Recently I've missed out on some opportunities to showcase myself, and I felt a bit of regret in my heart. Although this opportunity wasn't big, it was at least a step forward, and not crossing this threshold gave me the feeling that I hadn't been truly recognized.
Often, the slightest hesitation and an opportunity slips away quietly. One reason for this might be that I've expressed "anxiety." In the past, a senior colleague who understood me well gave me great encouragement when she sensed my anxiety. She said, "You're someone who puts anxiety upfront, but you always do things very well." And a former manager said, "You clearly know you can do it and you do it well, but why don't you have enough confidence?"
I think they both pointed out the problem with people like me. It's not that we can't do it or can't achieve it—we just keep "worrying" that we can't do it well, afraid we can't meet others' expectations. To avoid this "cognitive dissonance," we might repeatedly say things like "I'm so nervous" or "Can I really do this?" While we want to try in our hearts, we don't dare say "I want to" or "I can," fearing we'll mess up or do poorly and invite criticism and strange looks. At the end of the day, it's the fear of being scolded, so we want to give others a heads-up in advance. If we fail, we'll have an excuse to make a getaway. Actually, I think this approach is really not good—I need to adjust.
After all, for supervisors and managers, they may not understand their own personality that well. Instead, they only receive the emotion of anxiety, and then they won't trust you enough. They'll worry that entrusting you with tasks will end in disaster. This is when we fall into the negative emotion of "maybe I'm not good enough."
It repeats and spirals downward—not only do we miss opportunities to showcase ourselves, but this "anxiety" also makes us increasingly troubled, causes us to lose confidence, and lets opportunities to perform slip away.
"Opportunities always come disguised as difficulties." Because of this, my own insight is to keep anxiety hidden in your heart and not show it. Let yourself digest these worries, engage more with opportunities, treat each performance as practice, operate repeatedly, and let yourself become more certain of your work status, build confidence, gain others' trust, and gradually be seen by people.
Of course, this doesn't mean not sharing anxiety with others—rather, it's about knowing how to appropriately package yourself in the workplace.
