What Performance Anxiety Really Looks Like in High Achievers

When most people think about performance anxiety, they picture shaky hands before a speech, stumbling over words, or forgetting lines. That’s the surface-level version, the one you can see. But in high achievers, performance anxiety often looks very different.

It hides in plain sight, showing up as behaviors that look like dedication or “high standards” but are actually driven by fear.

The danger? If you don’t recognize it, you can’t address it, and over time, it drains your energy, erodes decision-making, and chips away at your confidence.

Here’s how performance anxiety really shows up for top performers, and what to do about it.

It Looks Like Overpreparing

Preparation is smart. But there’s a point where preparation stops being strategic and starts being a way to delay action. High achievers often mask anxiety as “just making sure it’s perfect.”

This can look like:

• Spending hours tweaking a presentation that’s already solid

• Rehearsing a pitch so many times you start second-guessing it

• Delaying a launch because you’re “waiting for the right time”

The root issue? Fear of failure, or fear of being exposed as not good enough, disguised as thoroughness.

Fix: Set a clear threshold for “ready” before you start. Once you hit it, you launch. No extra rounds unless a true gap appears.

It Looks Like Overcommitting

When anxiety is running in the background, saying yes feels safer than saying no. You tell yourself it’s because you can handle it, but really, you’re avoiding the discomfort of turning people down, or the fear of missing out on an opportunity.

The result: your schedule fills with more commitments than you can execute at a high level. This creates a self-fulfilling loop where you feel stretched thin, underdeliver, and then criticize yourself for not doing more.

Fix: Use a decision filter for every new request: Does this move me closer to my strategic goals? Do I have the resources and bandwidth to execute well? If either answer is no, it’s a no.

It Looks Like Micromanaging

Anxious leaders often double-check, rework, or hover over their team’s work, not because they don’t trust their people, but because they’re afraid mistakes will reflect poorly on them.

Micromanaging doesn’t just slow execution; it sends a silent message to your team that you don’t believe they can deliver. That erodes trust and makes your people more hesitant to take ownership.

Fix: Decide in advance what success looks like for each project, communicate it clearly, and give your team the space to deliver. Follow up at agreed checkpoints, not constantly.

It Looks Like Avoidance

Avoidance is one of the most common, least talked about symptoms of performance anxiety in high achievers. You put off a tough conversation, a critical decision, or a high-profile opportunity because the stakes feel too high to risk getting it wrong.

The problem? The longer you avoid it, the more pressure builds, and the harder it becomes to take action.

Fix: Break the avoided task into micro-actions. Commit to completing the smallest, least intimidating step today. Momentum builds confidence. 

It Looks Like Overthinking Every Move

High achievers with performance anxiety can spiral into endless “what if” scenarios. You replay conversations, analyze every potential outcome, and burn mental energy that could be spent on execution.

The cost isn’t just time, it’s decision fatigue. By the time you act, you’re mentally exhausted.

Fix: Give yourself a time limit to decide, especially on non-critical issues. For bigger decisions, define what data you actually need and commit to deciding once you have it.

It’s Not Just “Nerves”

For high achievers, performance anxiety isn’t about being unprepared, it’s about having your mental bandwidth hijacked by fear of underperforming, looking bad, or not living up to your own standards. Left unchecked, it can lead to burnout, stalled growth, and a loss of the confidence that got you to the top in the first place.

Why This Works When You Address It

When you learn to spot these disguised forms of anxiety, you can disrupt them early. You stop wasting energy on patterns that look like productivity but are actually self-protection. That opens up space for cleaner, faster, more strategic execution.

The shift comes from three things:

• Awareness – Seeing the patterns as anxiety, not “just how I work”

• Boundaries – Protecting time, energy, and mental bandwidth

• Reps under pressure – Deliberately practicing decisive action in controlled, high-stakes scenarios so confidence becomes muscle memory   

• Trust – Trust you have the skills and confidence to handle any situation

Your Next Move

Take a hard look at the last week of your work life. Where were you overpreparing, overcommitting, micromanaging, avoiding, or overthinking? Pick one of those patterns and commit to replacing it with the fix outlined above.

If you’re ready to turn performance anxiety into performance energy, Calybr Performance can help you build the mental frameworks and tactical habits that keep you in control under pressure. Let’s get to work so your best days aren’t a lucky break, they’re your baseline.