(1) Four Traits That Perpetuate Anxiety | Cross-Cultural Psychology Service

(1) Four Traits That Perpetuate Anxiety
(A) Perfectionism

Perfectionism has two aspects. First, you have a tendency to have expectations about yourself, others, and life that are unrealistically high. When anything falls short, you become disappointed and/or critical. Second, you tend to be over-concerned with small flaws and mistakes in yourself or your accomplishments. In focusing on what’s wrong, you tend to discount and ignore what’s right.

It is impossible to be perfect. Failure is the “dark side” of perfectionism. For someone who tries to be perfect, inevitably this person feels like a failure. Perfectionism sets up a sense of failed self.

Perfectionism thus is a common cause of low self-esteem. It is critical of every effort and convinces you that nothing is ever good enough. It can also cause you to drive yourself to the point of chronic stress, exhaustion, and burnout. Every time perfectionism counsels you that you “should,” “have to,” or “must,” you tend to push yourself forward out of anxiety, rather than from natural desire and inclination. The more perfectionistic you are, the more often you’re likely to feel anxious.

Overcoming perfectionism requires a fundamental shift in your attitude toward yourself and how you approach life in general. The following seven guidelines are intended as a starting point for making such a shift.

1. Let Go of the Idea That Your Worth is Determined

by Your Achievements and Accomplishments

Outer accomplishment may be how society measures a person’s “worth” or “social status.” But are you going to allow society to have the last word on your value as a person? Work on reinforcing the idea that your worth is a given. Be willing to recognize and affirm that you’re lovable and acceptable as you are, apart from your outer accomplishments. When self-reflective people are near death, there are usually only two things that seem to have been important to them about their lives: learning how to love others, and growing in wisdom. If you need to measure yourself against any standard, try those rather than society’s definitions of value.

2. Recognize and Overcome Perfectionistic Thinking Styles

Perfectionism is expressed in the way you talk to yourself. Three types of thinking characteristic of a perfectionistic attitude are: “Should/Must Thinking,” “All-or-Nothing Thinking,” and “Overgeneralization.” An example of “Should/Must Thinking” is: “I should be able to do this right” and a counterstatement to this could be: “I’ll do the best I can.” An example of “All-or-Nothing Thinking” is: “I just can’t do it at all” and a counterstatement to this could be: “If I break this down into small enough steps, I can do it.” An example of “Overgeneralization” is: “I’ll always foul things up” and a counterstatement to this could be: “It’s simply untrue that I always foul things up. In this particular case, I’ll go back and make the necessary corrections.”

Spend one week noticing all the instances when you get involved in should/must thinking, all-or-nothing thinking, or overgeneralization. Keep a notebook with you so that you can write down thoughts as they occur to you. Examine what you’re telling yourself at times when you feel particularly anxious or stressed. Pay special attention to your use of the words “should,” “must,” “have to,” “always,” “never,” “all,” or “none.” After you’ve spent a week writing down your perfectionist self-statements, compose counterstatements for each one. In subsequent weeks, read over your list of counterstatements frequently to encourage yourself to develop a less perfectionist approach to life.

3. Stop Magnifying the Importance of Small Errors

One of the most problematic aspects of perfectionism is its mandate to focus on small flaws or errors. Perfectionists are prone to come down very hard on themselves for a single, minute mistake that has few or no immediate consequences, let alone any long-term effects.

4. Focus on Positives

In dwelling on small errors or mistakes, perfectionists tend to discount their positive accomplishments. They selectively ignore anything positive they’ve done. Pay attention to whether you disqualify something positive with a “but” – for example, “I had a good practice session, but I became anxious near the end.” Learn to leave off the “but” in the assessments of your attitudes and behavior.

5. Work on Goals That Are Realistic

Are your goals realistically attainable, or have you set them too high? Would you expect of anyone else the goals you set for yourself? It can be helpful to do a “reality check” to determine whether any given goal is realistically attainable, or even reasonable to strive for. Are you expecting too much of yourself and the world? You may need to adjust some of your goals a bit in line with the limiting factors of time, energy, and resources. Acceptance of personal limitations is an important step to inner peace.

6. Cultivate More Pleasure and Recreation in Your Life

Perfectionism has a tendency to make people rigid and self-denying. Your own human needs get sacrificed in favor of the pursuit of external goals. Ultimately this tendency can lead to a stifling of vitality and creativity. Pleasure – finding the enjoyment in life – reverses this trend.

7. Develop a Process Orientation

In your life in general, are you “playing to win,” channeling your energies into excelling at all costs, or are you enjoying the process of living day by day as you go along? Most people find, especially as they get older, that to get the most enjoyment out of life, it works best to place value on the process of doing things – not just on the product or accomplishment.

(B) The Excessive Need for Approval

All human beings need approval. Yet for many people struggling with anxiety, the need for approval can be excessive. Being overly concerned with approval often arises from an inner sense of being flawed or unworthy. This leads to the mistaken belief that you are unacceptable just the way you are (“If people really saw who I am, they wouldn’t accept me.”). Individuals with an excessive need for approval are always looking for validation from other people. In trying to be generally pleasing, they may accommodate themselves so well to others’ expectations that they often ignore their own needs and feelings. Frequently they have a difficult time setting boundaries or saying “no.”

The long-term consequence of always accommodating and pleasing others at the expense of yourself is that you end up with a lot of withheld frustration resentment over not having taken care of your own basic needs. Withheld frustration and resentment form the unconscious foundation for a lot of chronic anxiety and tension.

There are many ways in which to get over being excessively needy for approval. The following three guidelines can help you start.

1. Develop a Realistic View of Other People’s Approval

When people don’t express approval toward you – or even act rude or critical – how do you receive it? Do you tend to take it personally – to see it as further evidence of your own ineptness or lack of worth? Attitudes characteristic of people who place excessive emphasis on always being liked can be called “people-pleasing” attitudes. Some common attitudes are: “If someone isn’t friendly to me, it’s because I did something wrong,” or “I think I’m a nice person. Shouldn’t everyone like me?” or “Others’ approval and acceptance of me is very important.” Each of these attitudes can be countered with a more realistic attitude.

The next time you feel put off or rejected, take a moment to calm down and think about whether the person acting negatively is reacting to something you did, or might simply be upset about something that has little or nothing to do with you. Ask yourself whether you might be taking the other person’s inconsiderate remarks or behavior too personally.

2. Deal With Criticism in an Objective Fashion

An excessive need for approval is often accompanied by an inability to handle criticism. You can learn to change your attitude toward criticism, ignoring those critical remarks that are unfounded and accepting constructive criticism as a positive learning experience.

The following three guidelines may be helpful:

Evaluate the source of the criticism. If you find yourself being criticized, it is important to ask who is making the criticism. Is this person qualified to criticize you?

Does this person have a bias that would make it impossible for him or her to be objective? Is this person speaking rationally or emotionally?

Ask for details. This is especially important if you receive a “blanket” or “global” criticism such as, “That was a lousy job.” Don’t accept a global judgment. Ask the person offering the criticism to indicate specific behaviors or issues that seem to fall short.

Decide whether the criticism has some validity. Ask yourself whether the criticism has some merit. If it does ring true in some way, the best way to handle this is to view it as important feedback which can help you learn something about yourself. Also be sure to remind yourself that the criticism is – or should be – directed toward only one aspect of your behavior, not to you as a total person.

3. Recognize and Let Go of Co-Dependency

Co-dependency can be defined as the tendency to put others’ needs before your own. You accommodate to others to such a degree that you tend to discount or ignore your own feelings, desires, and basic needs. Your self-esteem depends largely on how well you please, take care of, and /or solve problems for someone else (or many others).

The consequence of maintaining a co-dependent approach to life is a lot of resentment, frustration, and unmet personal needs. When these feelings and needs remain unconscious, they often resurface as anxiety – especially chronic, generalized anxiety. The long-term effects of co-dependency are enduring stress, fatigue, burnout, and eventually serious physical illness.

Recovering from co-dependency in essence involves learning to value and take care of yourself. It means giving at least equal time to your own needs alongside the needs of others. It means setting limits on how much you will do or tolerate, and learning to say “no” when appropriate.

(C) Tendency To Ignore Physical and Psychological Signs of Stress

People with anxiety disorders are often out of touch with their bodies. If you are anxious or preoccupied with worrying, you may, as the expression goes, be “living in your head” – not feeling strongly connected with the rest of your body below the neck. Try checking in with your self as you are reading right now. Do you feel as if most of your energy – your “center of gravity” – is situated from your neck up? Or do you feel solidly connected with the rest of your body, in touch with your chest, stomach, arms, and legs?

To the extent that you are out of touch with your body, you may ignore – often unconsciously – an entire range of physical symptoms which arise when you’re under stress. Examples of physical symptoms that may signify stress include fatigue, headaches, nervous stomach, tight muscles, cold hands, or diarrhea, to mention a few. Unfortunately, when you’re unaware that you’re under stress, you’re likely to keep pushing yourself without taking time out or slowing sown. You may keep going without resting until you reach a state of exhaustion or illness.

(C) Tendency To Ignore Physical and Psychological Signs of Stress

One possible outcome of chronic, cumulative stress is that the neuroendocrine regulatory systems in the brain begin to malfunction, and you can develop anxiety, depression, mood swings, or psychosomatic illnesses, like ulcers, headaches, etc. If it is your neurotransmitter systems that happen to be vulnerable, the effects of chronic stress are likely to show up in the form of an anxiety or mood disorder. Although these disorders cause significant distress in themselves, they are in fact warning signs. The body has built-in mechanisms for preventing its own self-destruction. Developing anxiety or depression may be viewed as a way in which your body forces you to slow down and alter your lifestyle before you push yourself into catastrophic illness or death.

Your recovery from anxiety depends in great measure on your ability to manage and cope with stress. And this, in turn, requires that you learn to recognize your own symptoms of stress and then do something about them – to relieve your symptoms through deep relaxation, exercise, “down time,” supportive social interaction, recreation, and so on – so that stress does not become cumulative.

Stress can manifest itself not only in the form of physical symptoms but as emotional and psychological symptoms as well. The psychological symptoms are a direct indication that your nervous system (and possibly endocrine system) is being overtaxed. As previously mentioned, being out of touch with your body may cause you to miss physical symptoms of stress. It is more difficult to be unconscious about psychological symptoms, however, because they are so much apart of your immediate experience. The problem is that if you are too busy, rushed, driven, or preoccupied, you may choose to ignore both types of symptoms.

Handling stress involves two steps. The first is to recognize and identify your own symptoms of stress. The second is to decide not to ignore them. If you would truly like to find relief from anxiety, you need to do something to reduce and better manage your stress. Stress management strategies include: deep relaxation, regular exercise, down time and time management, cultivating constructive self-talk and attitudes, expressing feelings, learning assertiveness and taking-care-of-yourself skills, and good nutrition.
(D) Excessive Need for Control

The excessive need for control makes you want to have everything in life be predictable. It’s a kind of vigilance that requires all the bases to be covered – the opposite of letting go and trusting in the process of life. Overcoming the excessive need for control takes time and persistence. The following four strategies can be helpful.

1. Acceptance

Acceptance entails learning to live a little more comfortably with the unpredictability of life – with the unexpected changes that occur daily on a small scale and, less often, on a large scale. Developing acceptance means acquiring a willingness to take life as it comes. Rather than fearing and struggling with those occasions where circumstances don’t obey your expectations, you can learn to go with the change. Popular expressions for this are “go with the flow” and “take things in stride.” In a word, acceptance implies nonresistance.

There are numerous ways in which to cultivate greater acceptance. Certainly letting go of perfectionism, as described earlier, will provide a good start. A willingness to let go of unrealistic expectations can save you a lot of disappointment. Relaxation is also an important key. The more relaxed you remain, the less likely you are to be fearful and defensive when circumstances suddenly change and don’t go your way. Also, a sense of humor can be very helpful. Humor enables you to step back from those times when everything appears to be in disarray and to get some perspective.

2. Cultivating Patience

People who have an over-controlled approach to life’s problems want to have them all figured out by tomorrow. Yet it’s often true that difficult situations cannot be worked out immediately. All the pieces that contribute to a solution come together gradually over a period of time. Developing patience entails allowing yourself to tolerate temporary muddles and ambiguity while you wait for all the necessary steps of the solution to unfold. As you develop patience, you learn to let go and wait for a resolution or an answer to emerge.

3. Trusting That Most Problems Eventually Work Out

Developing trust goes along with cultivating patience. You may not see the solution to a particular difficulty easily or quickly. But if you always need to see in advance how something is going to work out, you can end up making yourself very anxious.

Developing trust means believing that just about everything eventually does work out. Either you find a solution, or, if the problem can’t be changed externally, you learn to alter your attitude toward it, so that coping becomes easier. When you look back over the problems you’ve encountered in your life, you’ll find that in most, if not all cases, the problem eventually worked itself out.

4. Developing a Spiritual Approach to Life

Developing a spiritual approach to life can mean many things to different people. Essentially spirituality is the sense, intuition, and/or belief that you are part of a greater whole and/or connected to a greater power. Understanding your own can help reduce an excessive need for control in a couple of ways.

First, it gives you the option to “turn over” or let go of any problem that seems insoluble, overwhelming, or just plain worrisome to the care of your Higher Power, the Greater Order, the Way, however you understand you spirituality. This does not mean that you relinquish responsibility for handling the problems that come up in life. It does mean that there is a higher, outside, or deeper resource which can be of support and assistance when you’ve reached the point where a problem appears insoluble despite your best efforts. Intuition of and/or faith in such a resource enables you to let go of the idea that you have to fully control everything.

Second, your spirituality can help you nurture your intuition or belief that there is a larger order, way, or purpose in life beyond the overt appearance of what happens from day to day. If you believe that there is no spiritual foundation to reality, then the unpredictable and unforeseen events of life can seem both random and capricious. You can feel distressed because there is no explanation for why this bad event happened or that apparent unfair situation occurred. Most forms of spirituality offer the alternative view that the universe is not random. Events that may appear meaningless and brutal from a human perspective have some meaning or part in a broader scheme of things.

Postscript

Changing the traits described here will take time and commitment on your part. Identifying and becoming aware of your own particular way of perpetuating anxiety is the first step. You may also need to reevaluate and shift certain basic values and priorities in your life. Then you will need to make efforts to put into practice in your daily life what you’ve understood and how you’ve changed your values.