In Anticipation For A New Work Position

What does one do when something new is coming, in a few days, today, tomorrow? Everyone starts a new job all the time, and most of us are nervous prior to starting the first day at work. How to deal with that?

I, first of all, proposed myself to analyze the problem. What makes me nervous? I considered (apart from the lilies) that I need to make an impression on my colleagues on first day. But that doesn't really matter, tons of psychological research and simple life observation of yourself and other people, show that in the end people are really self-centered and in many cases are entirely obsessed with how they present themselves in regards to you, even though you are the new homo sapiens in the gang. So this wasn't what makes me nervous.

Next, your job itself. It's new, and you don't know what you will be doing, although you might have received some training and a theoretical description. I tried to compare myself with others who have started new jobs recently, and not so recently. I asked them. No one had an idea what they were doing their first day. And every one was nervous prior to their first day. I have been in this situation, and in much worse setting in regards to theoretical knowledge of work I would be doing. Alright, but this still made me nervous.

In the end it boiled down to one simple element: fear of the unknown. That is what makes us, me, nervous in regards to everything. It is not something specific. It is not fear of whether a colleague will like me or not, if I will be able to accomplish anything among my new tasks tomorrow, or if I will make a fool of myself. The latter is in any case a case of myself, no one but me will care if I make a fool of myself. Maybe this part even lies in the expression of the phenomena itself: I make a fool of myself, it implies a self-centered perception of what certain, to an extent critical (or important), things I will deem to make an impact on my self-esteem. It doesn't matter to anyone else, but me. Otherwise it would be called "Others will make a fool of myself".

Fear of the unknown. Envisioning your first day at work is a very simple picture of a location, maybe a specific task, and a certainly faceless person(s) around you. Because you, I, are self-centered, the faceless person(s) are looking at you, me. These three elements are surrounded by darkness, and you have no idea what is beyond it. It is not fear of the dark that is heavy to deal with, but the idea of what might be lurking in the dark. And it could be anything. In turn, this fear makes us stressed and when stressed, we tend to perceive things more negatively. Therefore seldom we will consider that this darkness actually can have a whole ton of good and nice things, i.e., support and help from colleagues, pleasant physical work environment. It may even hide things such as that because it is your first day, no one will expect you to work out wonders and jump into the job straight away, mostly because they have all had their own first day at the same work you will be in, and they have experienced the same fear of the unknown.