Meditation can help calm the first day of work jitters. Many people experience anxiety on the first day of a new job. It’s often a mix of excitement and worries as you prepare to meet new co-workers and new processes and discover what the culture is truly like. Whether you are physically going to the office or are working virtually, the first day of work jitters is normal. At all levels.
Being nervous on the first day of work is a positive sign. It means you care. Your brain knows you are entering a new situation; its job is protecting you. So, the new job jitters are a protective act of self-love from the brain. The problems you don’t need to be protected from the new job. You can help the stress-response system through meditation.
Meditation can help with new job jitters by:
- Anchoring your attention toward pleasant images, sounds, and feelings
- Providing an interruption to your circling thoughts
- Helping you build concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity (useful in any career)
- Showing you that pleasant emotions are available to you regardless of the objective situation
Here is a guided meditation to help calm your new job jitters.
AUDIO MEDITATION TO CALM NEW JOB JITTERS
VIDEO GUIDED MEDITATION TO CALM FIRST-DAY JITTERS
I hope these guided meditations helped calm your nerves. I hope you have a great first day of work.
- If you’re looking for other meditations to support your job search, try these meditation techniques too.
- You can also try this auto meditation technique for calming new job jitters if you’d prefer to use movement instead of visualization
Meditation and your new job
Most people describe the first few weeks in a new job as exciting and tiring. Some people experience an increase in unpleasant emotions.
While job searching comes with its stress and uncertainty, the fun part is that anything can happen. You don’t know where you’ll land. You can get so busy trying to get a new job you forget to check in with yourself. You might have been so busy getting ready for the new job that you still haven’t found time to check in with yourself. A few weeks into the job, you find out what it is like.
It’s hard to find out you don’t have increased happiness when you land something. If this happens to you, please know that unless it’s toxic, you likely don’t need to quit your job to find happiness. You can systematically build up mindfulness skills to train career contentment.
Here’s what the first phase of career contentment looks like. I combined Shinzen Young‘s Happiness Grid with my career and story coaching programs. When I was getting trained as Lead UM Coach, I saw overlapping pieces between general happiness training and how it shows up in people’s careers. I got very interested in how I might use his science-informed methodology to help people feel better at work — without needing to quit.
I’ve spent the past two years testing this new technique, and I am seeing encouraging results. Mainly, my clients are experiencing decreased stress and increased self-confidence and personal expression. This makes for great storytellers and happy people.
My biggest wish is that you enjoy your first day at work. I hope it goes amazing for you.
