Anxious thinking about our abilities
Deanne Repich, Founder and Director of the National Institute of Anxiety and Stress and ConquerAnxiety talks in this video about anxiety feelings, how she overcame her own feelings, and her programs to help others.
In her article Soothing Anxious Thoughts about Work, she talks about insecurity-related thinking in a work context:
“Anxious thought: ‘Everyone is going to find out that I’m not as talented as they think and I’ll get fired.’
“Why this is not true: You ARE talented. You are probably feeling anxious because you are expecting yourself to be “the best person that’s done this job ever, in any universe.”
“In other words, you’re expecting more from yourself than your bosses and coworkers are expecting. You have unrealistic self-expectations.”
“To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one’s self.”
Soren Kierkegaard [1813-1855]
Many talented people - even highly gifted - often have insecurities, impostor feelings and other anxieties.
Lesley Sword, director of Gifted and Creative Services, in Australia, finds that gifted children are “highly self critical and over reactive to the criticism of others. They express dissatisfaction with themselves; they see what ‘ought to be’ in themselves… They have a vision of perfectionism that they measure themselves against and they can become despondent sometimes even depressed, at their perceived failure.â€
As adults, we may not have come to terms with those same kinds of feelings and thoughts.
Here are some related articles and pages:
More articles by Deanne Repich
10 Steps to Overcome the Impostor Syndrome, by Dr. Valerie Young
My articles: Feeling like an impostor, and Being Creative and Self-critical
Anxiety / fear / courage articles
Anxiety relief products / programs
Anxiety relief books
Impostor syndrome
