How To Get Over Anxiety Of Starting a New Job: These 20 Steps Can Help

If you’re looking for some strategies on how to get over anxiety of starting a new job, then you’ll love this article.

An effective and respected manager from a large corporation opens his own business and suddenly loses his self-confidence because he is not supported by a well-known company. Others change their profession and feel as if they are starting from scratch. The next one gets promoted and doesn’t understand why suddenly he’s afraid that he won’t be able to cope if his scope of duties doesn’t change so much.

How to make it happen so that we can confidently use our own resources and skills in a new situation? This is the most effective way: convince your fearful mind that this change is not a revolution, but a transfer of skills. In twenty small steps, possible for anyone in a similar situation.

How To Get Over Anxiety Of Starting a New Job:

1. Make an appointment with yourself.

Book at least half a day of free time without any other urgent or important things. Make sure you can really focus on yourself. Go for a massage beforehand or run to start the task in a relaxed state. You will need a few cards and a pen.

2. Look what’s happening now.

Start by looking at your current situation. What emotions do you feel about the change you are facing? What are your doubts? What gives you energy? What makes you happy, what makes you uncomfortable? Be honest with yourself – the more truly you answer these questions, the better you will choose the ways to support yourself in the transfer that awaits you.

Then, when you become aware of your emotions, write down your current needs for change and plan how to meet them effectively. For example, when you move from one job to another, you can determine what level of financial security you need to feel safe and secure.

3. Scale up the change in your imagination.

Usually we unconsciously create an image of what we will experience when we move from one job or role to another. Now you have the opportunity to make the unconscious aware and scale up the change in mind so that it brings less fear and more excitement. What image is born in your head when you think about the challenge ahead? Think about how you can make it less burdensome.

For example, when I think of a promotion ahead of me, I see myself as a bomb squad in a minefield because something new, unknown awaits me at every step, something that can be dangerous, and I need to be constantly alert and tense. Reducing the challenge of change could be the following in the mind: I imagine that a sapper turns into a researcher in an orangery full of interesting plant species, a person who joyfully discovers new things.

4. Reach deep values.

It is not difficult to make decisions when you know your values. Connecting to who you are deep down will give you support. This is the foundation of your transfer. Write down everything that is important to you in life. Not only at work, but in every sphere of life. For example: adventure, challenges, cultivating relationships with loved ones, feeling safe.

Having support in your values, you will feel more strongly why you are making changes. This will give you motivation and maybe even wings. Imagine that you are already what you become. A person who lives in harmony with his values and believes that by bringing true self into the world and other people’s lives, he gives the most precious treasure.

5. Ask yourself important questions.

Especially now, listen carefully to your inner voice, doubts, hopes, plans. Pay attention to the questions that are arising, for example: what do I need to be able to enjoy this change? How much time do I want to devote to work? What minimum earnings will satisfy me? How will I support myself? Give yourself time to hear your own answers. It’s a technique that sweeps away doubts from my mind.

6. Review the resources.

Time to look at the resources you are using in your current workplace, pay attention to skills, attitudes, energy, emotions and more. Making such a list is a remedy for the fear of failure!

7. Meet people who see potential in you

Ask them for feedback on your strengths and resources that you are using now and that you will be able to use in the new place. Meetings with friendly people will also help you to deal with the natural fear of being rejected by others. Usually, when we make a significant change, we get feedback from a part of our environment encouraging us to stay in the same place. Therefore, surround yourself with people who are fans of what you are doing.

SEE ALSO: How To Build a Successful Career: Winning Career Path In 8 Steps

8. Observe and collect information about your new job or role.

Did you get promoted? Look at others who have been promoted. What challenges do they face, what support do they receive? Starting your own business? Find among your friends or at industry meetings those who did it. Talk to people who are already where you are going, ask about challenges, secrets of their success, ask for tips. You don’t have to break down an open door.

9. Surround yourself with people who are already doing what you will be doing.

Make sure you experience your new role as something natural that has long existed, is done by many people. This way, your mind will also start to treat it as something natural, and you will quickly become proficient in it.

10. Look for a mentor.

Who does what you want to do best in the world, or best in the city? Ask this person to be your mentor. Arrange a meeting and prepare yourself well for it by writing down the questions you want to ask. Perhaps you would like to take the opportunity to participate in the person’s work and observe in her natural environment?

11. Make a plan of action.

What do you want to do on the first day of your new job, what in the first week and what in the first month. Write it down in concrete steps, stages. Make sure you find joy and lightness in it, not a sense of duty and overwhelming. This action plan will give you the confidence to clearly define what you want to do.

12. Set yourself a trial period.

When we make a change, it can be a burden to think we can’t be wrong because we choose something for life. It doesn’t have to be like this! Approach change as a laboratory experiment: your goal is to see if it’s for you at all. How do you know if you’ve never tried it before?

It is natural that you don’t want to make a mistake, but the very assumption that you have the right choice is a mistake in thinking – every choice will be good, because everyone will show you the truth about what you really want. Therefore, think about how much time you need to check if the new role is for you, if it gives you joy, fulfillment, the feeling that you are doing something that makes sense.

13. Go ahead.

Take the first step, preferably before the change (you can, for example, do some new work in advance).

14. Give yourself the right to make mistakes.

No one can give it to you but you. You can fight the natural law that says that when you do something for the first time, you learn about dozens and sometimes hundreds of ways that don’t work, or accept it and discover it with curiosity.

15. Note and record your own progress.

By calling what you do, what you do well, who you become, you add energy, motivation, and inspiration to your further efforts. At the beginning, when you were going to a new client, your hands and voice were trembling, you felt that you had nothing of value to give, that you just want to earn money, and now, at the fifteenth meeting, you notice that you are presenting your proposal with confidence and feel that you have something valuable to offer? Bravo! Notice this, name it, give yourself recognition, feel pride!

16. Write down even the slightest success!

Sometimes in the heat of work we waste time on it, but it is extremely important! The more attention you pay to what you do well, the more the image of your competence and self-confidence grows in your mind. It is an invaluable resource, do not give up on it, pronouncing yourself out of time.

SEE ALSO: How To Say NO To Your Boss And Coworkers: 5 Clever Strategies

17. Use your support.

Share what you experience with your loved ones, tell them about the challenges you face. Find a friendly person to talk to directly. This will give you the feeling that you are not alone. In addition, it will help to relieve stress and natural tension in such a situation. Find the support that is most suitable for you.

18. Consciously manage your energy.

If change requires a lot of energy from you and is full of challenges, provide yourself with equally intense support in every character you need: e.g. come more often to a massage, run to release tension, talk to your loved ones about what you are experiencing. Use coaching sessions or development workshops.

19. Reward yourself.

After all, that’s what this change is all about, so that you are happy, so that you can experience fulfilment, so that you can use your creativity and commitment to the full. Every small success, every inner victory, let it be noticed and rewarded by you: inner smile, gift for yourself, pleasure. You are a hero who dared to enter an unknown path, regardless of the outcome he won himself: fear of failure, inner limitations, uncertainty. You deserve a reward.

20. Build the foundations for a new transfer.

Once you settle down well in the new role, on the new position, it is worth starting to prepare the ground for the next transfer – build your identity independent of this particular position, scope of duties or role and constantly realize, name and write down your growing resources, including skills, crystallized values, evolving mission in life. The time you spend on it is a priceless investment in building internal self-confidence.

I want to thank you for taking the time to read my article about how to overcome fear of failure at work. I sincerely hope its contents have been a good help to you.

Przemkas Mosky
Przemkas Mosky started Perfect 24 Hours in 2017. He is a Personal Productivity Specialist, blogger and entrepreneur. He also works as a coach assisting people to increase their motivation, social skills or leadership abilities. Read more here