Performance anxiety?

**Posts:** 7 · by **xlunalovelyx** » Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:00 pm

Hi everyone, I was wondering if someone could please help me with a trouble that I have been having at work lately?

Basically, I have been this way all throughout my life but now it is becoming a real problem because it is affecting my ability to work and therefore could stop me from getting money to live. All throughout college/university I would be so scared whenever I performed a presentation, done an exam or wrote an essay I would feel so anxious about the results and truly believed I would fail miserably. I never even thought I would be able to graduate but I did and I did pass everything okay. I was even shocked when I received very good feedback on my work. I just have this inner feeling inside me that it was a mistake of some sort. Even when I was working in jobs that involved minimal effort or ability I would be so anxious that I was doing things wrong. I was convinced I was going to slip up in some way that would lead me to lose my job or something or I would do something wrong in some way and get punished for it. Now I am self-employed and have been for the past year running my own business - things really took off and I was making quite a bit - more money than I have ever made in my life. I felt very happy and content with the income I was on - I was comfortable basically but then the more I grew and the more I got good responses from others and more people that came to my business the more scared I got. As much as I appreciate someone's custom it was scary because I felt that one day I would slip up and realise that my service was rubbish in some way. I got so scared I would put off working to the point where now, I am basically not. This is my dream job basically and I am so scared of slipping up in some way. My income is very minimal now, basically nothing and I want to get back on track to where I was. Please could someone help suggest a way for me to try to overcome this fear? I know that this is pathetic and I know I should just do it but I can't. Simply doing it does not make it better it makes it worse for me - the more I do it and the more I build my business, the more scared I get of failure. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you for reading!

**Posts:** 12131 · by **Richard@DecisionSkills** » Fri Jul 30, 2021 6:15 pm

xlunalovelyx wrote: Please could someone help suggest a way for me to try to overcome this fear? I know that this is pathetic and I know I should just do it but I can't. Simply doing it does not make it better it makes it worse for me - the more I do it and the more I build my business, the more scared I get of failure. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you for reading!

I think what you're experiencing is very common. I sometimes have similar feelings, but then I just remind myself to look at my reviews. I have well over ten thousand reviews, overwhelmingly positive. I use the reviews to make adjustments and keep moving forward.

What about you? What do you provide or "sell"? How do you get feedback on your performance and how often?

**Posts:** 39 · by **romanrusso** » Sun Aug 01, 2021 9:55 am

Failure of rejection is deeply programmed into our psychology, because for hundreds of thousands of years our ancestors use to travel the earth in small packs of people. Rejection at that stage meant death. Today, it is a normal business and social practice. It is therefore not surprising that some of us occasionally freak out even by the potential of being rejected.

Now, one of the most important things to realize is that there will always be haters who will not like your product. While these people will exist, they will be by far a minority. The majority of people will love your product and they will want your solution. In fact, your failure to deliver this product to this second group will make their lives worst off.

What I mean to say by all this, is that it is all a mater of perspective and often the real problem is more in your head than in reality. So think together: were there customers who were deeply dissatisfied with your product? How many people were they? Could you not resolve their concerns despite their complaints? How many people were people happy with your service?

What I often do today to overcome my thinking barriers, is I make a small to do list, 3 to 5 items, and try to do them no matter what happens during the day. Sometimes, in order to get started, I also do something super simple, which gets me going in the right direction.

One last analogy, in stock markets, often people invest in stocks which they ultimately know to be losing stocks. They can even lose 9 times our of 10, but that 1 stock that will ultimately be a winner will pay for all the losses plus give a big extra margin on top.

This is to say, that failure and rejection are unavoidable, but they are also necessary. No progress can be made without failure. To shy away from it means that you may never be able to find your ultimate potential. The risk of shying away from it is therefore high. If you never try, you will never know what could have been, and what can be is amazing!

Performance anxiety?

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