“I did not perform well socially in junior high. I was a strange girl and I was in a lot of pain because of that, like most teenagers.” Claire Danes Elaine Aron, PhD comments on some of the consequences of being very sensitive as a child: “…family and school problems, childhood illnesses, and the like [...]
Talented people often choke under pressure because the distraction caused by stress consumes their working memory, a psychologist at the University of Chicago has found. Highly accomplished people tend to heavily rely on their abundant supply of working memory and are therefore disadvantaged when challenged to solve difficult problems, such as mathematical ones, under pressure, [...]
“Anxiety keeps me humble.” AIDS researcher Anthony Fauci, MD notes that pursuing excellence in your life and work is not without emotional challenges: “One of the by-products of being a perfectionist and constantly trying to improve myself are sobering feelings of low-grade anxiety and a nagging sense of inadequacy… This anxiety keeps me humble.” Perfectionism [...]