DylanJanuary 4th was my first day at a new “job”. I put job in quotes because I’m a self-employed consultant and I fairly frequently have a new “job” as I transition from one project/client and on to the next or start a new coaching engagement. Doesn’t matter how many times it happens, there is always an uneasy feeling in the early days.
I’ve been doing consulting type work for almost 8 years on my own and for at least another decade prior to that working for software/consulting companies. In that time, I’ve probably worked with well over 100 companies and a small (but growing) number of coaching clients. In almost every single instance I’ve had the feeling on day 1 of “what if I can’t do this?”. Doesn’t matter that, other than in 2 notable instances (I’ll save these for a later date), I’ve always been able to do whatever “this” was. I won’t say there wasn’t a learning curve in some places or that I hit a homerun every time, but I did do the job I was assigned to the best of my abilities.
The job I was assigned is another way of saying that, in most cases, I was the project manager by virtue of contract, but I often found myself doing things that were not at all what said contract claimed I was there for. Again, I mostly managed to get the job done. In no way do I think that all of these “other duties as assigned” tasks were done as well as an expert in whatever it was but I did research, worked longer hours, asked way too many questions, actually thought about the problem or task and muddled through with some level of success. The thought of the task is often worse than the task itself, so you just need to dive in.
At the end of the day, we’re all generally capable of doing the task or job assigned to us. It might come easy to some because they have done it 1000 times or have a particular aptitude for it, and it might be hard for others because they have never done the task before. The thing to remember, regardless of difficulty, is someone saw you as capable of doing the work and as such gave it to you to perform. They had confidence in you even when, in early days, you may not.
So, when you get nervous that you can’t do the work, tap into the fact that someone believed you could. They don’t know you nearly as well as you know yourself and THEY saw the potential in you. Lean into that and the confidence that comes with it because you’re there and being there and having someone see the potential in you is often the hardest part. As I dive into week three of this gig, I am going to try and remember that…even if I still struggle to remember the excessively complex password I had to pick.
