How Anxiety Affects Your Performance at Work

Updated on May 27, 2020

Many factors determine your ability to work. To start with, your qualifications, capabilities, and experience play a significant role. However, your personal wellbeing also determines how you work. When sick, most people take days off to gain energy and heal. Others come to work but work with less vigor until they get back to normal conditions. When suffering from anxiety, things are a little different. Some do not know they suffer from anxiety-related conditions until they get a diagnosis. Those who know find it hard to admit, and this affects how they perform at work. A few who accept their fate can attribute their performance to this condition too. Exactly how does it affect your performance?

1)            High Accidents Rates

When suffering from anxiety, you are likely to cause accidents primarily when operating machines or mixing substances. Anxiety causes panic attacks and trembling, which affects how you move objects. In severe cases, your trembles force you to lose control and drop everything. This puts your life and that of others at risk. When mixing substances, a slight error ruins the whole concoction, and you have to start again from scratch. This can be too costly as you end up losing the materials used. When your mistake goes unnoticed, you risk the lives of consumers and investments made once discovered. It can even get more costly when charged or fined. You can seek help from Well Beings Counselling to avoid such costly mistakes.

2)            Slow Growth

Most people who suffer from anxiety make costly mistakes before figuring out what is happening. Those already diagnosed are afraid to come out for fear of victimization and ridicule. They end up taking up lower positions to avoid getting noticed. Since their reactions are considered as exaggerated reactions, those in managerial posts, view them as jokers. At times, you end up messing up, and this might earn you demotion or dismissal. This takes you back to square one. It also becomes hard to assign very high profile jobs your way for fear of ruining them. This reduces your chances of proving yourself and hence slows the time to get the promotions and appraisals.

3)            Set Realistic Goals

At work, we are forever chasing deadlines and personal targets to ensure we meet the organization’s objectives. When you fail to achieve them, you are likely to suffer from a pounding heart, sweating, and trembling. You might also suffer from fatigue and get emotionally drained for pushing too much. Knowing you suffer from anxiety helps you know your limits and avoid making unrealistic goals. It also enables you to solve problems and grievances on time to avoid being in a triangle of conflicts and work. Since your condition is not a reason to do less, it helps you plan and execute your tasks better.

4)            Proper Interaction

It is no doubt you might have a few episodes while at work, and you need all the help you can get to recover. Maintaining a good relationship with those around you helps. You can ask for help when in need and be sure it can be offered. Informing others about your conditions improves your chances of working as they can meet you halfway and avoid overloading you with tasks. Additionally, it helps you understand and spot other people suffering from the same and help them work around their anxiety. This improves your communication with others, and you build stronger relationships.

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