The hidden cost of high performance in the workplace

If you had been asked to describe someone who was anxious at work, I expect you wouldn’t have imagined describing yourself before now.

From the outside, you’re seen as confident and capable – someone who will always lend a hand, who will get the job done, who will say yes even if it means cancelling plans, staying late, or working on a weekend to catch up on the work you already have on.  

You’ve seen the fruits of that hard work too. The raises, the recognition, the career progression, plus you enjoy your work.

Ambitious or anxious?

It can feel really conflicting. The more I say yes, the more I do, the more opportunities I have. This is where the intent in your decision-making comes in. If you are choosing to increase your workload, to reprioritise your week to support a teammate, gain valuable experience that will bring personal and professional growth when you have capacity, or when you can shift other things around, great.

However, when your decision is based on a ‘what if’, that’s coming from a different part of you. What if I say no? Will I have let them down? Will they ask someone else? Will that person then demonstrate they are more capable? Will it mean I am not? Will they not ask me again? The unanswerable questions continue on a loop.

This isn’t something you are unaware of either. The version of you that you perform on a daily basis, constantly striving to do more, to achieve more, to be seen as good enough, feels worlds away from the version that wakes at 3 am every night replaying conversations, trying to fix potential issues before anyone finds out.

Seeing anxiety as a signal

The term high-functioning anxiety isn’t a diagnostic term, but one that was coined by individuals trying to make sense of their experience of being outwardly successful in careers, relationships, life, but experiencing something different internally.

A version of anxiety that hides in plain sight. Behind a highlight reel of life goals, career highlights, titles, raises and reminders that I am OK if everyone else sees that I am OK. The version that is rarely acknowledged and underneath which burnout builds quietly.

It thrives in the avoidance of what’s really going on beneath the surface. You might name things in acceptable terms – I have a strong sense of responsibility, I don’t let people down, I have promised to get this done, it’s my job. Or not name them at all. What we don’t name, we don’t address. And the silence comes at a cost.

The cost of silence

Not the silence of a quiet room, but the silent persistent energy being spent managing how you're perceived.

The cost isn't always dramatic; it doesn’t always look like a crisis. More often it's a gradual noticing of the disconnect between the person you portray and the one you sit with at the end of the working day.

That disconnection is often what brings people into therapy. Not a crisis. Just the quiet recognition that what got you here isn't working anymore.

How therapy can help

Our lives don’t fit neatly into the personal and the professional. What happens in the office, we carry back through our front door. What happens in our relationships doesn’t switch off because 9 am rolls around.

Our work and working environments can have a huge impact on our mental and emotional health, whether it is the root cause or an exacerbating factor. In therapy, we work to understand what sits beneath the performance, and understand what's keeping the patterns, beliefs and behaviours in place. For too long, support has been surface-level and solution-focused.

This isn’t career advice, time management or better communication. Therapy offers a space to acknowledge that the same traits that support high performance can often also be what keeps us stuck. 

We can take pride in our work, be proud of our achievements, but know something needs to change. 

If any part of this article has felt like it was written about you, it probably was. Not because your experience is ordinary, but because you're not as alone in it as it can feel at 3 am.