When anxiety fuels ambition

or, an interview with "Anxious Achiever" author Morra Aarons-Mele

Anxiety and ambition often go hand in hand—but we rarely talk about it openly, especially in the context of leadership. Morra Aarons-Mele, author of The Anxious Achiever and host of the award-winning podcast of the same name, has built a career helping high performers understand and reframe the role anxiety plays in their lives. In our conversation, she shares why anxiety doesn’t have to be a weakness, how anxious achievers can set boundaries without losing drive, and why learning to work with our inner critic—rather than against it—can be a powerful force for growth.

JW: What does the term “anxious achiever” mean to you and how can we begin to reframe anxiety—not as a weakness—but as a potential source of strength?

MAM: An anxious achiever is someone who channels anxiety into ambition, work ethic, productivity, and leadership. Along the way, they’ve learned that performance equals value. Many people tell me, “When I achieved, I was loved. I learned that’s what I should do—and the fear of losing keeps me moving forward.” Others say, “I grew up poor, with a single mom who struggled and a dad who didn’t pay the bills. I’ll never be that vulnerable again.” For them, the anxiety of scarcity drives their determination.

Anxiety is really a misunderstood emotion. We have a lot of social stigma against what anxiety represents in our culture, especially in leadership. And therefore we pretend we don't have it, which is crazy because everyone experiences anxiety. We need to have anxiety—it’s what has kept us alive as a species. It's our body's way of preparing us for action. So, we shouldn’t want to rid ourselves of our anxiety, but we may need healthier ways to manage it.

JW: What are your “go-to” strategies for managing anxious thoughts in the middle of a workday?

MAM: I'm a big believer in understanding the physical roots of anxiety. I have found that I need to calm my body before I can go into any cognitive reframing (the process of sort reframing our thoughts to try to change our mind or compartmentalize). So I have props on my desk—a pen, a water bottle, this egg shaped rock that I love— and I use these visceral tools to ground myself. So if I'm feeling my anxiety rise and I'm on a Zoom call, I might grab my water bottle or my rock and just really tune into it, feel it.

With practice, I’ve trained my body to down-regulate a bit. Then I use breathing to bring my brain back online and re-engage. Anxiety can spiral in a meeting when your nervous system ramps up—you can’t breathe, can’t focus, and feel shaky. That’s why grounding practices are so important.

JW: How can anxious achievers set boundaries in workplaces that often reward constant availability and overachievement?

MAM: Yeah, it's the rub, right? Anxious achievers often land in environments that both reward and exploit them. Too often, it takes burning out to realize they can set boundaries—and that’s where therapy can be transformative. I love ACT therapy because it helps people reconnect with their values and sense of self. Why does it feel so good when my boss calls me all day? Is that really what I want? Does this serve me?

When you clarify your values, you reclaim agency. Many of us repeat old patterns because they once worked—we were the “perfect kid.” But adulthood gives us the chance to ask, Why am I driving myself so hard? Do I want to keep doing this? That’s the deeper work of therapy. The practical side is learning to set limits. Boundaries are powerful, but without definition, they’re just amorphous.

So maybe run an experiment: For two nights a week, log off at six, not check email until morning, and see what happens. Can you try that for a month? Slowly, you realize the world doesn’t fall apart—and that you can build a life more in your control. But it starts with asking: Why do I do this? Is it just habit? What are my real values?

For years, I had terrible flying anxiety, especially when my kids were little. As a consultant, I flew weekly—it was stressful, every boundary crossed. On top of fearing the plane, I carried mom guilt: my kids were home with the nanny, I missed milestones, I felt like a terrible mother. But when I clarified my values, I saw that providing for my children and running a socially impactful business mattered deeply to me. Flying aligned with those values. That shift helped me move past the anxiety. It was hard, but powerful—and that’s the kind of clarity values work can bring.

JW: The “inner critic” drives high achievers, and for many parents that critic is especially loud—both at work and at home. How do you recommend quieting that voice without losing motivation or drive?

MAM: One of my biggest “aha” moments—thanks to Judd Brewer’s work—was realizing that anxiety is a habit. Our inner critic, what I call the voice, is also a habit. We’ve relied on it so long that it runs on autopilot. Same with our cognitive distortions—they become familiar companions. As anxious achievers, we even use them as fuel. But breaking those habits is transformative.

Take Newton Chang, a Google executive and world champion powerlifter. During the pandemic, he faced a serious mental health crisis. He told me that for most of his life he woke up every morning hearing, “You’re lazy.” Not from his parents, but from this ingrained voice. Of course, he wasn’t lazy—but in the pandemic, when he felt responsible for solving the unsolvable, the habit broke him down. He finally saw that this old pattern wasn’t serving him and had to let it go.

The work starts with noticing when the voice kicks in, naming it, maybe even giving it a character so it feels less like a part of you. The goal is to get to that place of choice: Do I listen to it because it motivates me, or do I tell it to shut up?

And it’s also okay to acknowledge that this is part of who you are. I love Dr. Basima Tewfik’s research at MIT on imposter syndrome. She’s shown that people with imposter feelings often outperform peers and are rated as more interpersonally effective—because they try harder and are more attuned. In one study, doctors with imposter feelings had better bedside manner. So sometimes, reframing matters: maybe this anxious, inner-critic-driven part of me isn’t all bad. Maybe it’s also what’s helped me get here.

JW: If you could give one message to working mothers who feel like they're holding everything together on the surface while managing intense anxiety underneath, what would it be?

MAM: This too shall pass. Anxiety feels urgent because your body believes it’s under threat—it’s just trying to protect you. But the truth is, it will pass, and you will get through it. As a mom with kids heading into high school and one still in elementary, I look back and think: it all went so fast, and I wasted too much time on guilt and anxiety.

It sounds cliché, but don’t let anxiety cannibalize your time. Give yourself moments free of it. Remember: anxiety is an emotion, not the truth—and like all emotions, it passes. If it doesn’t, get help.

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Read

Parents are burned out and lonely. Are our rigid rules making it worse? (Washington Post)

The pain of perfectionism (The New Yorker)

Enough with the mom guilt already (The Atlantic)

Your boss doesn’t have time to talk to you (The Wall Street Journal) Mark my words—organizations will come to regret this “delayering”

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