Sep 8, 2025
The Growth Mindset for Anxiety: Turning Struggle Into Strength
What is the best way to approach anxiety when it arises? What attitude helps us stay grounded in the face of adversity? And when anxiety keeps returning, how do we find the strength to keep moving forward?
These aren’t trivial questions — they hold the kind of answers that offer clarity, build resilience, and support growth even in life’s hardest moments.
key takeaways
- Instrumental Value of Anxiety: Anxiety, when faced constructively, can be a valuable experience. With the right mindset, the discomfort prompts us to turn adversity into opportunities for growth and resilience.
- Healing from Trauma: While anxiety can be beneficial, trauma should not be seen as a necessary or useful experience for character development. Healing from trauma involves regaining strength and connection with oneself and others, and moving forward with courage and compassion.
- Balanced Approach to Challenges: Facing life's challenges should be done gradually and mindfully. It's important to build confidence without overwhelming yourself, allowing time for rest and recovery to maintain good mental health.
PERSONAL GROWTH THROUGH ANXIETY
Anxious Moments as Grist for the Mill
Adversity — the kind that stirs anxiety — can be seen not as a threat, but as raw material for building something stronger.
When life deals an unwanted hand, the instinctive “Oh no!” can be replaced with “Now what?” or “Let’s see what can be done with this.”
This change in mindset marks the beginning of greater resilience. The work of life lies in turning whatever happens into something constructive. In this light, anxiety takes on an instrumental value — not as a flaw to be eliminated, but as something useful in the pursuit of strong character.
ENGLISH WRITER
Samuel Johnson
This perspective on adversity isn’t new. Samuel Johnson, a highly influential literary figure of the 18th century, captured it well. Known for his moral insight and depth of thought, he wrote:
“To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer: but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence; and if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility.”
Johnson’s words reflect the same idea — that the struggle in life is itself essential, not only for achievement but for a greater sense of meaning and purpose. It’s not the absence of anxiety or difficulty that defines a life well-lived, but the courage to meet it and continue on well.
✦ See Also! For more on how anxiety can serve a constructive role in your life, see The Hidden Value of Anxiety - Even When it Feels Meaningless.
STOIC PHILOSOPHER
Seneca
The Stoic philosopher Seneca mirrored a similar sentiment centuries earlier. He warned not of chaos, but of comfort — the kind that dulls the soul:
“To have nothing to stir you and rouse you to action, no attack by which to try the strength of your spirit, merely to lie in unshaken idleness—this is not to be tranquil; it is to be stranded in a windless calm.”
This “windless calm,” conveys a kind of moral softness, a withering of the inner life through the absence of challenge. It's not peace, but a stagnation to be avoided.
If adversity is something to be valued, then so must be the anxiety that accompanies it. Anxiety, in this view, can be seen as evidence of a good life — the natural byproduct of our healthy moral concern about the rightness and wrongness of our choices. To feel anxiety in the face of difficulty is to care deeply about who we are and what we’re becoming.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHALLENGE AND HARM
Do Not Seek Suffering Needlessly
But here’s where things get more complex. What about those who carry trauma — real, life-altering pain that has shaken their sense of safety, fractured their connection to others, or left them feeling like strangers to themselves?
Does this mean trauma is somehow useful, a kind of "proving ground" meant to reveal what someone is made of? Certainly not! Trauma is not a tool. We don't need it or see it as useful to pursue for the purpose of character development or as grist for the mill.
But we must also grapple with the question of “What next?”
We still have a responsibility to heal after injuries, whether they’re physical, psychological, or moral injuries.
We pick up and proceed with humility, wisdom, and courage in order to...
Regain our true selves
Rediscover our strength
Reclaim connection with ourselves and others, and not lay down in despair
One of the hidden challenges of carrying trauma is the feeling that moving on might somehow mean the trauma didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t as serious as it truly was. It can feel like healing lets the perpetrator off the hook, as if a good life erases the truth of it.
And in the meantime, life passes you by.
You must not lose the hope and potential of the future to the trauma of the past.
You know that what happened to you will never be ok. And still, we face the challenges we’ve been given with a staunch belief that recovery is possible and worth pursuing through the pain. This means willingly facing the obstacles constraining your efforts for a better life.
✧ Next Read: For more on how to navigate anxiety with clarity about who you want to be, read Who Do You Admire? How to Use Role-Models to Overcome Anxiety.
NEXT STEPS TOWARD GROWTH
Moving Forward with Courage and Compassion
We aim to strengthen our understanding of the healthy power and influence we hold in anxious situations.
Rather than dragging our feet, we aim to meet life’s challenges with courage. We do this while also respecting the need to avoid taking on too much, too soon.
We want to build confidence in our abilities, not continue to put ourselves in situations where we feel helpless and powerless.
Deliberate exposure to situations that are flooding, overwhelming, and traumatizing is unnecessary and unhelpful. We all have a responsibility to not detract from our health in the pursuit of it!
Not everything needs to be faced all at once.
Just as you wouldn’t spend the entire day at the gym without risking exhaustion or injury, the same goes for emotional growth. We need balance — time to rest, breathe, and listen to the body as it slowly builds the capacity to hold difficult sensations and emotions.
Take comfort in moments of peace when they come, knowing that you’re already engaged in the important work of healing. This steady approach strengthens morale and increases your willingness to face further challenges. In this way, progress lies in winning moments — reclaiming ground from anxiety bit by bit and not demanding that everything change all at once.
Topics
Jason Peruchini, LMFT
Jason Peruchini is a licensed psychotherapist and anxiety treatment professional who helps people address issues in mental health to live better lives.
