In last weeks’ Careers Month 2025 Careers Briefing session we explored career anxiety, why it’s important, healthy, and even welcome (yes), and how to harness it as a force for good. We also made sure we could recognise the signs of anxiety when it start becoming unhelpful (in ourselves and others), and sources of support for coping with unhealthy anxiety. A few highlights from the session:
- First we defined anxiety for our purposes: a worry, concern, or fear of an unknown future
- We explored the physical sensations – recognising that these are different for everyone, and even for us depending on what we’re anxious about, and what else might be happening in our lives
- Career anxiety affects almost all of us at some point – we all have different triggers and thresholds, so it’s important to remember to be compassionate to others who may get anxious about their careers more easily than we do
- Underlying all of this is that anxiety – like all other human emotions – is a natural and important part of being human. We’ve evolved anxiety to keep us alert, remind us to take in information, be prepared, and to protect ourselves by taking appropriate action.
The big picture
One situation a participant drew attention to are the ways in which a work environment or the task demands of a role cause anxiety. There are at 2 ways of looking at this. One is to recognise there are indeed unhealthy work environments – caused by a variety of factors*. In this situation we might have to ask ourselves a few questions:
- What is in my control that I can change/influence?
- Do I want to initiate and carry out changes/influences?
- What factors are outwith my influence? To what extent can I tolerate these factors if there are other rewards in my job?
- Is there a possibility that other employers offer a different sort of work environment or culture to do the same or similar work where I might fit in better?
- Is a more profound change in my career necessary to create a better quality of life?
The other way think about it is that academic careers change in character quite considerably as we progress along the path from PhD to PI. The PhD allows immersion in research and a great(er) deal of freedom. As one progresses, the role of a researcher increasingly becomes more of administration, leadership, management, and policy. If we are becoming anxious in a role, we do have ask ourselves:
- Could it be because we have progressed into a role – postdoc or PI – that doesn’t suit our preferences?
- As a PhD student, did we have a realistic idea about what an academic career means in our discipline? Were our ideas too optimistic or too pessimistic?
- Are my feelings telling me that there are other career paths that might be more fulfilling and satisfying?
It is ok to realise and accept that progression through an occupation leads to roles that don’t suit us – our preferences, our lifestyle needs, our sense of purpose. This happens in many occupations; individuals may choose never to pursue management or leadership roles for a variety of reasons.
In these cases, career anxiety may be a catalyst for positive change in our careers – even thought it might feel daunting or scary, it may be telling us there could be a better fit out there. Most of all, as the theme of our session reiterated – our career anxiety is healthy: learn from your career anxiety and see what it’s trying to tell you about your career (and don’t forget that Darcey and Eleanor are here to support you in your learning in our 1:1 career development consultations.
*(This post is deliberately not about anxiety related to employment security 1. Because it’s a large and complex issue deserving of its own space 2. This post focuses on what happens when progression (PhD > Postdoc and onwards) means a change tasks and responsibilities – which is common to almost any career area)
Using anxiety to help us with the practicalities of career management
As an example we looked at how interviews might make us anxious. Our anxiety is telling us we need to do some work, and to tackle the fear of the unknown that interviews cause, we can:
- Prepare for the interview – increase our self-awareness, research the role and job in more detail, do practice interviews
What is the effect of this on career anxiety? Whilst we don’t know exactly what will happen at interview, by imagining what could happen and preparing for it, we’re less likely to be cause on the back foot. Enhancing our self-awareness through reflection means that we can handle unexpected questions because we have up to date knowledge of ourselves. We will have an awareness of our reactions and feelings so excitement, discomfort, confusion, enthusiasm, etc. won’t be new things that we experience and have to deal with on the spot. Being prepared helps reduce the information gaps that give rise to career anxiety and help you feel more confident with the situation.
Anxiety is an important source of information, but too often the advice is to get rid of it. If we can, we should try to embrace our anxiety to see what we can learn from it – career anxiety is normally telling us we are missing information about ourselves or about the external world.
Having said that, it IS important to recognise when anxiety is not helping us. Some signs to look for:
- When it’s chronic – we are feeling fearful and anxious on a near continuous basis
- We find we can’t control or manage it on our own
- It’s impeding our ability to make decisions or engage in normal day-to-day activities
- It’s affecting our physical health
These pages explains University and wider support you can access if you need help with your anxiety or want to be able to support peers.
The metaphor we used to help us tackle career anxiety is to think of it like standing on the bank of a river and needing to get to the other side. Trying to cross the river in one giant leap or even wade is fraught with danger. What we really need is a bridge. But even trying to build a bridge on our own is daunting. So we read, we plan, we enlist the help of others, we assemble tools, and materials, and slowly make a bridge across the river. Career anxiety is similar – when we identify what’s making us anxious, we plan, we prepare, we involved the wisdom and support of others – it become easier to bridge the gaps in information, and in this our career anxiety becomes a motivating force that keeps us going.
Bibliography
Klemanski, D.H. and Curtiss, J.E (2016) Don’t Let Anxiety Run your Life: Using the Science of Emotion Regulation & Mindfulness to Overcome Fear & Worry. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.
