I Have No Confidence At All, Freaking Out About Getting My First Job

[Santiago]

As the title says I am scared about getting my first job, I have felt useless all my life, I have very low self-esteem. I feel like I will be asked to do simple things and I won't know how to do them and I will look retarded in front of everybody.

I know where this issue comes from, it's from my childhood, my familiy was kinda separated because my dad liked my brother the most(I was an accident, a broken condom, I learnt this a few years ago and it might explain why my dad had more sympathy for my bro) and my mom had to balance things out so she always stood for me, that kind of disfunctional family dynamic caused a lot of harm to me and my brother. He is 5 years older than me, and he felt that my mother liked me the most(because she had to stand for me, otherwise I'd feel like shit if none of my parents liked me), so we fought a lot as kids, and I remember he always told me that I was useless. Everytime I was doing something he would come up and told me it was bad and that I was useless. This happened for years, and my brother was 5 years older than me so he was like an authority for me, that's why it had a big impact in my mind.

Now, despite of knowing that I am smart and a very nice person, deep down in the subconscious mind I feel like I am worthless, and I have been acting my entire life as if I was useless, avoiding doing stuff, avoiding challenges, being shy, staying away from the pain, and so it's a self fulfilling prophecy, because now I am in 4th year of computers engineering and I know little, just the necessary to pass the subjects I had to pass. I never started any of the projects I had in mind because I feared failing at them, I feared not being good enough to do them, and now I feel like I am in disadvantage compared to my colleagues.


I'm freaking out just thinking about working, I will have to be in a team of developers, showing that I am capable, doing stuff in front of others, being useful and responding to a boss. I will have to directly talk with the clients. I will have to pass a test before they hire me, and I feel like I don't know enough because I never practiced on my free time and I never did a personal project as many others do. I still don't do stuff in my free time because I lack motivation, probably because of this fear of failing and also because I'm not passionate about my career...


What can I do to reprogram my subconscious mind? I need to get rid of this anchor that's holding me back in every aspect of my life. I know that positive self-talk like "I'm worthy, bla bla" if done consistently during months can help a little bit. I also know that doing visualisations helps as well, but I am not good with that. What else can I do??

Thank you very much!

[Philip]

@Santiago I got myself out of a situation that's pretty similar to yours. I had huge self-esteem issues. I was working in a hardware store and was afraid to talk to the people there. I was even afraid to say hello to anyone. That was pretty bad. After a few months of working on myself, I now feel like one of the most confident, extroverted, funny, charming and lovable people at my job. Never forget that it's possible to get there.

But how ? 

My first step was to see a psychologist. I didn't feel traumatized at all, but I knew how tricky a human mind could be, so I went anyway. It changed my life.

My second step was to get out of my parents' house. If you're still there, start searching for the quickest way out. It's probably toxic as hell.

My third step was to watch self-help videos, like Elliott Hulse, Leo, Brian Smith. There I learned about visualization, affirmation, law of attraction. And it was a crucial help for me. It seemed illogical and dishonest for me to lie to myself like that, but eventually I saw it was just a technique. And the technique works. Trust me, you can't NOT be good at those. You're always using them anyway, it's just that you're using them to become a failure instead of becoming a winner.

My fourth step was to become extremely ambitious about the trajectory of my life. As a student in computer engineering, it meant that I wanted to contribute to the rise of god-like AI, virtual worlds, transhumanism, the singularity, and eventually pierce through the deepest mysteries of existence itself. No need to become as crazy as me hahaha, but ambition helps

My fifth stage was to start meditating. When I think of it, I should have started sooner. Meditation will help you deconstruct the huge chunk of negative beliefs you carry around each day. You will learn that, in a sense, the voice inside your head is just a weird asshole trying to ruin your life. It doesn't come from you, it doesn't say the truth, and you don't have to obey it. Ever.

Now I may have sounded rude and uncompassionate, but really I know you're suffering. I know you're doing your best. I know you don't deserve this. I want to tell you how much I understand your pain, but I don't think that's what you need to hear. You need to be told to man the fuck up ! The world won't carry you in it's arms like you mother did. 

[Santiago]

Thank you very much for sharing your experience!

Ok, so, going over the list of recommendations:

1)See a psychologist: I went to a psychologist during half a year in 2011, and it was very usefull for bringing things out of my subconscious mind and being conscious about them, for example my confidence problem came to the surface one or two years ago and a thing that helped me a lot to discover it was remembering the talks I had with my psychologist that a lot of times revolved around me caring too much what other people thought of me.
The thing is that I don't know if a psychologist can help you to reprogram your subconscious mind once the problem is discovered, since the subconscious mind is not really affected by talking with somebody, but more with imagination and other kind of stuff. But I will try it anyway.

2)Get out of home: Good news, I will move to a new apartment with my brother in a month. I don't have problems with my brother now, it was when we were kids, now he is 29 and I'm 24, we get along fine.

3)Self help/visualizations/affirmations: I've been watching self-help videos and reading books since 2011 and it has done little for me, it's more like mental masturbation. I should read "the 6 pillars of self-steem" and "psycho cybernetics" since those 2 books directly address what is happening to me and how to solve it. I need to organize my day better because I waste a lot of time, and start reading those.
About visualizations, I've never done them, I don't really even know how to do this visualizations, but I will improvise, I get an idea of how it can work.
Affirmations do help, I had one period of success with self-help, a period where I was waking up at 6am, eating healthy, doing exercise, meditating, I was in a peacefull state of mind all day long and felt great, and it was a period where I was doing affirmations every day, so it evidently helped.

4)Become ambitious: This is a good one, I didn't think of it. I will try this.

5)Meditation: Works in the long term, I need to train this habit again since it helped me in the past.


Your tips are usefull, but they are oriented in the long or mid term, and I need a fix for the next two weeks haha, which I know that is quite impossible.. Maybe visualizations and affirmations can help me in the short term.

 

I will keep your advice in mind, thank you very much!

[Santiago]

Hey I came back to say that I have worked 2 different jobs this year(I left the 1st one cause the 2nd one was better) and that there were no problems after all, I am doing fine, it was just a lack of confidence and I was expecting them to expect more from me than they actually did. They knew what I was taught in college so the tasks were according to that.

[beatlesman]

Use affirmations: I am confident! I can do this! Leo has a video.