workplace authority anxiety

[summer.wolf]

Does anyone here suffer from workplace or authority figure anxiety?
I can blame my job and my boss but the fear of failure and humiliation is very much mine. Just had bad experience with work calling me on my day off. Made me feel terrible. How do you deal with it?

[HalfJack]

I'm not sure if it's the same thing but I used to find it near impossible to call in sick and I always felt like a little kid around my boss. If I made small mistakes I'd get incredibly stressed out too. Is that the kinda thing you mean?

For me, I often looked at how other colleagues dealt with the same situation, for perspective.
If I was being too hard on myself I'd try to rationalise by thinking about all the good things I'd done or how I'd react if someone else had made the same mistake (because I only make it a big deal when I mess up).

[MyNameIsTerry]

I was very confident at work, even when I returned to work after my first spell of GAD. However, there was always the odd person who would seem to unnerve me and I felt this before the GAD. I could argue easily with anyone else and it wouldn't matter how high up they might be, but with these few people it was as if they unarmed me before we even started. I think we all get that, I know other non anxious people have said the same so is this what is happening with your boss?

Your boss being a figure of authority in some way has a similiar impact as a parent because they are higher than you in their social setting. So, sometimes people feel unconfident in addressing them. I was kind of lucky because very few of my bosses over the years have been anything other than numpties so I didn't have a great deal of respect for them anyway.

I think, you need to work on your confidence. In you are self confident, understand your self worth and have good self esteem, you will feel on an equal footing to bosses.

Do you feel a lack of confidence, lack of self worth, lack of self esteem, etc? If you do, this could be part or all of the problem.

Do you have social anxiety? This would also cause things like this to happen.

You could use a thought diary. These use opposing positive statements (and positive 'What If's' if it's a 'What If' thought diary) to show you that your belief is incorrect, irrational or just wrongly placed. Perhaps for you, you could write "I think I have done X wrong" and then challenge it with "everyone is entitled to make mistakes", "if I did it's a lesson to learn from", "it will do not harm", "I can explain my error and move on", etc.

If you are passionate about your work as well, fear of failure is common.

Show yourself examples of what you have done that is good. Look at everything you do and let it show you that you do more right than wrong. Then look at practical solutions to improve the wrongs, and your boss could help with this if you want them to as it's what they are for.

[RichieSwansea_1985]

I have massive issues with this, can barley talk to my superiors in work without feeling that i'm talking **** or forcing conversation. Have always had something behind me pushing myself to do well, which was good but got to the point in my career without higher self esteem i can go no further and struggle where i am.

For me now, im just looking at why i put so much pressure on myself to do well or appear to do well at my job. After 10 years at work comparing myself to others just got me more stress, i work in software development and used to worry so much about making mistakes and people fingering the blame, still get it a bit now, but everyone does make mistakes, i just need to stop turning beetroot red now when its me lol :)

[Sabre120]

I'm always incredibly anxious about doing jobs in which an authority figure is constantly present, I worked at a warehouse for a couple of months after finishing 6th form and my boss was very easily angered and made me feel like a turd on his show, he also expected me to work in a warehouse with no safety regulations; boxes littering the floor, not even ladders to climb (I had to scale the shelves to get to the top). I was expected to work 12 hour days, usually with a 15 minute breaks at the most, sometimes no break at all. On top of that I had to cycle to and from there 7 miles each way every day, at 17-18 years old, having just came out of school it was a pretty unpleasant first experience of the working world and has given me a pretty strong fear of any job (Which is why I'm glad I'm currently at university).