| An interesting difference between the original post and a few comments here is what people did about their anxiety. Fowler has powered through it, and although unpleasant he was able to deliver. He says he felt no right to complain because he understood that many people do much more objectively risky and painful things and he was too proud a professional to quit. I think the above is a good insight into what success looks like. It's not that all the right things are easy, it's that the idea of not doing them scares you more than the pain of doing them. Then it seems like he finally got to a place where he knows he's accomplished and impactful and no longer needs to do the thing he doesn't like, which is awesome as well. The important thing is that this happens after success, not before. The important thing is "to do." I think in many cases, anxiety evaporates once you prove to yourself through experience that you can handle the situation (it's hard to fear something you survived a thousand times). In his case, the anxiety continued to be painful but at least he had the intellectual strength to say "I know this sucks but I know it's not real" and power through. Which again, powering through - grit - is really important. I never had it that hard but I did have massive social anxiety. If I had to be in a social situation, much less public speaking, I'd dread and overthink it. And probably if I stayed an IC engineer i would be able to continue to have this problem forever. What happened instead is I started to do management and recruiting and sales - all of which forced me to talk to people one on one and in groups constantly. I didn't notice when it happened but one day I realized that my anxiety was gone because I had disproved its thesis. It was funny a few years ago at our wedding, my wife and I forgot to prepare a speech. We realized this with a few mins to go and my wife (who is actually very social) went into "oh shit, can you do this cuz I can't?" mode. I quickly drafted a few points in my head and delivered a speech I was proud of. It was amazing to reflect on this as something I could just do, which would have paralyzed me a few years earlier. The point is, do things that genuinely scare you. There's a good chance you'll realize they are not scary. Or at least like in Fowlers case you'll recognize that you are able to power through and get success. |