Anxious 9 to 5
by Larina Kase
Summary
Do you come to work wound-up and anxious, never quite able to calm down? Do pressing deadlines and a constant sense of urgency make you feel as if you just can’t get ahead? Do you feel distracted and unable to focus throughout the day? Before you know it, you’re spending sleepless nights worrying about what on-the-job disasters tomorrow will bring. Anxiety in the workplace is serious and can hold you back from achieving the success you deserve, despite how hard you work. This book offers simple and effective techniques to get your workplace anxiety under control once and for all so you can enjoy work and be more productive.
Excerpt
Millions of people experience anxiety. And although some of these individuals experience anxiety disorders—like panic disorder or social phobia—many7 do not have an anxiety disorder at all, but simply “normal” levels of anxiety.
As a psychologist, my area of specialty is anxiety disorders. As an executive coach, I’ve helped everyone from senior level executives with jitters about deal-breaker meetings to managers uncomfortable interacting with colleagues to small business owners whose businesses suffer because they’re always worried about getting everything done just right. All of these people are highly successful go-getters—who just happen to become anxious in particular workplace situations.
In this book, I’m going to walk you through the most common ways that anxiety rears its head in the workplace. Step by step, we’ll go through both how to identify the signs of anxiety and how to overcome it. We’ll start with a brief assessment to determine which particular types of workplace anxiety describe you. Then you can pick and choose which chapters to focus on--or read the book straight through. All chapters have how-to steps and coaching points (exercises) to help you manage and treat your anxiety.
We have a lot ahead of us. We’ll start by identifying precisely how workplace anxiety comes up for you, and then go over the primary components of anxiety and how they interact with each other. Next, we’ll clarify the differences between anxiety and stress and the different strategies the two require. We’ll then focus on a very common anxiety culprit: perfectionism. After that, we’ll explore self-defeating thought patterns, fears of speaking up and giving presentations at work, and the self-fulfilling aspects of our fears of failure. We’ll then investigate behaviors that negatively impact anxiety: behaviors that seem likely to help but don’t as well as the vicious cycle of avoidance and anxiety. We’ll examine anxiety in different types of social situations, looking first at discomfort in professional social and performance situations and then at the anxiety involved in supervising and leading others. We’ll then concentrate on worriers and worrying. And finally, we’ll discuss how to use the ideas you’ve learned to help you create a highly successful career.
Reviews
“An excellent resource for the millions of us who experience anxiety in the workplace”--Richard G. Heimberg, Ph.D., distinguishe
“Certain to help many people who struggle with worries, fears, and doubts in the workplace"
Author's Biography
Larina Kase, PSY.D., MBA, is a business psychologist specializing in the reduction of anxiety and stress in the workplace.