When You Live in Constant Fear of Being Fired.
“I’m freaking out because I’m completely useless. I keep forgetting minor details, but so obvious ones and my co-workers think I’m a complete idiot! If I don’t improve soon I’m going to get fired.”
Trying Really Hard and Still Failing.
It’s ironic that the more you obsess about being the go-getter, the star pupil, the successful one, the more likely you are to screw up. Obsessing with every pore of your being about doing something right is bound to make everything go wrong. Like when you’re typing with someone watching, suddenly the same fingers that can type “Do penguins have toes?” at 3 a.m. in the dark, don’t know where which key is anymore. The surest way of making every dumb mistake out there is to be afraid of making mistakes. Now all you need is for everyone to notice those mistakes and self-confidence has just left the building – vowed to never return until you get a new job, in a new city. But since you actually want to keep your job, you in turn vow to do better. Meaning: the checklists, the re-checking yourself, the task reminders, the to-do lists, the list to keep track of your to-do lists. All of it to make sure you don’t have to come up with another excuse for why you couldn’t do something, you’ve in fact forgotten to do. And yet, despite all this you’re still forgetful, easily confused, misunderstand things, completely blank on things you should know… rinse, repeat = you still suck at your job. So in order not to suck, just stop. Stop obsessing and panicking and stop beating yourself up.
Here’s the Deal: You Have to Work to Your Strengths.
There is no point in replaying your own failures over and over again. There might be lots of things you struggle with, so you have to try to do the things you’re good at well to make up for it. There’s always something you screw up. Sometimes you’re lucky and it’s just that you printed the mailing labels upside down and even luckier – no one saw it. Other times it’s more severe and on those occasions, everyone is present to witness that moment in time. Don’t beat yourself up about it, shrug off the feeling of incompetence and then fix it. ASAP. If you beat yourself up about every little mistake you make, others will start noticing those mistakes much more, because you’re drawing attention to them. This endless pursuit of trying and trying and running yourself further into the ground until you need a shovel to get back out, it’s not getting you anywhere. You are what you are. Develop your strengths so you can sell them to your employer.
Dealing with Judgment and Human Megaphones.
Often what causes us to make mistakes in the first place is that we get flustered because we feel watched and judged all the time. Especially when you have co-workers who announce every piece of paper that’s been printed to the rest of the office. People who don’t overlook details and who are real-life twitter feeds filled with posts about your incompetence. Noticed, shared, and probably stored somewhere in the NSA Database for future use against you. Work can be a battlefield sometimes. But being afraid of judgment is not making you any better at your job. We’re at our best when we feel confident enough to tell others: “Back off, this is how I do my work so stop telling me how I should answer the phone.” How can you do your job well if you feel like an incompetent nuisance every time you ask a question? What you need to figure out is, how much of this lack of confidence is due to your co-worker’s behavior and how much because you’re being a bit of a wuss? Self-Confidence makes all the difference between being good at your job and sucking at it. It makes more of a difference than actual skill does because so much of work life is about handling people rather than tasks. The first thing you need to do is stop being afraid of the people around you. This takes some time and a lot of testing out. You need to get a feel for who the people around you are. How do they work? What are things they aren’t good at? Instead of fighting them, try to adapt to them. That doesn’t mean always meekly giving into what others are saying, but rather understanding why they see things the way they do. Whether you agree with them or not is an entirely different thing. Once you stop feeling terrified of your boss and your new (or old) co-workers and understand that they too are humans, thrown into the uncertainty of work life, you’ll start getting along with people better. Instead of only noticing your own weaknesses, notice those of the people around you too. This doesn’t mean, under no circumstances does this mean, pointing those weaknesses out to them all the time. But it’s good to know that people might react the way they do because they feel they’ve screwed up or because they’re trying to avoid having to do something they’re not good at themselves. The best way to stop being afraid of something is to get to know it. This way, you can build the confidence to stand by your own opinion and work techniques. The confidence to tell people, who constantly correct you, in a nice and polite way – to fuck off.
Taking Criticism Like a Pro.
Be open to correction, sometimes even the most obnoxious smart-ass has a point. But don’t naively believe every critic out there to know what he’s talking about because most don’t. Be critical of criticism and only take the kind to heart, that helps you improve. Often people criticize us for things we can’t change and some of it we really don’t want to change. This is who we are. And there’s no reason to change something about yourself just because a co-worker thinks you should. Criticism can be motivated by various reasons. Maybe you’re just working with someone who is in the habit of voicing everything they think out loud, judging everything they see, and believing that their opinion is asked for by those around them. Maybe it’s fear, insecurity about ourselves and our position can make us lash out at others, trying to keep them down. Maybe it’s ignorance. We often reject something, an idea, or an opinion, upfront without actually knowing anything about it. Or maybe, the criticism is actually valid, founded in logic, and meant to be helpful. The trick when dealing with criticism is to always treat it like a potential lie you have to spot. Carefully fact-check if there’s something to it and when in doubt, assume it’s a lot of bullshit. You have to or our overly critical world will suck the spirit right out of you.
In order not to suck at your job, you have to have the confidence not to be terrified of failing. If you can’t accept yourself the way you are and forgive yourself for your shortcomings, no one else will. You’ve got to believe in yourself. Until you do, everything will be a struggle.
See How to Work Better for practical tips on getting better at your job.
This article explained my work situation to a T. At first I blamed my silly mistakes on anxiety of a new position, I just can’t seem to get 5he most simple things right. Thank you for this article.
Thank you for this! Since 8 months I have the easiest job I ever had. But I suck at it. At the same time I don’t like my job – it’s boring.
I oversee details, mix up numbers; every time my boss points out something I messed up and I just can’t believe how I once again did not SEE that!!!! It is very embarassing and makes me insecure. I have a very hard focusing/concentrating – more than I was younger (I’m 49). It’s like my brain is scrambled.
Tomorrow I’m telling my boss I’m gonna look for a different job. It’s better for her, it’s better for me. Am quite stressed out about it though 🙁 But I know I have good qualities. Just not many I can use in this job….
I feel like such a failure every day I walk in the work. I’m constantly asking so many questions on how to do everything in my job. I miss shipments I don’t enter in the right stuff and I’m constantly messing up. I feel like all my coworkers hate me because I’m the girl that can’t get anything right even though I’m running around trying so hard to do my job that I have no idea what I’m doing. My boss is really nice and supportive she’s been trying to help me but there’s only so much she can do throughout the day. I just feel so unhappy walking in there because I know I’m gonna mess up and there’s gonna be something that I didn’t do right or didn’t finish that’s causing all these problems for everyone else. Right now I’m just looking for another job but my husband says I’m a little too hard on myself and I should keep trying but it’s been a year and I still don’t have this job down and this is the first time I’ve ever felt like this at a job. I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.
I felt like I had a good day today, then my manager calls me at my second night job, saying the first person I checked out this morning didn’t pay. I seriously have no recollection of this. I could swear she did pay, but can’t remember the transaction happening. This stuff happens all the time. I an a receptionist, and I am not a person who is capable of doing 100 things at once. I go back into previous accounts from a few days ago, and see I didn’t put a check number in correctly or at all for payments, when I swear I did. I just don’t get why my mind believes it did something but in reality it didn’t. I feel completely helpless and out of control, so worries about my next bonehead move, that I won’t even be aware of!! Should I seek medical advice? I think I may have severe anxiety because I get panic attacks before work, and I don’t sleep well because of it…
I have been a stay at home mom for the past 6 years. Before that I was an assistant manager at a university cafeteria. I mostly was a floater, filled in whatever position needed someone.
During my six years staying home I’ve developed a few chronic illnesses and have been very weak and have off days most days.
I recently went back to work as a low level fast food worker and just am not the same as i was before. I could handle and did handle 20 hour days of work and school before and was good at most aspects of my job. But, now I physically am drained after 6 hrs and am really bothered by the noises that are constantly bombarding my ears, alarms, and loud blenders,etc. I figured I’d be used to them by now. I have seen the looks from customers and my coworkers, rolling their eyes, impatient and frustrated. But, they’ve also been understanding and positive. There are a lot of managers and sometimes I have 3 of them telling me to do different jobs and contradictory commands at the same time not communicating with one another. I can’t ever slow down without someone telling me what to do. I do the best I can but it seems I just can’t cut it. I’ve been there for 2 months and today I went in and worked 4 hours. I wanted to cry the whole time I was there. I was so close to giving my 2 wks notice. I’m still very seriously considering it but have no clue what other job to pursue.
This is great and I’m feeling tons better. I have a coworker who sits over my shoulder 24/7 correcting and judging every single thing I do. It makes me want to rip my hair out and scream obscenities at the same time. At the end of the day I feel like complete and utter crap about myself and it’s slowly but surely draining me and making getting up for work in the morning harder and harder. Everyone I work with is at least 10+ years older than me and sometimes they bug on me about not knowing what they know. I wish I could tell them to fuck off when it gets too much but unfortunately that would leave me broke and homeless.
hey iam mandy, iam a recruiter for pilot liscence course in india and its been 3 years and i have not got a single enrolement, i just cannot convince anyone to join such an expencive course, my co workers are managing just fine though, i feel really dejected. i used to work as cabin crew and then as a crew instructor , reciently my field changed and its been all useless since then. i just cannot find anything iam good at . as a result i hate coming to work coz there is just no result.
this post seems helpful and i will take a lot of this with me next time i go into work, but when i first started my current job two months ago, i had a ton of confidence. nothing really bothered me and i brushed off my mistakes. i took note of them, but i didn’t beat myself up over them. now, everything i do is criticized. i don’t mean that people just give me dirty looks. people correct everything i do. today my boss pulled me to the side and talked with me about my performance. he told me that a lot of my coworkers complain about the way i do things. so basically now all my self confidence and energy is gone. my coworkers hate me. how do i even build my confidence back up?
That article was just what I needed. I am a speech therapist in a school and after 12 years it seems as though my screw-ups(paperwork not therapy) have caught up with me and there is a chance my contract may not be renewed. My self-confidence is at rock bottom and I am constantly second guessing myself.
That was awesome- made my day! Thank you 😀👍👊❤
That makes me happy, thank you 🙂
This article was exactly what I needed this morning! I just started a new job as a supervisor and I felt good about it until the other day when I got cursed out and was told I was incompetent. Now I’ve spent 2 days thinking about the jerk and what he said. Half was b.s but the other half he had a point. Just have to try to do better and call it a day. That’s about all anyone can do I guess.
Hi, I’m glad it was of help 🙂
I currently feel this way. I just started at my new job, 3 months in and feel so incompetent. I feel a constant horrible pit in my stomach because of it and feel awful because i’m usually a positive person so being so negative has been a blow to me. What you said is true, really gotta try not to beat myself up so much and especially not to be afraid to make mistakes and accept them because even the most experienced people make mistakes, what more a newbie!
I started a new job two months ago in a deli. I am 19 and most of my coworkers are a lot older with a lot more kitchen experience than I have. The job is heavily tasked and fast paced so you need someone who can and is used to multitasking and that person certainly isn’t me. I’m the kind of person to focus on one thing at a time so to do it to perfection. My manager makes me feel very incompetent even though i do try to be fast and get my work done on time. By the time i get home i feel flustered, frustrated and angry at myself. Sometimes am worried that ill get fired and feel like i should do everyone a favor and just quit. I was always that kid in school who had straight A’s in school and got perfect scores on my assignments so sucking at my job is taking a huge toll on me.
This article couldn’t have been found at a better time! I know I’m good at my job it’s just that I don’t have enough confidence to succeed and I dwell on my short comings.
Glad it was helpful 🙂 I do the same. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who feels like that.
Vow, this article really lifted my spirits up. Thank you very much… 🙂
I’m happy to hear that, thanks 🙂
Thank you a lot. I really needed this article. At work I’ m a complete failure, I’m sure I wouldn’t have it it wasn’t my uncles’ company. Thanks and I’ll try to be more confident.