Paul Graham, creator of Hacker News and a founder of Y Combinator, wrote a classic essay on the topic of why nerds are unpopular. So much of his writing rings true, especially the part: I've read a lot of history, and I have not seen a single reference to this supposedly universal fact [of teenage misery] before the twentieth century. Teenage apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been cheerful and eager. He has a very plausible explanation of how we created this misery, including a culture of school bullying.
What I believe now is that the difference between anxiety and excitement is: perception of outcome.
If you have a positive expected outcome, you are excited. If you have a negative expected outcome you are anxious.
The next step, is to convert anxiety into excitement. I'm still working on this part. I think this is where "little victories" come into play. If you have a series of successes that can change your perception of outcome from negative to positive it might work over the long term.
In the short term, "happy thoughts" might work. "You can do it!!" Encouragement. Confidence.
Of course all of this is very new to me, so these are mostly just my hypotheses, but I plan to examine the ideas in more detail and see what I can do with it...
I think the kindest of us probably suffered through bullying or forever being the outsider, and maybe these people experience more empathy for others as they know first hand how awful it feels to be on the receiving end.
But the majority don't go through this. Because of this, I don't believe we will ever get rid of this behaviour. We may minimise it a bit, but really we are trying to change embedded behaviour.