4 Reasons Why You Feel Anxious & Overwhelmed // by Mari-Liis Vaher
Uncertainty and anxiety can be your worst enemies. They will take away your motivation, undermine your self-confidence and steal your sense of accomplishment if you allow that to happen. In this day and age, marketers and business leaders feel more and more pressure to push their limits, outperform their peers and climb the corporate ladder. But if you are not careful, you may find yourself on the verge of burnout.
Anxiety is more common than people think – almost 1 in 5 people suffer from anxiety disorders. And occasional anxious feelings are a normal part of everybody’s life (e.g. feeling nervous before big meetings, public speaking etc.). It is important to be aware of it and to acknowledge that when you feel anxious, your attention span is distorted, and you’re in danger of overreacting or even underreacting to certain situations, which is potentially harmful to you and your future.
There are 4 major things that cause anxiety for marketers, they are:
Living an unbalanced lifestyle: spending an unproportionate amount of time working, not nearly enough time for personal life, and having inconsistent sleep patterns. Ideally, you should follow the 8-8-8 principle: 8 hours for work, 8 hours for recreation & personal life, 8 hours for resting.
Distractions: we live in the world of constant notifications, social media and unimaginable technological advancements. Constantly being distracted and not being able to focus can often lead to feelings of unproductivity, loneliness and dissatisfaction. The best solution here is to turn off all imaginable distractions, settle down and focus on one task at a time. This can be called your “time-out-zone”. At Powerful Marketers, we call it the MIP time (Most Important Person = YOU!).
Information overload: A study conducted by researchers at the University of California, San Diego concluded that every day people are inundated with an amount of information equivalent to 34 GB of data. To put this into perspective, if you tried loading this data into your laptop, it’d be overloaded within one week. Before making any decisions based on a new piece of information, ask yourself: Is it a trustworthy source? Is it recent and relevant? Is it scientifically acquired? Has it been proven? Is it a fact or somebody’s opinion?
An addictive disorder: Addictions do not mean just alcohol and drug abuse, although they are a major issue, but in today’s workaholic culture, more and more people are addicted to overworking. This means that you are not able to “switch off” – at home, you keep thinking about work and feel guilty for spending time with your family instead of working. But at the same time, at work, you find it hard to concentrate because you feel like you’re missing important family events. Be mindful about other possible addictions like harmful relationships or destructive behaviors (e.g. binge eating, self-harm etc.).
There are many ways to reduce anxiety – you can read about the 8 most common ways to do that from the Powerful Marketers’ blog post HERE. But the first step is always acknowledging and accepting it. And only after that can you start finding solutions for yourself. If you feel utterly overwhelmed, then it is best to start by balancing your lifestyle and focusing on the NOW.
It is easy to get carried away by a steadily growing pile of unexpected tasks. Eventually, what you might find is that instead of actually doing the work, you are stressing about the work that needs to be done.
But remember: Anxiety feeds upon your stress. So be mindful about focusing on one important thing at a time!
Continue reading about 8 ways to reduce anxiety HERE.
Mari-Liis Vaher // FemCity Global Member and Contributor