Healthy anxiety rises to face challenge, opportunity, and threat. That tension in your gut means you care. But self-inflected anxiety causes leaders to…
- Struggle with decision-making.
- Flip flop after making decisions.
- View others as threats.
- Over-react.
- Obsess.
(I’m thinking about anxiety as something we do to ourselves, not anxiety as a disorder* that may need professional treatment.)
Looking inward to reflect is necessary for self-awareness and growth. But constantly thinking about yourself contaminates life.
The difference between self-reflection and self-absorption is anxiety.
Self-reflection:
- Reveals who you are.
- Empowers healthy decision-making.
- Exposes negative patterns before they become destructive habits.
- Enables useful service.
- Maximizes joyful contribution.
The purpose of self-reflection is expanding capacity to serve.
Self-reflection enables you to escape unhealthy navel gazing.
Self-absorption:
- Replaces self-refection by focusing on what’s happening to you.
- Disempowers decision-making.
- Reinforces negative patterns until they become destructive habits.
- Disables useful service.
- Prevents joyful contribution.
A person absorbed with themself feels frustrated and offended when you don’t focus on them.
Healthy leaders think, “It’s all about others.” Sick leaders believe they’re the center of the universe.
7 top strategies that break the grip of self-inflicted anxiety:
- Turn inward so you can turn outward. Turning inward is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
- Take care of yourself so you can take care of others. Healthy habits keep anxiety at bay. Rest. Have fun. Eat good food.
- Do something kind, generous, and unexpected every day. If possible, do it for someone who can’t pay you back.
- Develop routines.
- Engage in things that capture your attention. Engagement cures anxiety. You forget yourself.
- Get a friend, mentor, or coach that helps you process and get outside yourself.
- Do something physical. Take a walk in the park.
There’s more to self-inflicted anxiety than what I’ve written.
What causes self-inflected anxiety?
How might leaders break the grip of self-inflicted anxiety?
*Anxiety Disorders: Types, Causes, Symptoms & Treatments (clevelandclinic.org)
