Career Anxiety: How to Manage the Stress of Figuring Out Your Future

Career anxiety is common among people at all stages of their careers and with good reason. It doesn’t matter if it’s looking for your first job or trying to switch to a completely different industry, dealing with the uncertainty that comes with major decision-making can be taxing. There is endless pressure to make the “right” decision from family, friends, and society at large, and this pressure can become too much to handle without the right support and mindset. So how do you make the “right” decision, and better yet, how can you manage the stress of figuring out your future?

It’s important to understand the background of the industry that you want to be in - gathering information and building up a picture of what the perfect role looks like can be an excellent starting point for reaching goals. Different things are important to different industries. For example, networking for mental health students and professionals can be a priority, while honing technical computer skills can be more important for business careers. 

This article will help you understand a little bit more about career anxiety and its underlying causes before exploring ways to alleviate these worries. Throughout the process, it’s important to remember that there will always be another opportunity. Even if something feels perfect and you don’t get it, the worst mistake you can make is ruminating on it and blaming yourself.

What is Career Anxiety?

As the name suggests, career anxiety is fear associated with making decisions about your professional future. Common ways it can manifest are from feelings of uncertainty and societal pressure, especially if your peers are succeeding in their chosen fields and you are taking longer to reach the levels that they are already at. Given the current economic state of the world, financial worries can also layer on top of future anxiety to make one big worry-filled melting pot. At this stage, it’s important to give your feelings validity and understand that they are normal and being felt by many others.

How Does It Manifest?

When you’re asked by your uncle at the Thanksgiving table how the job search is going, there can be building social pressure to give positive answers, which can then manifest as a number of different physical symptoms. Feeling helpless when searching for an answer, avoiding the topic completely, or being struck by headaches, fatigue, or gripped by full-body panic are all ways that anxiety can rear its head in your body. The news isn’t all bad, though - there are ways you can tackle this issue before we even get to Thanksgiving.

Strategies for Managing Career Anxiety

The future is uncertain for everyone, especially when it comes to careers. If you walked the floor at Lehman Brothers in 2007, a year before their bankruptcy, how many would predict that their bank would go under? 

The fact is that careers can take unexpected turns for reasons entirely out of an individual employee’s control, and flexibility is a cultivated skill that can massively help with unexpected planning. If you try to reframe your anxiety as excitement for new opportunities, it can reduce the stress of a lofty long-term goal and allow you to focus on short-term wins, like writing a good cover letter or getting an interview with a company you’re interested in.

There are other small goal-setting exercises that can help, especially if you’re unemployed or still a student. Updating your LinkedIn and resume so you can immediately throw your hat into the ring when a suitable job comes up is great pre-planning so you’re not caught unaware if you find a job that’s about to close that interests you. Speaking of social media, though, try and limit comparisons. LinkedIn is especially guilty of users posting “humblebrag” content that won’t do any favors for your well-being. Remember that your goal should be something that excites you and motivates you, not what an influencer would deem to be “successful”. 

Keep everything in perspective, as difficult as that can be: very few people will stay at the same firm or in the same industry their whole life, and moving can present a fantastic opportunity for you to grow and find something that suits you. Take time out of your day for self-care, even if that’s just going for a walk and getting some sunlight and fresh air. You are still you, and your self-worth is not defined by your labor. 

Career anxiety can be paralyzing. Ask anybody with a job, getting one can be nerve-wracking and difficult, but it doesn’t have to dictate your future. Embrace the uncertainty of the unknown and remember that tomorrow can be a better day, even if today wasn’t. Your self-worth is dictated by how you think about yourself, so remember to ignore negative, intrusive thoughts and promote positive affirmation. As the saying goes, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, so with patience and persistence, you will find the path that is right for you, no matter how long that could take.