The Anxious Achiever

Anxiety almost felt like oxygen to me: it drove me forward, it kept me pushing, it kept me hungry, it kept me always wanting the next thing. At the same time, it felt maddening, and it was a drain on my mental health and my joy. And anxious achievers are rarely still: we’re always propelled forward and indeed anxiety is our traveling companion. When we hit one milestone, we instantly look to the next.

We are warriors. We tend to be people pleasers; we tend to be the kinds of people who are a bit perfectionistic and always want to do our best, but we’re driven by our anxiety. And this is not a good or a bad thing.

I don’t want to say, “Cure your anxiety and everything will be perfect,” because, for a lot of us, we can’t cure our anxiety and we may not even want to, but the book and my work sort of explores that tension of being motivated by your anxiety, yet also needing to manage it so it doesn’t take over your life. It really is a dance and a relationship.

Rachel Salaman: And you mentioned there that you put yourself in this category. Could you talk a little bit more about that and how you observed the relationship between your anxiety and your drive to achieve?

Morra Aarons-Mele: My mum will always say I was born this way: I was an anxious little girl; I was an agoraphobic when I was three years old; I was always quite high strung, very driven, very ambitious, always wanted that gold star in school, on my schoolwork. Was very, very self-motivated – or so it appeared.

Like many of us anxious achievers, it took me until I was an adult to realize: “Do I really think I have to be perfect or is that a voice in my head that’s been telling me this for decades? And is this something I should explore?” So anxiety was interesting.

I started out my career in digital marketing and then in politics: so, in startups in New York and London and then in U.S. politics. Both extremely high-pressure environments, where the work is never done and cultures where you were rewarded when the work is never done. And so, I found that being driven by my anxiety was actually a tool.

It kept me going; it kept me always looking over my shoulder and worrying, “What happens if I don’t do this?” And a lot of anxious achievers that I talk to – and I’ve talked to hundreds at this point – we feel that way.

We almost credit our anxiety for getting us where we are, even for innovating or building businesses or doing cool things. But it is like a constant drain on our CPU at the same time and it can be emotionally exhausting if it’s never off.

Rachel Salaman: Yes. And, in the book, you do talk about these – quote – “hidden gifts” and “the beauty of being an anxious achiever.”’But it is a double-edged sword, isn't it?

Morra Aarons-Mele: Yes.

Rachel Salaman: So where do you see the two sides of that balance? How does the positive side weigh up with the negative side? Because, as you say, it is a drain.

Morra Aarons-Mele: It is.

And the thing is, lots of people out there have anxiety that is preventing them from getting out of bed. I’ve been there: they’re having anxiety that’s so bad that they’re having panic attacks and they can’t function in their day-to-day life. I’ve been there too.

And so, for them, anxiety is not a gift: it’s a curse and it’s something that they need to work on. And the good news is, there are many, many evidence-based treatments that allow us to work on it.

So, anxiety is a complex gift because, like all hard things – like all things that make us different in a world that doesn’t prize people who are different – it’s something that we need to learn to manage, to understand, to have a relationship with. When we work through it, when we face the hard things, we unlock so many gifts.

We unlock so many gifts: self-awareness, resiliency, empathy, compassion, an ability to respond well in a crisis, an ability to create a plan. But I cannot tell you that there’s just a magic wand I’m going to wave and make your anxiety into something great. It’s very complicated and it can be a mental illness. And we all need to learn to look our anxiety in the face and work with it.

Rachel Salaman: Well, a lot of your book is about why some of us feel anxious at work. A common reason you talk about is negative self-talk. I wondered if you could explain what this is and how to deal with it.

Morra Aarons-Mele: I call it “the voice” because I think, for a lot of us, our negative self-talk feels so habitual: it becomes like a place in our brain that we instantly go to when we’re anxious and we don’t even realize that it’s something that we could separate. I have many patterns of negative self-talk.

I recently interviewed one of my favorite mental health at work advocates, Newton Cheng, who’s a senior executive at Google. He’s also a world champion power lifter, which I don’t even know what it is, but it’s very hard. It involves dead lifting giant weights. He’s a really successful and driven guy. He has two little kids. And his inner critic calls him “lazy.”

When he’s made anxious, especially around deadlines at work or work/life conflict – like he feels like he’s not being the dad he wants to be because of deadlines at work – this voice comes into his head and it says “You’re being lazy.” Now, this man is not lazy. I really recommend the interview: it’s in my podcast feed. It’s very good. But that voice is a legacy: it goes way back.

And Newton, like so many of us, has sort of learned the process of seeing the voice and saying, “Hi, voice. Hi, Lazy. Just because you say it doesn’t mean it’s true.” And that is really powerful and it’s something that we can all do.

But, what I ask people to start with is, “What is the voice telling you? What are those thought traps that you’re going into that you’ve been doing, maybe, so long or so habitually or you feel like even protect you that you don’t even notice they’re there sometimes?”

Rachel Salaman: Yes. And we’ll talk about some other thought traps in just a moment. But I wonder if we could just dwell on the idea of criticism for a moment. Because, later in your book, you do talk about other kinds of criticism that causes anxiety, like feedback from others.

And also, impostor syndrome, which is an interesting one because a lot of people think that impostor syndrome is self-doubt, but it’s actually more than that, isn't it? It’s that you feel like a fraud and you’re about to be found out. And that’s one of the reasons it’s so anxiety inducing. Could you talk about what techniques might help in those areas?

Morra Aarons-Mele: Impostor feelings can be so powerful that they can stop you in your tracks. They can have physical downstream and upstream effects. I mean, that’s the thing about anxiety and when anxiety shows up at work: is that it is a bad feeling in our heads and our bodies but it also affects, physically, how we show up, how we act out, how we manage people, whether we get promoted or whether we don’t.

And impostor feelings are very interesting. They’re also controversial and I’ll tell you why. You know, impostor feelings are, again, a sort of negative, automatic thought when you are triggered, when you’re anxious, that “I don’t belong here. I’m going to get found out. I’m wrong. They’re going to kick me out. I only got in by a mistake. Why did they hire me? Blah, blah, blah… ”

Very, very common. But mental health and all of this stuff is really layered: it’s really intersectional. And it’s both systemic and personal. And so, there is research and advocacy and movement now, saying, “Don’t tell women – don’t tell people of color – they have impostor syndrome. They feel like impostors because they’re treated like impostors in many of our workplaces because of systemic bias, because of the patriarchy, because of racism.”

Of course they feel like impostors and of course they feel anxious because they’re working in places that are not serving them. And I think that’s really true. I also think that they’re feelings that we feel, even if it’s not in our heads and not our fault, because we’re human and we pick up on these feelings.

And so, when you’re feeling impostor syndrome, again, it’s about trying to interrupt the self-talk and finding another way. And you can do that in the moment, by literally interrupting the self-talk and supplying some more neutral or less negatively biased self-talk.

And that could be “I’m feeling like an impostor and that’s OK because, when you try something new and you push yourself, you do. But I deserve to be here. They hired me for a reason. My hiring manager said X, Y and Z. I got these marks… ” Whatever, right? You can sort of pull yourself out of the anxiety and look at harder data.

You could say, “You know what? I read an article that, the more successful people become, the more they feel impostor syndrome. So, hey, I’m just doing what I’m supposed to be doing.” These are all sort of cognitive reframing techniques that can help.

Now, sometimes anxiety is a full-body experience and we can’t use a brain technique because our brain is just flooded and our heart is racing. And so, it’s never a bad idea, if you’re feeling swept up in the moment, to breathe, to try to give yourself a physical prompt, to go run up some stairs or get outside or call a friend: to literally break the cycle of impostor feelings.

And then, more broadly, stepping back – and this is why I think therapy is so amazing – is to start working on those core issues of… If you’ve often felt like an impostor: not if you’re in one job and this is new for you. That might be a more situational thing. But, if one of your go-to’s is to feel like an impostor, to start doing that work of “Huh! Where does this come from? And why is this comfortable for me?”

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Rachel Salaman: You mentioned thought traps a moment ago. And perhaps we could just take a moment to talk about the origins of this idea as I understand it. It was first described by the so-called “father of cognitive behavioral therapy,” Aaron Beck and, later, his student, David Burns, who wrote a classic book called “The Feeling Good Handbook.”

Morra Aarons-Mele: Such a great book. There’s “Feeling Good” and then “The Feeling Good Handbook.” They’re still… They still hold up. And Dr Burns has a podcast.

Rachel Salaman: Oh, right. I didn't know that. Great. Well, we should look that one out. So, let’s talk about a couple more of these, then. So, one of them is “all-or-nothing thinking.” Could you talk about that?

Morra Aarons-Mele: I mean, I think all-or-nothing thinking is something that I think any listener is like, “Oh, I’ve done that”: where you might not be able to see nuance or shades of gray. Things feel all bad or all good and, usually, for anxious people, they feel all bad. So, the idea that we have to cut a budget for the department by 20 percent is just a slow, steady decline towards being totally eliminated and laid off.

I mean that gets into catastrophizing too, a sense that one piece of bad news snowballs into a huge piece of bad news. But black-and-white thinking is really challenging, especially when you’re getting feedback, because, when you are unable to see the shades of gray – especially if you get critical feedback and you hear it as “I’m all bad: this is all bad” – it’s hard to grow. And there’s one thing that we know from innovative and really good leaders, is that they are willing to fail and to mess up and to grow.

And the thing about thought traps that’s really interesting is that they kind of keep us brittle because, when we’re constantly afraid of feeling like an impostor, of getting shamed – which we feel when things are black-and-white – of emotional reasoning… Think of Newton and his voice that says, “I’m lazy.” So, your boss might say, “You really need to improve on your memo writing” and what you hear is “I’m bad at writing. I’m a bad writer.”

Rachel Salaman: It can be a habit, can’t it?

Morra Aarons-Mele: Yes.

Rachel Salaman: I’ve noticed this in other people: it’s almost like their “go to” is to go to the binary, to go to the black. Well, if it’s not the black, then it’s the white.

Morra Aarons-Mele: They are. They’re like bad habits.

Rachel Salaman: Yes, but in your book, you do offer some advice about how we can break free of destructive habits. What are your best tips for that?

Morra Aarons-Mele: I really started getting into habit research: it’s so fascinating. And, if my book solved people’s bad habits, I’d be a billionaire. There’s the entire dieting industry, the entire wellness industry, the entire optimized fasting industry or atomic habits and all that. Obviously, there’s a huge industry in helping people to break habits that they feel don’t serve them.

But, when it comes to your thoughts, it actually, I think, is a little bit easier. Because, if I had the habit of instantly feeling, for example, that I’m wrong and people are mad at me – that’s a huge thought trap for me. It’s hard for me to get criticism in feedback because I assume I’m the one who’s screwed up – breaking that habit has actually not been that hard.

I actually did a very intensive course on cognitive behavioral therapy and I learned to interrupt the thought and to really create alternatives to those thoughts that I could consider. Because, with a habit, you really have to replace the behavior. You can’t change the thing that triggers the habit.

I can’t change whether I’m going to get bad feedback or not. I can try to avoid it but, ultimately, I’m going to get it. And I need to give myself a reward. But I can replace the action in between. And I think that that’s really cool.

So, I can literally try to replace the instantaneous thought of “It’s all your fault. You suck. You’re getting fired” with “OK, maybe this wasn’t your best month. Let’s look at the data. Let’s try to just bring some more neutral information in. Let’s try to breathe. Even if you did get fired, let’s play out the worst-case scenario and see what would happen.”

That kind of interruption for me – and it’s evidence based – is really powerful and it takes practice. But I find it easier than saying, “I’m never going to eat sugar again” or “I’m going to work out an hour every day,” which are behaviors that your body just really is dug into: just my non-scientific opinion.

Rachel Salaman: Yes, well I mean, I think that idea of interrupting these thought traps is great because, like you say, you need to practice it. But anybody can actually start, can’t they?

Morra Aarons-Mele: Anybody can start. And, honestly, one of the most fun ways to start is to gather up a file of praise. This is really good, especially if you know that you have tendencies to get stuck on thought traps and you’re taking on something new or you’re getting a new job: you’re feeling like you’re stretching a little bit. You’re outside your comfort zone and all of those thought traps are just trying to ensnare you.

Is to literally make a document – I also do this when I’m preparing for a negotiation because I know that that’s another time when I get anxious and mired in thought traps – that gives you prompts, that gives you data.

Rachel Salaman: Again, very easy tip…

Morra Aarons-Mele: Yes.

Rachel Salaman: … that anyone can do.

Morra Aarons-Mele: I had an interesting experience over the weekend, which is I had intense envy, FOMO, jealousy, and a lot of comparison, because I live in Boston, and in Boston was the conference for the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists. And, basically, everyone that I respect and admire was there.

And Amy Edmondson from Harvard Business School was the keynote and she blurbed my book, and these people are my heroes. And I spent the weekend… Like every time I went on social media especially, and I would see my friends posting from there, I just felt intense, intense comparison traps.

And what I had at the end, though, was a really clarifying “Aha!” moment, which is that “this is what you want. You want to go get your advanced degree in this stuff so you’re invited to the conference. These comparisons are telling you something that you need to listen to.”

And that’s where anxiety can be a real ally because I was feeling really bad, but, as I kept having the interruptions of my self-talk, I really came to this big realization, which is that “You’re feeling this for a reason. And this is what you truly want,” which has been something I’ve been wanting for years and just have not been able to sort of pull the trigger on. So, sometimes, listening to your anxiety can be really helpful.

Rachel Salaman: Yes, that’s a really good point because it shows that it matters. Or, at least, it shows you that you should look at whether it matters.

Morra Aarons-Mele: Sometimes it’s lying to you and you should just tell it to buzz off.

Rachel Salaman: But it’s worth a look: it’s worth some analysis. Now, that’s a good example of how we can react to our anxiety. And, in the book, you talk about others – perhaps, more negative ones – like micromanaging and avoidance. What are the most common ways that people do react to their anxiety?

Morra Aarons-Mele: I like to think of it in terms of behaviors and thoughts. Because it’s very familiar to people, I think, the feeling of when they’re anxious, to act out a behavior. So, again, you might reach for peanut M&Ms; you might shut down your laptop and open up Instagram and scroll on Instagram to avoid the bad feelings. You might have a drink; you might call a friend or go for a run.

Coping behaviors aren’t always bad. But our brain doesn’t like us feeling uncomfortable and anxiety is very uncomfortable. So, it gives us… Again – that sort of habit thing. It gives us an alternative. It’s like, “Oh, brain! I don’t want you to feel this way. You’re so uncomfortable. So, I’m going to give you M&Ms because they make you feel better and you won’t feel anxious.”

But we know the moral of the story: you feel good about the M&Ms for a bit and then you feel bad and then the anxiety comes back. So, ultimately, you’ve got to deal with it.

I interviewed the Atlanta, Georgia mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, on my show. And she told me an incredible example, which is that she… Of course, a mayor: you have to give a ton of speeches and public appearances. And they would make her very anxious, especially when she was running for office.

Her security detail would carry extra-strength Tylenol – paracetamol – and give her six of them before a speech. For some reason, Mayor Bottoms felt like the Tylenol would help her anxiety get through the speech. And she was funny: her mom kept saying, “You’re going to ruin your liver. Like, what are you doing?”

But you know, we build these coping mechanisms; we build these behaviors that we somehow think – or may – alleviate anxiety in the short-term. We also, at work, act out coping mechanisms. Like, we may, sometimes, when we’re anxious, feel the need to control things because things feel really scary and out of control.

So, what’ll we do? We call our team: “Where’s that report?” We send a lot of emails so we feel like we’re less anxious. But, of course, we’re creating a lot of downstream effects.

Rachel Salaman: For achievers, perfectionism is a big, looming force: a big driver. And you dedicate a whole chapter to perfectionism in your book. I was interested that it got a whole chapter to itself. Why was that? Why does it have so much prominence?

Morra Aarons-Mele: Because I think perfectionism is really misunderstood. Perfectionism, I learned in my study, is not always being amazing and giving everything you’ve got and creating the most incredible product ever made. Perfectionism’s anxiety: it’s a sense that, “If I am not perfect, I’m not worth it.”

I’ve spoken to so many perfectionists who say they feel like they wouldn’t even be loved if they didn't create an outcome that was – quote – “perfect.” And they set very high standards. The other thing about perfectionism is that you’re setting impossible standards. Although you can have a perfectionistic boss who’s setting those standards too and that’s really difficult.

Rachel Salaman: Yes, that’s a whole other thing, isn't it?

Morra Aarons-Mele: That’s a whole… And people love to email me about that one too. And so, perfectionism is really challenging. And, if we can moderate it and get it out of our way, as one of my favorite interviews in the book – Dr Thomas Greenspan – says, “We’ll still be excellent, just without all the attending anxiety.” And I just think that’s so great.

Rachel Salaman: That is great. I mean, the idea that you can still be excellent and not perfect is actually a bit more satisfying for those perfectionists among us than the idea that you can be good enough but not perfect.

Morra Aarons-Mele: Well, right: because we don’t want to be “good enough.”

Rachel Salaman: No, that’s right.

Morra Aarons-Mele: The whole idea, also, is really interesting because it’s about also playing with your emotional investment in an outcome and it’s also about your own ego. And both of these things are really powerful for leaders.

When we’re perfectionistic, again, we’re in a fixed mindset: we’re rigid; we are not open to other feedback. We’re probably hell-bent on doing this ourselves or controlling people. And that is really toxic for leadership. And it doesn’t allow us to innovate and it also doesn’t allow us to care for other people and feel empathy.

Because, a lot of these anxiety reactions, they really keep us deep in our heads because we’re so concerned about how we’re going to manage through an outcome that we imagine. And, when you can step back from perfectionism and say, “You know what? I’m going to lessen my grip here,” you can tune in to other people.

Rachel Salaman: Yes, so it’s win-win. In fact, in your book, you offer a few mitigation techniques, one of which is the “So what?” exercise. Could you just talk us through that so some people could start using it?

Morra Aarons-Mele: So, this is Dr Angela Neal-Barnett, who’s a psychologist at Kent State University in the US. And there’s a lot of variations on this but I love hers, which is, she calls it “The So What Chorus.” She’s actually done research that singing is a powerful tool for anxiety mitigation. So, basically, you would take something that you’re really fixated on – you’re really concerned about.

So maybe it is you just sent a presentation to your clients and your boss and you know there’s an error but it’s too late because it was already bound. You might be fixating on it and your mind might go into real thought traps: “Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! I have messed up so bad, my boss is never going to trust me again.”

“So what?”

“Well, they won’t trust me; they won’t give me plum assignments anymore. I really blew it. This was my chance!”

“So what?”

“Well, I’m going to have to work so hard to rebuild trust and then I won’t get this next account and I’ll be stuck at my desk.”

“So what?”

And you keep playing it out. And – you know – the truth is, unless… And, sometimes, there are catastrophes in life and things are very, very painful. But most of the stuff that we do at work – especially when we’re anxious – we really blow out of proportion.

And what the So What Chorus helps you do is get to the root of what you’re really, really scared about and look at that fear and think, “OK, yes, this is scaring me. But what are the neutral facts that I could bring in that show me the probability? And how can I have a plan, rather than just worrying and worrying and worrying?”

Rachel Salaman: It’s a nice, simple one, isn't it, that anyone can use?

Morra Aarons-Mele: It is. I mean, everything is both simple and hard.

Rachel Salaman: It’s simple to remember how to do it; it’s just hard to do.

Morra Aarons-Mele: It’s hard in everyday life but that’s why I really encourage people to look at this as an investment in their leadership: an investment in the sustainability of your life and your community and your relationships. This is the work of decades for many of us, but it is such important work.

Rachel Salaman: Yes. You also suggest grounding ourselves in our values. What do you mean by that? And what are some ways to do it?

Morra Aarons-Mele: Yes, grounding yourselves in your values is sort of a really cool thing as part of many therapeutic traditions. But where it helps in anxiety is that… And we can even just think about this in a work context, our work values: although they may intersect with our larger life values of the kind of person we want to be and the kind of legacy we want to leave and how we want to be when we’re on this earth.

When you’re feeling really anxious… Say you’ve been invited to a conference to present a paper and you have social anxiety and you have impostor feelings and you’re catastrophizing: all the things which we tend to do as anxious people. What is really helpful is to step back and ground yourself into your values.

And your values are probably, “I have pushed myself to this level of anxiety for a reason. I have spent years on this work. This is my mission. I really care and it is important that I get up there. And, therefore, the anxiety is going to be something that I am going to face because I believe in this and this aligns with my values.”

Or it could be, “This job pays me really well and I want to provide a solid home for my family or care for my aging parents. Therefore, I’m going to push the anxiety.” It doesn’t have to be huge and lofty.

But it’s really, again, it’s sort of connecting with your “why?” a lot of people say. And it’s just a great technique in anxiety, because we can get so in our heads and in our bodies that we do lose perspective of why we’re there in the first place.

Rachel Salaman: Morra Aarons-Mele, thanks very much for joining us today.

Morra Aarons-Mele: This was such a treat. Thank you for your wonderful interviewing.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Morra’s book again is “The Anxious Achiever” and that’s also the name of her podcast, which I strongly recommend. And you should be able to find wherever you get your podcasts. I’ll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.