Nervous about work – tips for nerves of steel in the workplace

A nervous feeling, a tickle in your stomach, sweaty hands and a head that spins with thoughts or comes to a complete stop. Do you recognize that as the restless feeling that comes with being nervous? This blog post will come in handy when:
You are nervous for work.
You are nervous about certain tasks.
You regularly feel anxious about failure in the workplace.
Meetings make you restless.
You look forward to customer contact.
Emails, phone calls and meeting requests make you anxious.
You put off tasks because you are afraid to do them.
With practical tips we help you to get your nerves under control.
Fear is part of it and nerves too
But first the honest story about nerves and nervousness at work. It is quite normal to feel tense, insecure, nervous, jittery or even anxious about work-related matters from time to time.
You're not the only one who dreads giving a presentation, chairing a meeting, conducting a review or calling back an angry customer. Participating in large meetings can also be exciting, as can applying for a job, sending an important email, going to a network meeting or participating in a team outing with colleagues.
Those nerves and unrest only become a problem when you suffer greatly or it limits your functioning.
For example, you are so nervous that you can no longer think clearly and therefore forget to mention essential things in your presentation.
Or you are so tense that you decide to call in sick, cancel the team outing or transfer an interesting project to a colleague.
So you yourself are the one who determines where the boundary lies between healthy and unhealthy tension. Do you start every working day with nerves in your body, but do you think that falls under normal tension yourself? Fine, then it's no problem for you. Being nervous only becomes a problem when you experience being nervous as a burden. Often because it is accompanied by all kinds of irrational thoughts and endless worrying.
Why are you nervous?
Most of the time you are nervous because you feel like you have a performance to deliver. You want to do it right and achieve a good result. In other words, you don't want to make mistakes. The chance of failing increases the higher you set the bar for yourself. So your nerves can stem from having too high expectations.
You may also be afraid of being judged on your performance. You worry about what your colleagues, your boss or customers will think of you. You want to be recognized for what you do, and the chance of not receiving positive (or even negative) comments makes you nervous.
Nerves therefore have to do with performance anxiety. You feel pressure to perform and fear that you will not be able to meet your own expectations or the expectations of others. Below are tips to curb your fear of failure and tips to get your nerves under control.
Tips to curb your fear of failure
The best way to control your nerves is to get to the root of the problem. When you make short work of your fear of failure, your nerves get little or no chance. How can you curb your fear of failure? Try these tips:
1. Set realistic goals and let go of high expectations
Are you someone who sets the bar too high for yourself? Then the chance that you fail is also very high. You simply cannot achieve an unrealistic goal. Chances are you won't even start the task at all. Why would you? You won't be able to achieve your (unrealistic) goal anyway, so save the effort. This makes too great a challenge paralyzing and in the end little or nothing comes out of your fingers.
The trick is to shape goals and expectations in such a way that they match what you are capable of. A small, achievable challenge does have a stimulating effect. Everyone understands that you cannot let a starting athlete do a squat with a load of 150 kilos. The logical approach is to start slowly: learn the technique, add a barbell with weight, and then gradually build up the weight over a longer period of time.
When you apply this approach to your work-related goals, you immediately feel more peace of mind. Your first sales pitch does not have to immediately lead to a mega deal. Rather, set yourself the goal that the customer understands his own needs, what your product entails and how the two could be a match. Then that signature will automatically be added to the contract.

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2. Make use of the self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly leads to its coming true. You have a certain expectation and you actually count on it to happen that way. The joke is, because you have that belief, you start acting in line with that belief. This increases the chance that the result is in line with your prediction.
Because you think and act in line with your expectations (he doesn't think I'm a good employee), you are ultimately right.
The nice thing is, the self-fulfilling prophecy also works the other way around. Positive expectations lead to positive thoughts and actions. You feel motivated and do what it takes to make your expectation come true. Your positive mindset strengthens you in this. You ask for help where necessary, you check with yourself and those around you whether you are still on track and you see setbacks as inevitable bumps that just have to be overcome while you keep your focus on the end result.

Tips to get your nerves under control
Good, you have read the above tips but you have not succeeded in suppressing your fear of failure. So now the nerves are racing through your body and you want to know what you can do to cope with that nervousness. These tips will help you with that:
1. Breathe out your nerves from your body
The best way to quickly feel a lot calmer is to breathe consciously. When you take a big gulp of air and then 'exhale' it for a long time and calmly, you already feel more relaxed. Do this several times. For the people who like to count: take a deep breath in for 3 counts and then exhale for at least 5 counts, do this 4 times.
Some people can cause a big yawn on their own. It's also a great way to relax. Stretch yourself, yawn deeply, take a long breath and feel how your body calms down.
2. Good preparation is half the battle
Now that your breathing has calmed down a bit, take the time to prepare for the work that makes you nervous. When you prepare your tasks well, you immediately feel a lot more confident. A good preparation ensures control and that reduces the nerves.
Do you have to drive to an unknown place ? Look up the route, look at the situation at the end point via Google Maps, etc.
Do you need to call a customer ? Collect the most important data, think about what you want to achieve with the conversation and prepare the opening of the conversation.
Do you have to go on a team outing ? Find out online about the location and the activity, think about how you will get there and who you might travel with, decide what clothes to wear and what to take with you in your (back) bag.
Should you have a performance review with your boss? Take your job description, check for yourself what went well and what went less well, which skills you master and which skills you would like to develop, think about which goals you would like to achieve in the coming period and what else you want to discuss.
3. Practice, practice, practice and do, do, do
As tempting as it is to avoid exciting situations, it's better to face them correctly. By often doing what you actually find very exciting, you gain concrete experiences. And those facts are always more positive than the frightening fantasies that drive you crazy with nerves.
Presiding over a meeting for the first time is, of course, exciting. It makes sense that you are nervous. But you will see that no one is laughing at you and it goes more smoothly than you initially thought. After that first time, the head is off and you know what to expect. After leading a meeting 5 times you already get the hang of it, after 10 times you hardly feel any nerves and after 20 times you don't turn around anymore.
Practice makes perfect and practice takes care of nerves
4. Making mistakes is allowed
Everyone makes mistakes, that's part of life. Mistakes are also part of the job. Allowing yourself to make mistakes can take a lot of the stress away.
5. Compare
The moment the nerves are racing through your throat, it may be difficult to realistically look at the risks of your performance. Yet it can help you enormously to take a good look at what you have to do and how realistic it is that your worst fears will come true. That is very relative.
It is very unlikely that your customer does not want to do business because you do not immediately know the answer to a question, but you have to find out. Also, the audience will not laugh at you when you give a presentation. And the world won't stop spinning if you accidentally knock a cup of coffee over your resume during your job interview . We certainly don't want to promote coffee spills, but it can definitely be an ice breaker and the conversation just flows more smoothly.
And as a final tip: remember that the world (and the workplace) is filled with people who – just like you – have their own insecurities and learning points. Everyone got up this morning and goes back to bed at the end of the day. In the meantime, we'll make something of it together. No more and no less.

Dynamic Staffing Services  is a leading Overseas Recruitment Company with an extensive experience in providing manpower solutions to many well-known organizations across the Globe.

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