Overcoming Anxiety as a High Performer (And Why Coaches and Parents Might be Making it Worse)

This week, I’m diving into how anxiety affects us as high performers...and how pressures from coaches and family members can make it much worse. I’m ranting a little and also giving you the tools you need to ground and center yourself.  

In this Episode:  

00:00 Understanding Anxiety: My Personal Journey 

08:10 The Impact of Coaches and Parents on Anxiety 

12:57 Strategies for Managing Anxiety 

Other links mentioned: 

Learn more about my Body Entry Scan: https://bodywhisperhealing.as.me/entry 

Watch Gutsy Chick Podcast on YouTube!

Check out more from Amanda:
Website: Body Whisper Healing
Instagram: @Amanda.G.Smith
Facebook: Body Whisper Healing
Pinterest: AmandaGSmithBWH
LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith

Take the Gutsy Chick Quiz to find out how your athletic mindset might be holding you back from healing your chronic health issue: https://gutsychickquiz.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Anxiety: My Personal Journey
• 8:10 The Impact of Coaches and Parents on Anxiety
• 12:57 Strategies for Managing Anxiety

Transcript

0:01

I'm going on a rant. hope you're ready. This episode is about anxiety and all of the factors that play into anxiety, including coaches, parents, spouses, and so on. Buckle in. This one's going to be entertaining. I'm your host, Amanda Smith. Thank you for listening to the gutsy chick podcast. I know we rebranded it. It's so exciting. It's the same stuff. We're just talking to high performers now. So if you are a female high performer, a woman leader, a female athlete, a CEO, an executive of any sort. I'm talking to you. I created the gutsy chick quiz for those of you who are experiencing chronic health conditions. Anxiety is probably part of that. Go check out this quiz to find out how your mindset might be affecting your healing process. Anxiety. Have you ever experienced it? I have. The first time I had an anxiety attack, a full-blown anxiety attack, I was pregnant with my daughter. It was one of those moments where you couldn't get enough room. Being indoors felt unbelievably claustrophobic. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't catch my breath. I couldn't think clearly. My husband was watching me fall apart, wondering if he should take me to the hospital. I went outside and that felt a little bit better, but I still felt claustrophobic on planet earth. And I've had several anxiety attacks since then. So if you know, you know, and if you've witnessed, you know. But let's, let's go with the definition first. The definition of an, of anxiety. It's a common health, mental health condition characterized by excessive worry, fear, or nervousness. It can interfere with daily life relationships and work. Yep. It can. The exact cause of anxiety are complex and not fully understood. But there's several things that can contribute. Genetics, brain chemistry imbalances, life experiences like trauma and stress, medical conditions like a thyroid disorder, that's where it gets real fun. Medications like stimulants, also drugs. Let's break this down a little bit, shall we? Excessive worry, fear, and nervousness. It's something that a lot of people deal with. In fact, what are the statistics on how many people are dealing with anxiety in the world? I'm gonna look it up. 19.4 % of adults in the United States experience anxiety disorder according to a study in 2024 done by the Manhattan Psychology Group. Anxiety disorders begin in childhood with 25 % of cases diagnosed by age 14. Women are more likely to experience anxiety than men with a prevalence rate of 25.9 % compared to 12.9%. That's by the National Institute of Health. as an athlete. hearing those that you love rooting you on. but maybe even throwing in negative remarks. not knowing that they're doing it because it's their own self-talk. And that's something I had to learn over years. but hearing that negative self talk fly at you while you're trying to perform at a high level. can be nerve wracking. excessive nervousness. fear of failure as an athlete is part of the game. But then to have this added gnawing at you. I know athletes who dreaded getting in the car after a game because their parents were gonna rip them a new one. Fun term. This doesn't help with anxiety. This doesn't help bolster a confident attitude when they have to go out and perform. When it comes to being an executive, the amount of internal work that you have to do to get to this level in a business. is a lot if in your childhood you had to fight against the negativity, the fear, the nervousness, the anxiety. unraveling it to get to those high levels. took some time. And it might have dictated whether you got to an executive level quickly or not in a corporation. Now, if you own your own business as an entrepreneur, you are the executive and the owner and the doer of all the tasks until you hire a team, until you can afford to hire a team. And then when you hire a team, you have to lead that team. And if you were never a leader before you got to that point, that's got its whole own set of nervousness and fear. There's one more word they used worry. my gosh, as a business owner, when you have employees that you have to pay, the worry that flies in, I've got to be able to pay these people. We've got to continue to produce. Does this sound familiar as an athlete also? I've got to continue to produce or I lose my scholarship. I've got to continue to produce or I don't even get a scholarship. I don't even play at that next level that I want to play at. If you have aspirations to play at the Olympic level or the professional level. Learning how to harness the worry, the fear, and the nervousness that can produce anxiety is a skill in and of itself. Learning how to find the triggers is the first step. Understanding what's gonna set you off when it comes to worry, fear, and nervousness. And then when it does get set off as athletes, we have to respond quickly if we're in a game situation. And hopefully your coaches are putting you into game situations so that you've got plenty of practice before game situation happens because that practice is about mental, emotional, and physical practice. coaches. Please allow your players to grow. Bolster them, give them boundaries, just like parents have to do. Give them boundaries. And when they violate those boundaries, that's when you discipline. You don't discipline them because they made an error in a game. You discipline them when they made an error because they didn't try and you already established the rule that giving effort is of the highest expectation. I hate absolutely hate when my softball players come to me and they tell me my coach yells at me all the time. Just throw strikes. How is that helpful? I have players who are constantly looking at their parents or their coach or me as their private coach, looking for reassurance, looking for an emotional response, looking for any clue that what they just did was okay or not. But if you establish the rules, the boundaries, the things you're looking for, in their effort, in their attitude. then they know what you're looking for. Reiterate it week over week. With my team as an entrepreneur, I am reminding them these are my expectations. This is what I would like to see get done. These are the due dates. if they don't make their due dates. They're up for suspension or being let go. Natural consequences. My rules are real simple when it comes to softball. Respect each other. Respect your equipment. Respect the environment you're in and respect all the other participants, the coaches, the fans, the umpires, the referees and so on. That's it. You live within those bounds and you give effort. That's all that matters. And you're not always going to give 100 % effort all the time. So set your expectations for that. Pareto's law, 80-20. If you give 80%, it'll take care of the other 20. Now, do we share that with athletes? Heck no. We want them to give 110%. Is that even possible? And when they do give 110%, they go outside of their comfort zone and they push themselves and make errors because they're pushing themselves outside their comfort zone. Be reminded that you told them to do that when you told them 110%. I dealt with a lot of tough coaches. I have dealt with a lot of coaches that were not mentally ready to be coaches. I have dealt with high pressure, high pressure jobs, my own business. I don't need any extra worry, fear, or nervousness added on top of that. If you have employees. athletes or even yourself that are dealing with anxiety. There is a way to get out of it. I know. I've worked my way out of it over several years and I have a much shorter path. So let me give you a couple of tips. grounding. This doesn't mean go ground your kid, or ground your players, or put them in the corner. It means have them sit down. Breathe deeply, calm their nervous system down, get grounded and centered. Centered is the next tip. Finding neutrality and inviting them to find neutrality. inviting yourself to find neutrality. In my episode with Leslie Chen, we talk about the neuroscience of belief. And one of the very last things that we talk about in that episode is about asking yourself, what's best for me right now? That question brings you to neutral and center very quickly. So first we get grounded, and then we get centered. And if you've listened to the bubble journey that Melissa Seaman taught me, it's one of the episodes I'll have to look up. But in the teens, the bubble journey, first, we bring our energy back to ourselves and we get self-centered. And then we push that energy out into the rest of our being. Yeah. Does that sound familiar? First we get grounded, then we get centered. and then we express our energy. That's tip number three. We express our energy by maybe releasing some of that anxiety, screaming into a pillow. because that might help. Growling, just growling, sounding like an animal, bringing in animal noises, especially with the younger kids. That is always so much fun to watch and listen to. If your anxiety is spiraling and it seems like it's getting worse, reach out, jump on an entry body scan with me. Let's see if we are a good fit for each other. You can find that link in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening.