#103 🎭 Starting Fresh: How to Handle Performance Anxiety at a New Job

Breaking Free from the Ghosts of Performance Reviews Past

Welcome to Tech Atypically 👋, your weekly blog for navigating the challenges of ADHD and being in the tech industry.

I am an ADHD and product management coach, helping you change one belief and take one action each week.

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Part 2 of the Inclusive Performance Series

🦋The Takeaways

Belief: I need to eliminate my anxiety about performance reviews to succeed at my new job.

Reality: Performance anxiety often stems from survival mechanisms that once protected you and may be needed again.

Action: Accept the anxiety as part of your experience while building evidence of your current safety and success.

⭐️Introduction

Welcome to Part 2 of our Inclusive Performance Coaching series. This week, I'm getting vulnerable about something many of us face but rarely discuss: starting a new job while carrying the trauma of a previous performance failure.

Last week, I started a new full-time role after working as a contractor. During orientation, they outlined my 30-60-90 day ramp plan with performance check-ins at 45 and 90 days. As someone who has faced poor performance reviews in the past, I felt that familiar knot in my stomach; the anxiety of being judged by performance reviews.

I sat down with my fellow Tech Atypically coaches Michael Asaku-Yeboah and Rupert Dallas to explore how to handle performance anxiety when starting fresh. What I discovered might help anyone carrying baggage from a previous job.

Happy Pride Month. I wish I could hide in a shell from work sometimes.

😵‍💫The Belief - I Need to Eliminate This Anxiety

My immediate reaction has been to fight the anxiety by either trying to wish it away or asking myself why. Here I am, technically doing the same job I've been doing successfully as a contractor for the last 8 months, suddenly doubting myself.

30% of my emotional capacity is worrying that I’m messing up at my job, or trying to wish the anxiety away like magic.

At other times, I use my logic to hyper-rationalize my anxiety. Why couldn't I appreciate that I'm in a better situation now? I earned this job because they recognized I’m valuable and contribute. So why can’t I accept that? Why do I feel this way?

Why am I broken?

But as Michael pointed out, this reaction itself might be part of the problem. When you try to eliminate anxiety rather than understand it, you often make it worse.

🤝The Reality - Trauma Responses Are Survival Mechanisms

"It sounds like you’re experiencing some of the signs of complex trauma," Michael explained. "You're going to do a lot of fight, fright, and freeze because things that are happening are going to trigger a reaction. You're going to think you are still in the same unsafe environment you were in before."

Ah, trauma, my old friend. You’re never far behind my core challenges. You’ve shaped my beliefs in myself and the world, whether I’m aware of it or not.

Michael helped me understand that trauma responses fall into predictable patterns:

• Fight: Pushing back hard on feedback, even when it's not directed at you

• Freeze: Getting stuck and not knowing how to respond to general comments

• Fawn: Agreeing with everything and admitting fault for things that aren't your responsibility

"These are things that your body did to protect you during the time you experienced trauma," Michael continued. "At one point, they were survival mechanisms. But now in your new space, it's no longer needed because you are no longer in danger, but your body is not aware of that."

The reality is that these anxious feelings served a purpose. They helped me survive unsafe work environments in the past. The goal isn't to eliminate them but to help my nervous system understand I'm no longer in danger. To do that, I have to process what’s happening today at work and the trauma I’ve experienced in the past.

My trauma is a gift. It’s helped me get through the worst of times, but it can also prevent me from reaching the best of times.

🛠️The Action - Build Evidence and Practice Acceptance

Based on our conversation, here are three strategies for managing performance anxiety at a new job:

1. Check in proactively and frequently to reduce surprises

• Rupert recommends taking control of the narrative: "Check in on performance expectations often. This can be done in one-on-ones formally and informally. The best way is to ask 'how am I doing?' and 'was this work product what you expected?'"

• Before your formal reviews, ask: "Are there areas where you want to see improvement, or areas where I should focus more time and effort?" This provides context and level-sets expectations before any formal evaluation.

2. Practice cognitive restructuring with or without a coach

• "Working with a coach helps a lot because now you can do cognitive restructuring (identifying and changing negative thought patterns)," Michael explained. "The coach can highlight some of those things and begin to challenge you to provide evidence why that feeling or thought is valid." Having a coach enables an outside perspective that can help identify and address the blind spots you have.

Even without a coach, you can practice this yourself:

• When anxiety spikes, ask: "What evidence do I have that I'm actually in danger right now?".

  • Practice: My feelings are valid, but they may not reflect the reality of others.

• Practice self-analysis: "Why did I respond that way? Was my response rational?".

  • Practice: How much of my response is due to emotional dysregulation or am I in a state to know what I truly feel?

• Remind yourself: "These feelings helped me survive before, but I'm safe now".

  • Practice: Where I am today is not where I was before, and I can’t assume the worst.

3. Use mindfulness to stay present

• Michael recommended mindfulness exercises to "get yourself to reassure yourself you are no longer in that danger."

  • Try this: Find a quiet space and sit in silence. When your mind drifts to worst-case scenarios about performance reviews, gently bring your attention back to the present moment. "The more you are able to catch yourself and bring yourself back, you learn to be able to catch yourself even in situations where your mind is wandering away."

• If breathing isn’t you’re thing, practicing curiosity and that a workplace will let you know things aren’t going well quickly also works.

  • Rupert noted: "You will know if you are subpar in your performance well before 90 days, as you will be able to tell this with your interactions." Lean into curiosity by understanding your role and how your contributions move the organization forward, building a defensible record of success.

✨Conclusion

If you're starting a new job while carrying performance trauma from a previous role, remember: your anxiety makes sense. Honor what it's trying to protect while gently teaching your nervous system that you're safe now.

As Michael put it: "Getting yourself to reassure yourself you are no longer in danger is going to be key. Then you are slowly able to get yourself out of that state of mind of survival mechanism and begin to process information like any other person."

Performance anxiety and trauma are always going to be a part of me. Instead of trying to make them go away, I can practice allowing myself to process the discomfort. While reminding myself that “The best moment of my life always happens at the end of my comfort zone.” -Chef José Andrés (Chef’s Table)

Have you experienced performance anxiety when starting a new role? What strategies helped you work through it? Share your experience in the comments or reach out directly—your story might help others facing similar challenges.

⏭️Next Week

My job gave me a coach, now what?