meditation, but when you have high functioning anxiety, it's not always easy to drop into a meditation.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I talk about really simple things like putting your feet on the ground, closing your eyes for a minute, and taking a deep breath in and out, and really just focusing on how your feet feel on the ground.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's an act of mindfulness.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's using your senses and bringing you into this present moment.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Another way that we can work through high-functioning anxiety is when that perfectionism comes up, challenging yourself with thoughts and questions and curiosity around if I allowed myself to let go of perfection, what would that look like here?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: If I make a mistake, what's the worst thing that could happen?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of times with perfectionism, there's fear lingering in the background.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really about focusing on the progress, not perfection.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's also focusing on progress and not the outcome.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So again, this is kind of a combination of mindfulness as well as progress over outcome, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's bringing those two things together.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Another way that we can work through our anxiety is to learn to ask for help, learn to delegate, learn to share with people what's going on, what you might not have time to do, and start building trust with others that you can ask them for help and they will actually handle it for you.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Asking for help is not weakness, it is a sign of strength.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So building that that muscle is really important as you're working through your own, your own uh high functioning anxiety.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Up setting realistic goals.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: If you can, if you've got a larger goal that you've got in mind, break it down into smaller steps that feel achievable and they're realistic and they're not um over a long period of time because that reduces the sense of of that feeling of overwhelm.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it also provides for a sense of accomplishment as you complete each step.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do that, the anxious mind will calm down because it feels like it's working towards something.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because when we think about anxiety, it's really when we feel that a challenge is greater than our capacity to handle it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if a goal feels too big, our anxiety is gonna be over the top.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So if we we can't change what the challenge is, but we can build up what our perception of self-capacity is.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: If we break this goal down into smaller bite-sized pieces, we're gonna feel as though and we're gonna think as though we have the capacity to meet that smaller goal.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's gonna, that's gonna quiet down the anxiety.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, support, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes the weight of the anxiety feels bigger than what you can do on your own.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's there's no harm in asking for support.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, that's where coaching can come in with for you.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are working through and wanting to work through uh your anxiety, feel free to reach out to me at any time at coachwithcomedy.com.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, stay well.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com or visit her website at www.comedywood.com.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Username It's Authentic Me.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.