When starting a job search, a job seeker first thinks about what salary he wants and what field of activity he prefers to work in. When reviewing proposals, many employers begin to drop out for the wrong reason - for fear of not meeting the title of specialist for a particular organization.
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Reasons for fear of getting a job
Many psychologists encounter the phrase “I’m afraid to start a new job” during their consultations. The issue is especially acute for girls who have interrupted their working career due to maternity leave. The restructuring of the body, changes in thinking, social circle and complete reorientation to children's topics mislead young mothers about their qualifications.
Fear of the team
Closed and insecure people are afraid not so much of the employer and his requests as of adapting to a new team. It always seems to a newcomer that everyone is looking at him with suspicion and disdain, waiting for his first mistakes and failures. An inner voice constantly repeats: “I’m afraid to go to work, they’ll laugh at me.” It is worth thinking about the fact that each of the people currently working in the team once came for the first time and also did not know where to start. The fact that people already work there doesn't make them any better. You need to think that attentiveness and responsibility can help you succeed in a new place no worse than those who have extensive experience.
Attention! A newcomer to the team is a mystery. Public opinion will depend on how you manage to present yourself, on the basis of which the attitude of the team will begin to form.
It's scary not to cope with responsibilities
Another popular fear can be formulated as follows: “I’m afraid to work because I might not be able to cope.” You can overcome this fear only by trying the degree of difficulty of the tasks on yourself. As a rule, such fear occurs in people with a heightened sense of responsibility and conscientiousness. A person who is accustomed to doing work carelessly will never be puzzled by such a problem. Therefore, if an inner voice repeats: “I’m afraid to start a new job, in case I don’t meet the required level,” this only means that one’s own seriousness and demands on oneself will not allow one to lose one’s face.
Signs and manifestations of fear
The fear can be so strong that it prevents you from deciding to leave your previous position. A person may be well aware that he has outgrown it, that the salary is not satisfactory, that there are better options in every sense, but acute fear prevents him from taking this step. When a person overcomes himself and decides to change jobs, the body treacherously turns on.
Before an interview or even before the first day of work, amazing metamorphoses begin. A previously calm and cool person begins to run to the toilet, choke, and feel dizzy. These offensive symptoms further increase anxiety: “What if I disgrace myself there, at work? What will they think of me? And everything starts with a vengeance.
The autonomic nervous system responds to stress. Nausea occurs, your legs give way, your heart just jumps out of your chest, your face turns red or pale, your mouth becomes dry, your armpits sweat, your voice breaks. Particularly suspicious people begin to experience problems long before the event. They have nightmares or completely lose sleep, their appetite disappears, and chronic illnesses worsen.
How to overcome fear of a new place
How to overcome the fear of driving as a new woman - advice from a psychologist
When going to a new place, it is important to think about the fact that any job has its own specifics. A person who has just graduated from a university with a diploma is not a professional in any field, even if the diploma is excellent, even if all the grades in it are “excellent”.
Important! The education you receive gives you the opportunity to become a member of a particular team and choose your employer, but it does not yet make anyone a professional. Any production has its own internal characteristics and rules.
If an applicant is going to work as an accountant, having the appropriate theoretical skills, he will not be able to become an excellent specialist until he understands the specifics of the organization’s activities, until he is told about cash flows, until he becomes familiar with computer programs. You always need to complete your studies in a new place. A conscientious employer will need to undergo a single briefing on both labor protection and fire safety. The first couple of working days will be spent on adaptation and registration, during which you will be able to get to know some of the employees and establish contact. After which the fear of work will no longer be so pronounced, because some part of it has already become familiar, because most often the unknown scares.
The specialist will be introduced to the specifics of the organization
Complex phobia
In some cases, ergophobia is combined with other phobias (not only social phobia). The most popular complications:
- Erythrophobia is the fear of blushing in public and being ridiculed. Occurs due to low self-esteem. Such an employee never shows initiative and finds it difficult to interact with the team.
- Autophobia – fear of loneliness. Makes you cling to old connections, old work.
- Demophobia is the fear of large crowds of people. In this case, the patient neglects his responsibilities.
Tips if you haven't gone to work for a long time
Emotional burnout - how to deal with the problem, is it possible to overcome it?
After a long break, going back to work is always difficult. This is due to two main difficulties:
- I’m afraid to go out to work - I don’t remember what to do;
- It’s difficult to overcome your own laziness and force yourself to get up early every day.
It is easier to compete with an external enemy than to overcome your own laziness. A long vacation relaxes, demobilizes your strength and deprives you of your potential. The longer a person does not burden himself with any load, the more difficult it is to start changing. The first step towards starting a career can be self-discipline. Waking up at 7 a.m. every morning to exercise, get out of the house for a run, or walk a few miles around the block is a great start to evening out your routine. Not everyone succeeds in this simple task: 80 out of 100 people turn off the alarm clock in the morning and continue to sleep with the thought that they will definitely get up tomorrow, but today they need to get their last sleep.
Self-discipline starts early in the morning
Work in absent-minded mode
In her book Think Like a Mathematician, Barbara Oakley writes about the existence of two modes of brain functioning: focused and diffuse.
With focused thinking, we tense up and focus on one task. In a distracted state, the brain rests and seems to think about everything in the world, processing information during the day.
You can spend hours solving a math problem and then accidentally find the answer while walking. Therefore, sometimes it is more productive to relax or talk with friends than to think about the problem.
The diffused mode is important for creativity. When we work in this state, we do not feel tension. Then insight comes to us. On the contrary, if we force ourselves to be creative, we end up with forced nonsense. Try to come up with a custom joke. It never worked out for me.
How to implement
To get into distracted mode, I pour some tea, set the timer for an hour, and imagine a conversation with a friend in a cozy cafe. I write down the entire imaginary conversation. Within an hour I have a finished draft of the article in front of me - all that remains is to edit it.
Simplified work looks like this:
- Gathering information - focused mode.
- I’m writing an article - absent-minded mode.
- Editing - focused mode.
I perform the most difficult part of the task in absent-minded mode, that is, during rest.
What to do if you have no experience
How to successfully pass a job interview - secrets and tips
Fear of work, when you don’t know what you have to do, makes it difficult to maintain a sense of self-control. We must not forget that panic is the first step to failure. You need to be able to tune in to perceive a large amount of new information. If you manage to mobilize all your strength, the adaptation will be successful. A new employee is always given a probationary period, during which he must study the subject area and the nuances of the organization. Don't be afraid to ask questions to your colleagues or manager.
Important! While a person is considered a new employee, they readily answer him and explain the details. In the first days, do not be shy to ask questions. After the probationary period ends, they will ask the newly minted specialist.
When psychologists hear typical phrases in their classes: “I’m afraid to get a job because they won’t hire you without experience,” classes are based mainly on increasing self-esteem. At first, it is important to establish yourself as a promising specialist. To do this, believe in yourself and don’t be shy to communicate. Everything you need for your first meeting with your future manager:
- clear, moderately loud speech;
- neat appearance;
- tact;
- punctuality.
Don't try to impress
The advice may seem illogical, but I’ll explain everything now. Every time I want to impress someone, it doesn't end well. I begin to closely monitor my every movement, word, position in space and because of this I become even more constrained. Therefore, no casual jokes or fresh ideas for you - just a robotic “Ha. Ha. Ha." and unnaturally long pauses.
In the first days, I am overcome by the desire to show how hard and how well I work. “Now I’ll write a business plan in a day” or “I’ll organize a conference in a week.” By the age of 25, I learned to answer myself just as cheerfully: “You can’t organize. Or you organize it, but it turns out to be complete nonsense.” There is no need to take on a bunch of tasks and heroically sit on them until midnight. Nobody expects this from you. In addition, raising the bar at the entrance is short-sighted. Everyone will think that you can work for five people, and will expect exactly this from you. It will end with overwork, persistent fatigue, or something else equally unpleasant.
In the very first days, do not try to be in front of your superiors and impress others with your wit and efficiency. Better set yourself another goal - not to aggravate your stress.
How to prepare yourself for your first visit to a new place
If you are scared to go to work for the first time, you can simulate the first day and imagine how it will go. It is also better to prepare for the questions that will be asked at the interview in advance. This will help you cope with excess anxiety. You need to be able to tell about yourself in such a way that the employer would want to hire such an employee. It’s easier to calm the fear of starting a new job if you read humorous stories from the lives of specialists in your chosen profile. When applying for a job in a store, you can read the forum of cash register workers who share funny situations at work. Many of them will make you cry from laughter, not from fear. It will be easier to get used to the role of a store employee if you look at the entire work process from the inside, thanks to such forums.
The fear of going to any job will disappear if the applicant is not too lazy to read certain documentation about his future profession. If you plan to work in the food industry or trade, you will have to remember the rules for storing different categories of products and the deadlines for their disposal. If the interview is for a future manager, it would be a good idea to study the basics of management, with an emphasis on the specifications of the target organization. Before an interview at a government agency, you need to repeat the rules of business etiquette, the established restrictions on wardrobe items and the brightness of makeup (for women).
Confidence in an interview
During the interview itself, you need to behave calmly, but with a slight positive attitude. To get the job you want, it is important to conduct your first meeting with the employer with a prevailing sense of confidence. Many personnel training specialists tell why they rejected a particular applicant: overly gloomy, nervous and bad-looking candidates were not accepted. The right way out is to find a middle ground, not to give the impression of a frivolous, gloomy or nervous person.
Do not forget that the employer is more interested in a new active and erudite workforce than the applicant. He, in turn, must interest the specialist, make him believe that the work under his supervision will be well paid and provided with everything necessary.
Consequences of a phobia
Ergophobia is characterized by rapid development. Without treatment and control, the patient's condition will rapidly deteriorate, which will ultimately lead to psychophysical exhaustion. Secondary mental disorders and psychosomatic illnesses arise.
Ergophobia interferes with self-realization and personal development. A person cannot fully reveal his potential and enjoy the work done. The patient is tormented by thoughts about the meaning of life. If a person cannot find a job, then he literally has nothing to live on. He has to enter into dependent relationships. Some patients take the criminal path.
It is important! The patient may have excellent recommendations from previous employers, do an excellent job, or be a good specialist, but the phobia still prevents him from finding a job.
I want to change my profession, but I don’t know which one to choose
You need to ask yourself this question: “Do I like what I do, does it bring me pleasure, suits me and what do I want for myself?”
You need to dig out your inner desires and needs. For example, a person wants to be famous, to be recognized on the street, then he should think about creating his own video blog. Or wants to have more free time and not go to the office on a regular schedule, then maybe you should think about creating an online store.
And the second question that needs to be answered: “What am I unique about, what can I do better than others?” That is, you need to find your “trick”. For example, a woman grew violets; it was her hobby. Then she started making a video about it, where she talked about how to care for flowers, what to feed them, and the conditions that suit them. Now she has thousands of subscribers and a lot of orders for violets from all over the country.
You can also try taking a career guidance test. Tests only help in determining the direction in which you should try yourself, but do not give a clear answer as to which profession is suitable for you.
Therapy
If you cannot cope with your fear of work on your own, you need to work with a psychologist. It can also be carried out online with psychologist-hypnologist Nikita Valerievich Baturin. When fear grows from social phobia, it is important to gain a new, positive experience of respect, acceptance and care, which the client can receive in psychotherapeutic sessions. A psychologist helps you get out of the victim role and develop an internal center of resilience. And then failure or negative reactions from outsiders will not be able to pull the rug from under a person’s feet.
Any irrational fear is associated with unprocessed and driven into the subconscious experiences, most often associated with events from childhood. Hypnosis helps to lift them from the bottom of memory and rethink them from the perspective of an adult. Hypnotic suggestions help activate resource states of the psyche when you find yourself in frightening situations. And as a result, standing on your boss’s carpet, you no longer feel like a small defenseless child being scolded by your father. You are an adult, independent person who can stand up for yourself.
You can learn more about using hypnotherapy when working with fears and phobias here.
Psychoanalytic method
The next method of treating ergophobia is psychoanalysis, which takes the form of open communication with the attending physician. The doctor and the patient analyze and analyze in detail life circumstances, allowing them to understand where this fear came from, what contributed to it and how it can be overcome. When talking with a doctor, the patient talks through his experiences and anxiety, then receives so-called homework. Usually it includes some kind of exercise to overcome oneself and develop control over excessive emotions.
Thanks to these conversations with a psychotherapist, a person feels better after just a few sessions. With the first victories over his phobia, the patient begins to look at the situation more positively and every step becomes easier for him.
