Performance anxiety can attack various aspects of a person’s life, like his capacity as a worker and as a lover. Performance anxiety can also affect athletes, and bring about the loss of careers. Let’s discuss each of these in turn.
Performance Anxiety at Work
Employees that have been around the company for a long time are susceptible to performance anxiety because of several reasons. One, they feel that the time to be promoted has long passed. Two, they worry that they could get sacked because of new recruits that are more qualified for the job. Three, they develop the thinking that they’re not at all valuable to their employers and are sitting ducks for the inevitable, proverbial axe. Performance anxiety at work brings about so many negative emotions, like frustration and panic.
This is especially true for employees that are shouldering a huge amount of debt. Job security is invariably linked with financial stability. To an employee, losing his job means his family could starve. The more he thinks about this worst case scenario, the more he ends up not doing his job well.
Performance Anxiety in the Bedroom
Anxiety is a huge stumbling block that most couples face. Mostly, it’s the man that has this type of anxiety when it comes to intimate matters. Even if the man shows none of the risk factors associated with erectile dysfunction, the cause of his impotence may be his anxiety. Some couples write this off as stress, being too tired or being too preoccupied by mundane family matters. But if left untreated, this kind of anxiety could be one of the reasons why a marriage fails.
This kind of anxiety may be related with the fear of losing face or being humiliated for poor performance. Also, the sex between the couple may have become monotonous that the man feels pressured to mix things up just to stoke the fire in the love making.
Performance Anxiety in Sports
To an athlete, performance anxiety is like the kiss of death. When this phenomenon starts to happen, the athlete involved panics and questions his skills. This happens when the athlete loses faith in his ability to win. Instead of giving his 100%, he can’t give anything more than half of what he can do. An athlete’s mindset is as important as his muscles and skills.
The moment an athlete starts doubting his abilities, his performance will suffer. The more he performs poorly, the less he is confident that he can win the next time around. Management companies of athletes pay huge sums of money to therapists and psychologists just so their athletes will never have to go through this kind of anxiety.
Some factors that contribute to performance anxiety among athletes include insecurity about age, injury and salary. Aging athletes are more susceptible to this kind of disorder because they feel that their market value has diminished.
Performance anxiety occurs because the affected individuals buckle under pressure. There’s a lot riding on what they have to do, and their insecurities eat them up. The fact that the anxiety is keeping them preoccupied may be the main cause of their failure to perform.
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