2 | New job overwhelm- why you have it & how to ease it

Starting a new job often feels like an overwhelm overload.  In this episode, Erin  talks about what is commonly causing the overwhelm and how to decrease this state of mind right now.  

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

Overwhelm. It is so common and so exhausting. What can you do about it? Let's talk about it. Hello, hello. Welcome back. This is episode two of season one, and I am so excited to be back with you today. We are going to talk about overwhelm, which I know many of you who are listening to this are feeling. This is one of the top three emotions that people experience when they're coming to me. They frequently tell me, I am feeling so overwhelmed in my new job, new role, new promotion. And I think that overwhelm can be somewhat confusing because on the surface, when we are experiencing overwhelm, we often assume that the workload's too high, The tasks are too complicated. Sometimes we assume the overwhelm is because we can't learn fast enough or we assume the overwhelm is because this just isn't a fit for me. These are the sort of explanations that the brain tends to make. right off the cuff when we're experiencing that feeling of overwhelm. And why I think it's so important to talk about this is I don't want to see you solving for the wrong problem. And I also don't want to see you leaving your job, making a judgment on this job when you're overwhelmed may not actually be because of the workload, because things are too complicated, or because of your learning speed, or even because of the fit. So let's talk about two things that often cause overwhelm in a new role. And then I'm going to talk to you about what you can do to try to decrease that right away. The first thing that often causes overwhelm for people in a new role is that you have what I talk about as either inexperience or a long gap since you were in the position of not knowing the job. For example, perhaps you've been in the same job for most of your career or you've been in similar roles for most of your career and you've done something that maybe is a bit of a leap for you, a bit of a shift for you. So you literally have not a lot of experience having to be in something that has a big learning curve for you. The other thing I often see is that many of my clients have been in their last role long enough that they have felt they mastered the work and now they're in something new and they're feeling like, this doesn't feel right, right? Like this, something feels totally off and totally wrong because there's been a long gap since they've been in a position where they had to do a lot of learning, where they were looking at things and they didn't know all the things. That they were used to a space where things were familiar, where they felt more competent and capable, and all of a sudden their brain is panicking because it's telling them something has gone terribly wrong, right? This is really important to keep in mind when you're starting a new job or a new role, because the truth is that when you are moving into something new, it's very scary for the brain, as you heard me talk about in the previous episode. And you're being asked to adjust to multiple new things in one setting. So you're learning new systems often, If specifically, if you've switched companies, you're often having to learn the new tasks or strategy that you're going to have to implement for this job. You're around different people frequently, a different culture. You have a new boss or supervisor. So your brain's trying to size them up. What are their expectations? What are the performance expectations? What are people thinking about me? And so what often happens is that when you come in and you've not had a lot of experience being new or you've had a long gap since you were new, what can happen is you can come in with expectations that are disproportionate to the reality of what it really actually feels like to be learning a new culture, new people, figuring out how to work with a new boss, assessing your performance expectations, figuring out the systems, all of it. Many times people feel like, They should understand more than they actually should. So you have this feeling, I should get this. I should be picking it up quickly. I should already understand all of the things that people are talking about. I should know how to use these systems. Many people will go in and feel like immediately I don't belong. It doesn't feel familiar. These people are different than me. Oftentimes my clients will tell me that they should learn faster than they're learning and And oftentimes there'll be an expectation that they should already feel confident. So if you relate to any of those things, your overwhelm could absolutely be coming from your resistance to what it feels like to be new. Your brain is resisting the reality of the situation. And we're going to talk a little bit at the end about how you can ease that resistance. The second thing that causes overwhelm is if you are in a space, you're trying to learn the things that are required for you to learn. You're trying to make connections with new people. You're trying to come up with... You're trying to connect with your new boss. You're trying to figure out the expectations of this space. And at the same time, your brain is in mental spinning. And so if your brain is telling you things like, I'm not capable. My boss thinks she made a mistake in hiring me. I don't fit in. I made a mistake. I should have stayed at my last job. I can't succeed at this. The learning or role expectations here are just too high, right? if your brain is really throwing all that at you, what's happening is that you're in this unfamiliar space, you're trying to take in as much as you can, and at the same time, your brain is in this mental spinning. So often what happens is the overwhelm that you're feeling is actually all the drama that's happening in your brain versus the demand of the actual role. I'm going to say that one more time. Often the overwhelm is all of the mental drama that's happening in your brain versus the actual demands of this role. Because the truth is, it's very difficult to assess if you're fit, you're... speed with which you work your skill level with the expectations of the job like how that fits with the demands of the organization of your supervisor it takes time to assess that right you have to learn the systems get comfortable in the environment you have to figure out your tasks all of that needs to happen for you to feel a sense of mastery in what you're doing And for you to be able to adequately evaluate how demanding is this job, how does that fit with my skill level, the pace with which I work, all of it. And people will often start to evaluate that very, very quickly and they're evaluating it while their brain is in complete overwhelm of mental drama where it's telling them all these things about how they should be learning faster and they should know all of the things and telling them that they don't fit in, that they're not capable, that they've made a mistake, all of it. So if you feel any of this, I want to encourage you to slow down to ease up your evaluation or your assumption that the job itself is overwhelming. And I want to give you a mindset exercise to help with this. I want you to go back to the first day from your old job. So the last job that you felt capable and competent in. I want you to go back in your mind to the very first day you started that position. And I want you to remember exactly how you felt. Day one. What did you feel on day one? The last job where you felt competent and capable that you mastered that role and you understood it by the time you left. Write down the emotions that you felt. And I want you to then, in your mind... write down what you would say to day one you of that job. Because you're in a position now of having moved through that job. You mastered it. You likely got positive performance reviews. You felt competent. You knew what you were doing. So you can see the end of the story, but the you on day one can't see that. So go back and talk to her. I want you to go back to the day one you And tell her what you would tell her that she can't see. I'm going to give you some suggestions that often my clients come up with when I'm moving them through this exercise. Often people will say to their old self on day one of their old job, relax. You will learn the role. Nothing has gone wrong. You don't have to know all of this yet. one thing at a time, you're going to succeed at this. And what's so important about really doing this exercise in the context of your old job, where you found confidence, is that your brain can see the beginning, middle, and end. Because when you're back there, you already know how that story ends. So when you're talking to the old you, the day one you, you actually can see the ending. And so you can believe the things you're saying. And the reason this is so helpful is because I'm trying to get your brain to see that now for theoretically day one of this job or month three, wherever you are in this job. I'm trying to get your brain to see that. And it will question all of those things. You're going to learn it. Nothing's gone wrong. If I don't take you back and allow you to really see it in a context where you got to see it all the way through. So the goal is really easing your self-expectations that you should know all of this. Really stopping the resistance to what it feels like to be in day one self. right? You're going back to that old job and when you see day one self, you're like, oh yeah, I remember what that felt like. I mean, I can just think about starting college, starting anything new. The amount of overwhelm that I felt, the amount of fear that I felt, the feeling of, oh my gosh, this is never going to feel good. I'm never going to fit in. All of it, right? All of us have experienced that. But the problem is the minute we get out of it, We forget what it felt like at the beginning. So frequently, my clients, when they come to me, they have an expectation that they should feel in their new role the way they felt when they exited their old role. And what I tell them instead is, I want you to consider that you should feel in your new role the way you felt at the beginning of your old one, not how you felt at the end, right? That is a more realistic expectation. So I encourage you to do this exercise. And I also encourage you to not evaluate the job demands too soon. Give yourself time to work through any of the mindset drama that's coming up for you, to learn the role, to become confident in the work that you're doing before you make a premature evaluation of does the pace of the job, the demands of the job align with what I want for my career. Okay, everybody, if you would like to learn more about me and my coaching, please go check me out at Erin, M as in mindset, Foley, F-O-L-E-Y.com. And I will be back to give you more gems. In the meantime, have a great week.