As told by a consultant
So you’ve just worked hard to get a job. A job you’re excited for and ready to start. What’s going to happen? Will you prove yourself?
Let’s take this back a couple steps. I’ve been there. You hit your lowest low and your once okay self-esteem level went to shit. At that point you could barely get out of bed. Barely caring to do any of the hobbies that you had an infinite amount of time to do. All because of the near crippling debt you find for yourself post college.
You know you just need that one person to take a chance and believe in you. Mostly because, right now, you definitely don’t have much faith in yourself.
Then suddenly, someone does. Bing bodda boom, you got a job. And not just any job, one that you actually want and can look forward to.
The Beginning
You get the paperwork all straightened up. You know your start date. You go through training. And still have no clue what you’re going to be doing, but you’re pushed into your role and told to start.
It will definitely be a rocky first couple weeks. You’re stuck somewhere between bored and freaking out constantly. This feeling kind of continues for the first couple months.
Then you remember that random article you read before you started that told you how your coworkers form their opinion of you within the first 90 days (or something like that?). This will make you freak out more, because you certainly hope they won’t count it against you that you had no clue what you were doing for a while.
Don’t worry. They probably won’t. At least not if you’re putting in the effort.
Right around that 90 day mark, you’ll actually kind of know what you’re doing (well hopefully anyway). Enough to not need to constantly ask questions and depend constantly on others. You might even feel like you can step up a little and push to lead something.
If you put enough effort into it all, and you really care about what you’re doing, people will start to notice. You’ll be thanked a lot more, asked to do more, and sought out for what you’ve gotten pretty good at.
For a while this will keep you going, but then one day it’ll start to calm down. You’ll calm down. You’ll start to realize all the energy and gusto that you were running on has a limit.
And then you’ll crash back down to Earth.
Somewhere around 6 Months
Well, I crashed anyway.
The excitement and pursuit of redeeming my previous failures started to ebb. My confidence levels were rising, and I had dug myself out of the super low self-esteem bubble I’d created. And with it came a realization.
This was it. This was life. This was working.
Not some groundbreaking addition to society. Not that I really thought it would be. But I did have some higher expectations for something I had to commit at least 40 hours a week for the next 40 yearsish of my life to.
There was some internal battle I faced for a few months as I began to accept my new reality. And I continued working through it all.
Somewhere between 6 Months to a Year
By now, you’ve gained a great understanding of what’s expected of you, and you can crank some things out pretty quickly. Sometimes it’s mindless. Sometimes it requires pushing yourself. Sometimes you do something that surprises you.
A Year and Beyond
For me, I’m still only a year and a half in. I’ll get back to you on any changes beyond this point. But for now, I will say, things chill out.
You’ve come to terms with your current state. Your existential crisis has cooled down some. Mostly because you’ve started to see some of the benefits of regular employment.
That can look like a lot of things depending on what you earn and the kind of benefits offered.
For me, this meant two trips to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware, my first trip to California and Yosemite, a wedding in Mexico, a gaming laptop, helping friends out, adopting a kitten, a couple family vacations (first time to Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, and Dubrovnik, Croatia), reading (lots of reading time), and being able to fund my graduate school (getting an MFA in Creative Writing!).
Since starting work, I’ve had an awful work-life balance and a great work-life balance. Sometimes it’s difficult to navigate. At the peak of my worst, my neck spazzed out and was in immense pain (this happened a few times). That was around the start of my wake-up call.
I’ve since prioritized my health. I’m now vegetarian and cooking near 3 meals a day, 5 days a week with my husband. We started using Centr (Chris Hemsworth’s workout app), which I highly recommend. I try to avoid sitting at my desk for hours upon hours, which I most definitely used to do.
Remember: You are working to live. Not living to work.
Do what you need to, but eventually, find a way to take care of yourself. It’s important otherwise your body will find ways to manifest your neglect and force you to find a better balance.