There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen and those who believe things happen to them.

Anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe they can make things happen and those who believe things happen to them. The first group are convinced that the outcome of their lives and careers is more or less in their own hands, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. The second group take more of a Forrest Gump approach—they sit around and wait for the bus to take them somewhere.

University of Florida psychologist Tim Judge and his colleagues have shown overwhelmingly that people who feel that they control the events in their lives (more than the events control them) and are confident in their abilities end up doing better on nearly every important measure of work performance. In Judge’s studies, these individuals—we’ll call them “the Empowered”—were found to do the following:

• Sell more than other employees do
• Give better customer service
• Adjust better to new assignments T
• ake home an average of 50 to 150% more in annual income

In Good Times And Bad. Of course, when good times are rolling, nearly all of us believe we have the world by the tail. What makes the Empowered in Tim Judge’s studies special—whether they work the shop floor or in the C-suite—is that they don’t get overwhelmed when the going gets tough. Just like you, the Empowered feel intense anxiety when hard times strike, but they use this anxiety differently. Since the Empowered believe that they have control over the outcomes in their lives, their anxiety fuels passion instead of pity, drive in lieu of despair, and tenacity over trepidation. Whether the Empowered find themselves presiding over a division with tanking revenues, on the receiving end of a scathing performance review, or staring yet another job-hunting rejection in the face, they refuse to wave the white flag. They redouble their efforts. Win At Work: An eBook From Forbes Land a great job, handle your boss and get ahead today.

Here’s How It Works

Anxiety is an absolutely necessary emotion. If you don’t think you experience it, you simply don’t understand it. Our brains are hard-wired such that it’s difficult to take action until we feel some level of anxiety. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of anxiety. Anxiety-graph The trick is to manage your anxiety and keep it within optimal levels in order to achieve top performance. If you don’t have the tools in place to keep your anxiety in check when it comes on strong, you’ll never realize your full potential. You can get better at managing the anxiety you inevitably feel when facing difficult and uncertain situations. You just need to follow the steps that successful and empowered people take to keep their anxiety from taking over. The key thing to understand before getting started is that you are indeed facing uncertainty—the outcome of your future has not been decided. It’s up to you to develop the beliefs and mental toughness that will make you one of the Empowered.