Ways To Overcome Appraisal Anxiety: Some get excited while others might experience feelings of stress and anxiety with the thought of appraisals and performance reviews.

Ways To Overcome Appraisal Anxiety: It is that time of the year when we all eagerly wait for the increments and appraisals. The yearly hard work pays off during this time of the year when the seniors analyse our performance and provide increments, appraisals and promotions. While some get excited, others might experience feelings of stress and anxiety with the thought of appraisals and performance reviews.

What Is Appraisal Anxiety?

Appraisal anxiety simply refers to the feelings of fear, stress and anxiety of receiving negative feedback or negative reviews and not meeting the set expectations. A huge number of employees experience appraisal anxiety and struggle with ways to cope with these feelings.

Explaining about appraisal anxiety, Dr. Sameer Malhotra, Director and Head – Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Max Super Speciality Hospital, Saket said that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is useful with appropriate work-life balance.

According to Dr Malhotra, healthy professionalism, good time management (avoiding procrastination), healthy assertion and setting realistic timelines, appropriate prioritisation, healthy communication, timely clarification and guidance from superiors, and timely and efficient submission of work assignments can be some effective ways to deal with appraisal anxiety.

1. Understanding Your Feelings

The first step to dealing with negative feelings for a performance review is to understand your feelings. Every individual experiences a different set of emotions and feelings that are personal to them. Therefore, understand why you are experiencing such feelings, how long you have been struggling with these emotions and how frequently these feelings and thoughts affect you.

2. Develop Positive Attitude

Easier said than done, but developing a positive approach and attitude towards performance review can be extremely helpful. Be open to suggestions and do not take the review personally to your heart. Try to think positively and understand that everything happens for a reason.

3. Set Realistic Goals

Rather than anyone else, you know your potential better. If you experience appraisal anxiety, try to set minimal goals that you feel are achievable and then upgrade them with time. There is always a scope for improvement, therefore do not lose hope and formulate goals within a timeline that you can achieve with effective strategy.

4. Avoid Procrastination

Procrastination is an act of delaying or putting off tasks until the last minute or past the deadlines. To achieve good results, you need to practise time management, smart work and efficiency. Prepare a strategy that can help you in achieving your targets within the given timeframe.

5. Communication Is Key

If you do not achieve good results, it is time for effective communication. Talk to your seniors and managers and convey your thoughts and feelings to them. It is better to have an open and professional conversation with the hierarchy in order to avoid misunderstandings and prevent appraisal anxiety. According to Dr Malhotra, keeping the team informed in the process, timely efforts towards skill-building attempts towards sincere correction of one’s weaknesses and building on one’s strengths can help in dealing with such negative feelings.