Honest and Defensive

Ever feel anxious?  I’m talking about sick to your stomach, unrelenting fear about something inconsequential.  I’m talking about staying up at night running over and over and over again through all the scenarios that may play out the next day?  You’re not alone.  Anxiety disorders affect about 18 percent of Americans over the age of 18*. 

A few years ago, I started having feelings of anxiety.  I googled “how to manage stress” and found online recommendations like:

“Close your eyes and imagine a stop sign” or

“Lay on your back and start relaxing every muscle in your body starting at your toes and working your way up the body.” 

No, I’m not making this up, and Yes I tried these exercises to no avail. 

The corporate marketing machine also thought it could help me out by generously bombarding me for weeks with massage therapy, calming supplements, and relaxing vacation ads after it found out what I was searching.

I’m sure there are some mental/physical exercises that can help with momentary feelings of stress and anxiety, but I was more interested in attacking the problem at the source.  I really started exploring what was making me feel so crazy.  Whenever I had the feeling, I started tracing it back to the source to figure out why it happened.  What I found was interesting.

I realized that a lot of my anxiety led back to one thing: expectations.

In college and into my early career, I started out with some creator attributes that resulted in some early success.  This success was great, but being successful can have the unintended consequence of unrealistic expectations.  If I hit a homerun on an assignment, I felt the expectation that I would need to hit a homerun on every assignment.  I felt the weight of having to be flawless.  And what was the result?  All of the sudden, any time anyone questioned an aspect of my work, I immediately got defensive.  Even when someone found an obvious mistake, I would argue that the mistake didn’t really affect the overall conclusions, so in a way, I was still right.  It became impossible for me to candidly receive feedback that could make my product better because that would show weakness.

Although the expectations I felt were almost always self-inflicted, it’s not hard to see why I would find myself awake at night worrying if I had a typo in an email I sent to a superior or if I had used the right approach to solving a problem on an exam.  Deep inside, I was afraid that someone would find out that I was just an imposter that faked some early success.

Being defensive to keep a perfect image is exhausting.  The consumer keeps up appearances and tries to carry the weight of perfection through making excuses and being defensive.  Not to mention, there are a lot of people that are willing to take your money to help you look “successful” in your moments of weakness.  But you are a creator!  The creator counters the feeling of unrealistic expectations with honesty not defensiveness. 

"If only there was a magic phrase I could recite that could help lift the burden of expectation through honesty." 

Funny you should say that!  You are now being whisked away to an enchanted wizardly boarding school that in no way resembles the intellectual property of Universal Films Entertainment group.  I’m your pointy-hatted, bearded professor Creatordorf and I’m here to teach you a magic spell to bring peace and sleep to your anxiety-driven insomnia.  Are you ready?  Let’s say it together:

“I screwed up.”

Very good class. 

You can preface this statement with “Boss, I screwed up”, “Spouse, I screwed up”, “Team, I screwed up”, or the most important “(insert name here), I screwed up.”

This magic spell doesn’t relinquish you from doing excellent work or being responsible to fix whatever mistake you made, but you already know this.  You are a creator and being proactive and responsible is in your DNA!  What the magic spell does do is bring you a new level of peace, dignity, and respect that a defensive consumer never finds.  This phrase is your license to release yourself from unrealistic expectations of perfection.  Creators aren’t perfect.  They make mistakes just like consumers.  The difference is, creators learn to be comfortable with honesty whereas consumers hide behind a cloak of defensiveness.

Have a story about where you chose honesty over defensiveness?  Share!

* Obviously there are cases of anxiety where medical attention is required. This article is not addressing the medical condition of anxiety, but normal everyday stress felt by a majority of Americans.