New job, suggestions plz

Yanick,
I have the same issue. I over think a lot of things & end up sabotaging myself. It seems to me the best way to handle it is to find other things to think about. For me, I really like puzzles. I have some advanced calculus problems that I whip out to work on when I start feeling anxious. I spend a set amount of time working on the problem (very hard to stop, b/c I really want to get to the answer) & then go back to whatever else I need to focus on for the day. In the back of my mind, I keep working on the calc problem and that keeps me from over thinking everything else.

Beyond that, I just have to set strict rules for myself. I don't apologize. I don't go over most of my work more than twice & never more than three times. I know in my head that my best work tends to be the work as I first produce it before I ruin it with 30 revisions. I don't feel very comfortable or safe when I first have to make the decision to leave it alone & move on to something else, but after a few minutes I forget all about it so I think it's okay.

I don't know whether any of that may be of some help to you, but I hope that it is. It is so difficult to just leave things be, but that really is not only going to make you healthier but will probably improve the quality of your work as well. Let me know if there is any way I can help.

blessings,
frances

Yanick,
I'm not sure I have the right answer for you. Everyone's different. For me, after a lot of soul searching & research, I've found people in similar situations to mine. Some of us are able to see the problems in our world with much greater complexity than most. We look at a world issue and see how it connects with other issues, all the people who are involved, dozens of possible resolutions & many potential outcomes for each resolution. It is emotionally taxing to see all of that at once, and yet there is really no way to see it any other way b/c of how our minds work.

We want to pick the best solution, and yet no solution is perfect, so -- much like the Rubik's cube -- we keep trying out different solutions hoping to find the one that matches. But life is not like math. There often is no "right" answer. We can keep trying to find it, but never will. It's a hard thing to accept. Very hard for me. But I need to face the reality that my best contribution to this world, the best way that I can approximate a "right" answer, would result from me choosing a path & heading down it rather than suffering through a more careful exam of a couple hundred possibilities.

There is a book that really helped me a lot. It is "Beyond Boredom & Anxiety" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. There are lots of other great books out there, including some that are listed to the right under "Resources", but I recommended this book b/c it specifically deals with anxiety in high IQ individuals. It is a bit more theoretical than other books, but I think it still does a great job of outlining coping strategies both in the workplace and in the social arena. Hope you find it as helpful as I did.

best wishes with your new job & everything,
frances