61 | Why Working On Yourself Is Making Your Anxiety Worse

• Why does working on yourself make your anxiety worse instead of better?
• Why do you feel more overwhelmed after you finally decide to change? 
• What if this anxiety is not a sign to stop, but a sign that what you’re doing actually matters? 

In this episode, Jessica Davis breaks down why anxiety often increases when you start working on yourself. If you’ve ever set a goal, started a new habit, or tried to improve your life and felt more stressed, more overwhelmed, or ready to quit, this episode will help you understand why.

She explains how your nervous system reacts when something feels important, why anxiety and excitement feel the same in your body, and how the avoidance cycle keeps you stuck. You’ll also learn how to tell the difference between anxiety that means “this matters” and anxiety that signals misalignment.

This episode walks you through six clear steps to help you stop quitting in moments of overwhelm, make decisions with a clear mind, and stay consistent even when progress feels slow. If you’ve been stuck in the cycle of starting and stopping, this will help you move forward with confidence and clarity.

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

• Why anxiety often gets worse when you start working on yourself
• How your brain connects anxiety with avoidance and quitting
• The difference between anxiety that signals growth and anxiety that signals misalignment
• Why you should not make decisions when you feel overwhelmed
• How to pause without quitting and break the stop-start cycle
• Five questions to help you get clear on what you want
• Why your core values determine whether you should keep going
• How to handle the “middle phase” where nothing feels like it’s working
• Why most people quit too early and how to avoid it

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This podcast was created by Davis-Smith Mental Health, offering counseling for teens & young adults in Illinois (only). We accept BCBS PPO, Aetna PPO, and self-pay clients.

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⚠️ Disclaimer:  Block Out the Noise provides personal insights and practical stra...

Transcript

When Growth Makes Anxiety Spike

Jessica N. Davis 0:07

You finally decide to go for it. The goal, the habit, the change you've been putting off, and instead of feeling motivated and clear, you feel overwhelmed, on edge, more anxious than you did before you even started. Maybe you set a goal, and by week two, you were so stressed about keeping up with it that you stopped. Maybe you've been trying to work on yourself and the pressure of it is making everything feel worse, not better. Now, a part of you is wondering if wanting this is even worth it. That makes complete sense. I want you to hear me out because what you're feeling doesn't mean you should stop. Today I'm giving you six things to do when working on yourself starts to make your anxiety worse so that you know exactly when to take a step back and when to keep moving forward. Hi, and welcome to Block Out the Noise, a space to quiet the noise of anxiety, self-doubt, and overthinking. I'm Jessica Davis, licensed therapist, mindset coach,

Anxiety Versus Excitement Reframing

Jessica N. Davis 1:07

and the creator of the courage method. If you're sitting with that question right now, wondering if what you're feeling is real, the anxiety survival toolkit was made exactly for that moment. It's got coping skills, audio tools, a full breakdown of the courage method, and a meditation for when your thoughts won't slow down. It's free. Go grab it in the show notes. And quick reminder this podcast is here to support and guide you, but it is not a replacement for talking to someone in real life. If you're struggling with your mental health, please reach out to a therapist. And if you're in crisis, contact emergency services or a local helpline. You don't have to go through it alone. All right, let's jump in. One, understand what's actually happening. When you decide to really commit to something, the anxiety starts to increase. That isn't a red flag. Most of the time, it's just what caring deeply about something feels like. I think we all feel this excitement about improving ourselves, and we have these ideas and we want to implement them all. But then the anxiety gets worse, and we assume that feeling means something is wrong. But nothing is wrong. Your nervous system noticed that you actually want this. And the higher the stakes, the louder it's going to get. Here's what the research tells us anxiety and excitement activate the same physiological response in our bodies, the same heart rate increase, the same adrenaline, the same nervous energy. The only difference is how we interpret it. When we label that feeling as anxiety, we want to escape. When we label it as excitement, we want to lean in. So before you decide that the feeling means stop, I want you to ask yourself, what if this feeling just means I actually care about this? Because that's usually actually what it is. You know, it's interesting. Once you start to see that pattern, it's really hard to unsee it.

Breaking The Anxiety Avoidance Trap

Jessica N. Davis 3:01

Two, breaking the avoidance cycle. This is actually one of my favorites. At its core, anxiety is about avoidance. And when something feels hard or uncertain, your brain starts looking for a way out. And quitting seems to be the obvious way out. So here's how the cycle usually goes you get excited about something and you start. And then the weight of anxiety hits and you stop. And then you find something new to get excited about, and then the anxiety increases again and you stop again. Every time you exit that cycle, you're reinforcing the idea that when anxiety shows up, walking away is the right decision. Researchers actually call this the anxiety avoidance trap. The more you avoid, the more threatening the thing feels, and the harder it becomes to go back to it. So the next time you're at the edge, that moment right before you walk away from the sport you love or deciding college isn't for you, or convincing yourself that starting that business isn't worth it, I want you to recognize it for what it is. That's the avoidance cycle trying to pull you back in. Think about it like the first mile of a run, or even less than that, because it just depends on how much you've run before. When you haven't run in a while, your lungs are burning, your legs feel heavy, and every part of you is saying, turn around, stop. But that feeling isn't telling you that you can't do this. It's just your body adjusting to what you asked it to do. And if you push through, eventually it starts to feel good. But increasing anxiety is part of the process. It doesn't mean the process is wrong. The next one will explain this further. Three,

Pause The Process Without Quitting

Jessica N. Davis 4:41

stop, but don't quit. There's a real difference there, and it matters. When anxiety is at its loudest, your emotions are all over the place. And yes, your emotions are real and they're valid, but they're also temporary and they aren't always an accurate picture of what's true. Here's what I always tell my clients don't make a permanent decision from a temporary feeling. Research on decision making actually shows that when we're emotionally activated, stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, we tend to make choices that feel good in the short term, but end up hurting us in the long run. So the rule is simple: don't quit from the feeling. Pause and give it time. Step away, get some air and let the intensity settle. And tomorrow or the next day, or whenever you feel like you have a clear mind and you're not making a decision based off of emotion, then you'll be in a better place to make a choice. But if you walk away in the thick of it, most of the time, you just don't go back. And yet you're also left with this regret of, did I make the right choice? But when you calm yourself down and you're making a thoughtful decision, there was rarely a regret in it because you know you made the best decision you could with the information you had at that time. All right. So you've paused and the intensity has now come down. Now

Journal For Clarity And Ownership

Jessica N. Davis 6:06

what? Four, sit with yourself. Not your group chat, not your parents, not your best friend who means well, but honestly doesn't have the full picture. You. Here's what I see happen so often. When anxiety takes over, we think going to other people is going to help. And sometimes it really does. But a lot of times you ask five different people and you get five different answers, and you end up right back where you started with even more noise to sort through. The clarity you're looking for almost always comes from inside. So here are five questions I want you to journal. Write them down and actually answer them. One, what do I want to gain from this? Two, whose goal is this? Did I choose this, or is someone else's voice louder than mine right now? Three, is this anxiety scared, but excited? Like it's a big and terrifying, but there's real energy behind it. Or does it feel like dread? Because those feel different. One has something behind it, and the other feels heavy and drainy, poor. At this point in my life, am I actually willing to do what this requires? Not should I be willing. Am I five? What are my top five to seven core values right now? And does this align with them? Write it all down because something shifts when you put it on paper, and it becomes a lot harder to lie to yourself when the truth is right there in front of you. So you've done the reflection, you've sat with the hard questions. Five,

Values Check With Two Stories

Jessica N. Davis 7:47

check your values. This is a step most people skip entirely. And of course, hopefully you haven't because this is part of the five questions, but it's the last one. So I wanted to give you a little bit more detail on it. Because honestly, it's one that will tell you more than anything else whether you should push through this or let this one go. I want to share two stories because I think they show this better than anything I could truly explain. The first one was building my practice. I wasn't sleeping, I was anxious, my mind wouldn't stop. But underneath all of that, there was this deep feeling of this is mine. This is something I truly want to move forward on. When I sat down and got honest with myself, every question pointed forward. It aligned with who I was, the timing made sense in my life, and I was willing to do what was required. So I kept going. Now, fast forward to just a year ago or so, I started working on a completely separate business, something I was genuinely passionate and excited about, but the anxiety showed up and it was strong. My stomach was a nonce. I was irritable and overwhelmed, and it felt similar to how I was feeling before. But when I sat with these questions from above, the answers looked completely different. This would take years to pay off, it would pull me away from my family, and it would take away energy from the practice, the work I actually loved doing. So when I held that against what I valued in that moment in that season of life, the answer became really clear. Not because it wasn't a bad idea, but it didn't align with where I am and what I had chosen to protect. So, same feeling, two completely different answers. The difference was knowing my values. And here's what I want you to understand: values change. What you value at 16 isn't what you'll value at 25. And what matters to you at 20 will shift by 30. So check in with them at least once a year. Sit down and ask yourself, what are my top five to seven core values right now? Because when your goals and values line up, the anxiety doesn't disappear, but it becomes so much easier to keep moving through it. Or choosing a different path. This next one I really want you to hold on to.

The Middle Phase Where People Quit

Jessica N. Davis 10:12

You will thrive if you can learn this. Six, learn to sit in the middle. This one is tough to do and yet so powerful if you can achieve it. Get this down once and it will carry you throughout the rest of your life. So you've decided to keep going, right? You've made that decision, you've done the reflection, you checked your values, and you've chosen to move forward. And now you're in it. You've put in the work, you're showing up, you're doing what is needed and necessary. And nothing feels different yet. You're not seeing the outcome that you want. That's uncomfortable because we live in a world that tells us results should be fast and progress should be visible. And if it isn't working, something must be wrong. But that isn't how real change works. Think about planting something. You put it in the ground, you water it, you take care of it, and for a while you see absolutely nothing. If you kept digging it up to check, analyzing every little thing, looking for signs that it wasn't working, you'd interrupt the very process you're trying to protect, you're trying to create. Alex Hermosy talks about this in business, this lull that happens after the initial excitement, where you're deep in the work, but you can't yet see the results. He says that's the point where most people quit. The same thing happens in everyday life and the goals you set and the habits you're building and the work you're doing on yourself. You get to the lull. It feels like nothing is happening and you stop. But you were closer than you thought. So when you start to feel that first small shift, and you will, don't overthink it. Don't ask if it's real or wonder if it's going to last. Just keep doing what got you there. Focus on the grind because the shift becomes a pattern and the pattern becomes momentum. And that version of you that almost quit in the middle, that version had no idea how close they were. I'm not going to pretend that it's easy because it's not. Sitting in the discomfort of growth, pushing through when everything in you wants to stop, learning to trust yourself when anxiety is loud, that takes real courage. But here's what I want you to know that version of you that keeps going even when it's hard, even when nothing feels like it's changing it, that version of you is building something. And one day you're going to look back and be really glad you didn't quit.

Share The Episode And Review

Jessica N. Davis 12:41

If this episode resonated with you, I would love it if you would send it to someone who's in the middle right now. And the anxiety survival toolkit is in the show notes whenever you need something to lean on between episodes. Also, if you could take two minutes to give us an honest review, it truly helps more people find this podcast. But if you don't, thank you so much for listening. I truly appreciate it. Keep moving forward, trust yourself, and never forget you have what it takes to block out the noise.