If You Try To Hurry Me, I’ll Just Fall Apart, You’ll See. I Worry I Can’t Get In To College, Get A Job, Keep A Job, Or Support Myself Let Alone Someone else.
If you are a worrier, you worry from the time you are little as to whether you can cut it in the big bad world. You listen closely to what family members say, what characters say on TV, and what your friends and teachers have said. You are a natural pessimist, expecting the worst and getting ready for it. You are not one to hurry or rush and you want to have time to get the job done. You have test anxiety, worry about getting decent grades, worry if you are going to flunk, worry if you are learning anything, worried if you can find a trade or get into a profession. Then when you get educated and start a job search, you are worried that either you won’t get a job, will get the wrong one, will hate what you are doing, will be sorry you chose that line of work. You wonder when your job will be unnecessary and someone will hand you a pink slip and move you towards the front door. The world of work and the world of money are hard territories for you to negotiate.
People tell me often that they did not think they worried excessively until they left home and met people who worried much less than they did. They had just accepted that anxiety and fear were a normal part of human activity on a daily basis. It is amazing to them that others are carefree, relaxed, and easy going.
It can be a real help to you if your parent who worried like you found an acceptable way to deal with it and helped you limit your worrying. For example, if your mom is a worrier but keeps telling you that all the things she worried would happen never came true, it can help you feel more safe and secure. If your dad says that now that he looks back, he spent too much of his life worrying about things and it kept him from enjoying life, it can have a real positive effect on you. BUT, usually we do not have parents who were highly successful in managing their own worries. We are lucky if we do not have a parent who is a terrible worrier, anxious about everything, and who gets our worry stirred up at every opportunity. You can actually get a cluster a worriers in a family and if one doesn’t think of something to worry about, another will.
When you grow up and leave home you worry whether you are going to make enough money, if you are going to save enough money, if you are going to have good health insurance. That’s really important to you because you are always wondering about your physical health and what illness you might have or get. You don’t sit and just wonder what is going on, you ask whoever is around what they think. Is the economy slowing up? Will there be a strike? Will all the jobs be sent overseas? Is the boss upset with your performance? Will you get a raise? And you take job worries home with you and can’t help but talk about it and get ideas from your family as to what they think might happen. If you are lucky, you won’t have a horrible upheaval in your employment situation and be looking for work along with everyone else. But it you fall into the category of people concerned as to what’s going to happen next week, next month, or next year with your ability to earn income, you will be edgy and stressed to the max most of the time. The fear factor is always there, sneaking up on you, waiting to trip you up, make you look foolish and awkward.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health indicates that at the very least 25% of all Americans believe their jobs to be the most stressful part of their lives. Studies indicate that job anxiety can produce illnesses such as headaches, heart problems, depression, and physical symptoms of burnout.
You may be thinking that your job worry and stress are sending you a message. The message might be that you need to start planning to find another line of work. But in the meantime you realize you still have to make a living to pay the bills and you have to find some way to adapt, at least temporarily. Here are some indicators that you really need to either re think your job or re think the way you you deal with the job: insomnia, difficulty concentrating, job accidents, temper outbursts, gastrointestinal symptoms, and trying to find reasons not to go in to work.
Change is not always bad. Do not be a scaredy cat. There are ways for you to overcome worry problems and lessen and modify your job and financial stress. Helpful tips are on the way.
More to follow in next blog.
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