A Misfit’s Guide to Navigating the Office - Guides

The impulse to want to fake it, to be more poised, polished or more like what you perceive all those #bosses on Instagram to be, is powerful — especially if you’ve spent a lifetime feeling odd. But pretending to be something you’re not in a new job, faking skills or contorting yourself to gain recognition, is a short-sighted strategy with little return.

Your best work will come when you can be open, accountable, curious and fully who you are — not by performing some outsize version of who you think you should be.

Focus on the value and strengths you bring in this moment, even with all of your perceived flaws. 

Identify what it is about work that makes you feel anxious. Learn to push through this anxiety instead of running away from it. A daily meditation practice may help with this; so could a simple 10-minute walk.

Pinpoint the triggers that make you feel ashamed or insecure and begin the process of overcoming them. Journaling, therapy, and confiding in friends are all potential ways to cope. 

• Many of us have been told that confidence is a fixed state — once we have it, it doesn’t go away. But confidence is actually fleeting: One day you will be swaggering around a conference room fired up to give a presentation and the next you’ll be eating your feelings in the office kitchen paralyzed by a full panic. 
• Most people — misfits or not — experience this sort of indecision. We think confidence is a requirement to be successful.
• But instead of focusing on confidence, set your mind to developing your competence — and becoming better at what you do. 

For many of us, the biggest obstacle in the way of our success is the noise we create in our own heads: psyching ourselves out, telling ourselves we can’t do it, distracting ourselves with problems that don’t necessarily exist outside our minds. For those of us who experience these thoughts, learning to control our overthinking — and anchor ourselves back in reality — is critical. 

Remember that what we perceive as failure is often an opportunity.

So you hate networking, the small talk gives you hives and you find yourself in a state of panic over professional events. All of this may make you may feel like you’re alone at work. You aren’t. You just haven’t identified your people yet. 

The awkward moments you experience on a regular basis can be an opening for a conversation with someone who also struggles with feeling like they don’t fit the mould. Look for these moments of honest rapport, and seek out the people at work who behave in a way you admire and whose work you genuinely respect.

• Focus on building genuine connections and relationships, not transactional relationships based on what other people can do for you.
• Ask questions that have nothing to do with work.
• Give heartfelt compliments. 
• Be a person your new colleague-friends can trust. 
• Actively support your co-workers, back up their ideas, offer help when you can and celebrate their successes. 
• Set boundaries and stick to them. You are not obliged to socialize with co-workers outside the office if you don’t want to, nor do you have to take on their personal problems to be a good colleague.