Achievement without Anxiety: Navigating the Fine Line

Most people know all about the idea of a fight and flight response. How sometimes our body gets prepared to react or get away quickly because we believe there’s a threat. So that response within us, is the thing that gets triggered.

If you’re like any normal human with a phone and surrounded by the rest of a busy world you’re probably jumping in and out of this response to varying degrees all day.

We want that. It makes us able to react but also get things done. Got a deadline? Under the pump? It’s going to be this system waking up to help get it all sorted out.

But what happens when we start having more trouble figuring out where our finish line is for the day? The to-do list grows a little longer until you regularly find yourself not completing it?

For the already high achieving, here’s something to be wary of. One of the biggest feelings and reactions to not getting things done that you say you will, is guilt. One of the equally interesting things guilt (and shame) does to the brain is trigger a fear response. 

This fear response, trying to protect us, blocks our ability to feel other emotions and subconsciously encourages us to use strategies like blaming, denying, justifying, submission, or avoidance.

So the scene may be this. You’ve spent the whole day getting things done with your nervous system wound up. Recognising you’re tired and ready to rest, you suddenly realise you haven't completed everything.

Your nervous system reacts, launching stress hormones into you to make you more anxiously awake and now victim to a spiral of blaming others, denying there’s an issue or avoiding the whole thing altogether. Add in some procrastination throughout the day, and there may even be some shame mixed in.

One of the easiest ways to avoid or manage this, is simply ask yourself each morning, what is realistic and fair for me to achieve today?

And then let yourself get that rest, you’ll be better tomorrow because of it.