Maybe you’ve felt the pang of fear when someone doesn’t text you back right away.
Perhaps you’ve avoided voicing your needs at work, worrying it might upset your boss.
Or maybe you need frequent validation, like needing to hear “I love you” or “You’re doing great” to feel secure.
These can be telltale signs of anxious attachment—and let me tell you, you’re not alone. Anxious attachment is one of the most common insecure attachment styles.
In fact, this attachment style has been linked to chronic people-pleasing, shaky self-esteem, and even professional struggles. And it doesn’t just affect us—it’s a hot topic in the lives of celebrities too. (More on that in a minute.)
Here, we’re going to look at where anxious attachment comes from, how it impacts your relationships and career, and, most importantly, what you can do to heal. For a deeper exploration of this topic, check out my most recent episode of Mental Health Bites with Dr. Judy of Mental Health Bites with Dr. Judy (you can listen right here in substack, on Apple, Spotify, or watch on YouTube).
What is Anxious Attachment?
Anxious attachment starts in childhood, often in relationships where care or affection was inconsistent. As a child, you might have felt unsure if your caregiver would be there when you needed them. Fast forward to adulthood, and this uncertainty becomes a blueprint for your relationships and even your career.
A great example? Actress Kristen Bell has openly discussed how therapy helped her overcome patterns of anxious attachment in her marriage. She shared that she used to struggle with needing constant reassurance and approval, which made her feel emotionally vulnerable. (Fun fact: I actually acted with her in an episode of Veronica Mars. I share my experience working with her in the most recent Mental Health Bites episode).
On the career side, research from Frontiers in Psychology reveals that anxious attachment can lead to lower workplace satisfaction and productivity, often because of a fear of rejection or failure. Think about it: if you’re constantly second-guessing your performance or seeking validation, that emotional toll can block your professional growth.
Here’s the core of it—anxious attachment leads to chronic people-pleasing. Why? Because your self-esteem relies on external approval. This can keep you stuck in a cycle of seeking validation and feeling unfulfilled when you don’t get it. Sound familiar?
Anxious Attachment in Childhood
Anxious attachment usually develops early in childhood. Anxiously attached children realize their caregivers may not be able to meet their needs, but they also need to accept whatever support they can get because their survival depends on it. As a result, they behave in ways that are designed to keep parents as close as possible while also concealing qualities they believe are undesirable to their parents.
Over time, the inconsistent bond with their caregivers causes them to tread carefully with their parents and become chronic people pleasers so their loved ones won’t abandon them. Consequently, their own feelings, desires, and needs are often stifled or buried.
Anxious Attachment in Adulthood
As adults, anxiously attached people depend on other people’s constant positive reinforcement and approval to maintain their self-esteem, self-worth, and overall sense of self. They may use people-pleasing behaviors as a way to maintain relationships, ensure support, and reduce their anxiety.
Many adults with anxious attachment find social settings more stressful than the average person because they worry about what others think of them, often focusing on the negative while filtering out the positive. This can lead to thoughts of imagined rejection, second-guessing interactions, and believing they are solely to blame for any bad outcomes.
How Anxious Attachment Can Affect You in the Workplace
There is a lot of information out there on how anxious attachment can affect a person in romantic relationships, but far less information about how anxious attachment affects other realms of life - like one’s career. Anxiously attached individuals may constantly seek approval from their colleagues and make an extra effort to be liked by everyone at work. This can make it difficult for them to speak up in meetings out of fear that they might be ridiculed or their ideas might be rejected. It can also lead them into the trap of groupthink, or burning themselves out trying to impress their colleagues or a supervisor.
If a day or two goes by without positive reinforcement, this worker may begin to question their own productivity, likability, and value as an employee. Colleagues may tire of having to constantly reassure these workers, and may create distance in that workplace relationship, provoking even more anxiety and self-doubt for the worried warrior. Worried warriors might have problems starting projects or making decisions without getting others’ input and approval, limiting their ability to innovate and grow. As leaders, their people-pleasing tendencies might get in the way of making more effective decisions.
Fear of negative evaluations might keep these employees confined to their comfort zone to avoid criticism or disparagement. Because anxiously attached people put a negative filter on most interactions, they can feel underappreciated and dissatisfied, which can cause them to invest less in their work identity and quit jobs sooner than others.
“I’m Not as Worthy as Others.”
This is a core belief that I often find anxiously attached people ascribing to. Part of the reason people with anxious attachment have such a low sense of self-worth is that they have a much higher, more universally positive view of others’ worth. As a child, they strongly desired caregiver approval and attention, and may have prioritized these desires over building a healthy self-concept. Growing up, that person may have developed beliefs that they are unworthy, unlovable, or incapable. Then, through selective bias, which is a largely subconscious process, this person pays more attention to events and situations that might support these negative core beliefs, which causes them to strengthen over time.
If their primary caregivers were sparing or sporadic with their love and attention, this can lead people with anxious attachment to constantly seek out signs and behaviors of caring from others that “prove” they are worthy of love. Yet, even when they get validation, they seem to have trouble holding on to this feeling for long. So they seek validation again and again, often from the same person who holds importance to them.
Over time, worried warriors’ emphasis on others’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors over their own leads them to subconsciously (or consciously) form the idea that they are not as worthy as others—of love, attention, achievement. They need only look at their own behaviors to confirm this: They constantly work so hard to chase validation from others and put a premium on others’ opinions, values, and experiences, so it must be that they are not as important as others.
In trying to please others and meet their needs—often at the expense of their own—they become more self-critical and don’t treat themselves with the same love and compassion as others. The proverbial pat on the back from others is just a quick fix that does not address the deeper yearning of their inner child who still seeks validation. Their brain starts to internalize these messages and the belief that they are not worthwhile solidifies and drives their behaviors.
The Antidote to “I’m Not as Worthy as Others.”
No matter the roots of your low self-worth, the great news is that by engaging in science-backed exercises you can strengthen your self-concept and increase your resilience. I cover many of these in my book, but here, I want to share one easy to implement tip that’s designed to help you find self-assurance and shift your focus from external validation to inner strength. I call it “The Daily Anchor.” Let’s break this down into three actionable steps:
Set a Morning Intention. At the start of your day, take 5 minutes to reflect on what you want to achieve, but frame it around your values and needs—not anyone else’s approval. Write this intention in a journal or on a sticky note. Instead of saying, ‘I’ll make my manager happy by working extra hours,’ say, ‘I will contribute meaningfully in today’s team meeting and honor my boundaries by stopping work at 6 PM.’ This primes your mind to focus on self-directed goals, reducing the need for external reassurance.
Pause for Reflection Midday. Midway through your day, set a timer on your phone to take a 2-3 minute break. During this time, ask yourself: Am I acting in alignment with my values? and Am I seeking validation, or am I honoring my self-worth? If you notice you’re slipping into people-pleasing mode, reset your mindset. Take a few deep breaths, remind yourself of your morning intention, and adjust your actions accordingly. For example, if you catch yourself over-apologizing for a minor mistake, stop and think: ‘Did this mistake really harm anyone, or am I just afraid of being judged?’
Celebrate Small Wins in the Evening. At the end of your day, take 5 minutes to reflect on one thing you did well that made you proud. Write it down, and be specific about what you did and how it felt. This helps you build self-validation and reinforces the belief that your worth isn’t dependent on others’ approval.
For more tips, including on assertive communication, give the podcast a listen and stick around for the Q&A, where I answer a listener question about how to be more assertive at work.
My Holiday Mental Wellness Advent Calendar!
Every year, I create a mental wellness advent countdown calendar with a simple tip to strengthen your mental health every day. The holidays are an especially challenging time for many people, which is why I started this tradition years ago to make sure we are being intentional about taking care of our well-being. Join me in this 31 day challenge (and it’s ok that we are already into the first week of December - you can start this on any day of this month, or any other month)!
Check this out and let me know if it’s helpful. And if you think someone else might benefit, share this newsletter and this resource with them!
Here’s to Your Health,
Dr. Judy
Order The New Rules of Attachment here: https://bit.ly/3MvuvvF
Take my Attachment Styles Quiz!
About me:
Dr. Judy Ho, Ph. D., ABPP, ABPdN is a triple board certified and licensed Clinical and Forensic Neuropsychologist, a tenured Associate Professor at Pepperdine University, television and podcast host, and author of Stop Self-Sabotage. An avid researcher and a two-time recipient of the National Institute of Mental Health Services Research Award, Dr. Judy maintains a private practice where she specializes in comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations and expert witness work. She is often called on by the media as an expert psychologist and is also a sought after public speaker for universities, businesses, and organizations.
Dr. Judy received her bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Business Administration from UC Berkeley, and her masters and doctorate from SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. She completed a National Institute of Mental Health sponsored fellowship at UCLA's Semel Institute.
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