This blog post started as notes in a notebook which I jotted down while at work one day, and then I dictated those notes to the Page App to save time typing it up, and whenever I needed to add to it I’ve just dictated it. So when it came time to do edit it as a blog post I copied and pasted it over into Square space. There’s no punctuation when I’m dictating, it’s just words rolling into one another, so it needs editing properly as it’s just typing out the words as I say them.

So now that I know that it could be easier for me to dictate some posts in the future, although annoyingly the Pages App only seems to record for a minute before it shuts off and goes back to the keyboard. This means I have to keep checking my phone to make sure that it’s recording my voice which is a little bit annoying when I’m trying to do something else. While I was recording this bit I was doing my make-up while I was getting ready for work on Monday morning. I don’t know if there is a setting where I can change to make it record for longer I guess I’ll have to google that. (There isn’t apparently.)

Dictating some blog posts to start with is one way that I’m trying to help myself be more productive with posting on here. Through. few trials I’ve discovered that Word works best with dictation so it looks like I’ll be trying that for now. It will take practice to work out what words to use for basic punctuation and new paragraphs, however. It took me longer than I expected to edit the text of this post because most of it was large blocks of text with no punctuation and sometimes it typed the wrong words compared to what I’d actually said so I had to decipher what I’d said originally. I’d also repeated myself a few times with rewording the same thoughts a few different ways, so I had to spend time working out which of them explained things best.

I’ve been in my new job for seven weeks now and I’m fully settled in, my knowledge is growing daily on the products and procedures and also my anxiety so much better. This is helping my confidence grow although I still get a bit anxious when initially serving a customer but that’s due to my still being so new. Out of the 7 weeks, I’ve had five selling versus 14 years in my last job which I knew so well. It’s the change and challenge I was wanting though so I am relishing it all so much! The two latest posts on here have been about my new job, but that’s because I am so excited to be doing something different, working somewhere different and to have little anxiety and no pre-work dread which I only realised I had and how bad it was after a few weeks in my new role.

The first two weeks were working through the induction booklet training and observing my colleagues, then I had a week practising what I’d learned up to that point alongside working on my selling skills with no target. The last four weeks I’ve had an individual target building up to the realistic target I’d get when I pass my 12 weeks training and probationary period. I’m having weekly feedback from my manager as part of my training and at the beginning of June, I had my first monthly review which I will still have when I graduate from the training period.

The feedback from my manager is that my customer service is great, I’ve had positive feedback from customers, each week so far it’s great to have me as part of the team. He is glad that I’ve settled in so well and said that I’m doing extremely well and he can see I’m a lot more confident. I’m also good at taking feedback and he can see that I want to do well.

I’ve just been feeling very overwhelmed the past few weeks and I’ve realised that it’s because most of last year and for the first 3 1/2 months of 2021 I didn’t really have a routine because of all the lockdowns, then after getting my new job in mid-April I was managing to get a new routine and settling into that. I had regular hours again which I haven’t had for a long while which was helping me and then a few weeks later, I started to be trained in the opening and closing of the store which meant that my shifts were changed from 11 to 5 to either 930 to 330 for the opening or 12/noon to 6 pm for the closing routine. The routine I had created worked out for the 11 to 5 then didn’t work for the early shift for example, as I couldn’t do everything that I’d done the past few weeks so I struggled to reduce it down for the early start and then for the noon to 6 shift I have an extra hour play with so struggled to find a routine for that.

While learning all the extra things about the opening and closing procedures that I need to do and to remember, I am still undergoing the normal training of the products and computer systems and the information to say to customers that they need to be told about so that they can make an informed decision. When I’m struggling with things, something always falls by the wayside and it is usually posting to my Instagram and blog and also things like reading the Bible and listening to a messy masterpiece podcast. Instead, I start to use unhelpful distraction behaviours like watching lots of YouTube videos.

The past few weeks I’ve just felt like I’ve been floundering and struggling to find solid ground again after having it stable for a couple of weeks. I know it will come with time but it was one extreme to the other and back again. I’d got so used to having the stable ground then it was un-nerving when I didn’t have that anymore. I had a good journalling session about it this last week, and that helped me feel a lot better. It helped me to realise what was going on, to feel more stable and I re-connected to myself. I had stopped listening to The Messy Masterpiece podcast when my hours changed for the opening and closing training so I know that’s not helped me.

While I was feeling very disjointed, I wasn’t sure what I needed and what to do and how to help myself the best, I am someone that really does thrive off routine so after finally finding one after lockdown three this year and then lose it, so soon after, it has was very unsettling. Hopefully, now that I am aware of the issue I can start to rectify my behaviour and look at what are the non-negotiables that I need to do in the morning for an early start, and what extra thing could I do if I have a noon start rather than just doing something for longer. Which I can do if I need to, so once I’ve done all the things that I do for the 11 o’clock start, if I have time left can then journal a little bit longer or I can read a book or maybe read some of the Bible.

Now that I’ve realised the cause for my recent anxiety, I’m hoping that I will deal with any work rota changes better in the future. It’s a necessity as well that I’m learning the opening and closing of the store now, as a colleague is on holiday this coming week so I had to undergo this training earlier than the end of my 12-week training, which is when I would ordinarily have it. I don’t think that added pressure hasn’t helped me, and it’s the pressure that I’ve put on myself, knowing that they postponed their time off from last month which was only a month after I’d started.

I need to un-learn the negative behaviours of distracting myself with endless YouTube videos so I need to look at how I can start to recognise when I’m doing that sooner so it doesn’t go on as long next time.

I need to remember that my manager must believe in me and also see the necessary skills in me now for me to learn the opening and closing procedures or he would’ve got cover from another store for these next two weeks while our other colleague is off. 

I also need to remember that I’m still in my training period and even though it’s quiet I’m still doing all I can with the customers that I do talk to. I’m doing a lot better than what I think I’m doing. I’m getting regular sales and I’m improving when speaking to customers. I’m just always very hard on myself and I really want to do well here so I’ve put extra pressure on myself. I can only sell to the customers that come in and when we don’t have any customers, there’s nothing I can do about that. All I can control is what I can control. If nobody is coming in that’s beyond my control, so I shouldn’t let it get to me as much as it has been.

I think this job is part of a lot of lessons that I’m needing to learn, letting go of things that I can’t control is one of them, knowing and believing in my own self-worth is another. Because I need to know my own self-worth and have more confidence within myself and my abilities to be able to do this job better. There are probably many more lessons I'm in this job to learn about myself and others but I don't know what they are yet.

I was so comfortable in my last job that probably got overly complacent and now that I'm so far out of my comfort zone, I feel like I'm struggling more than I am. Focus on the good. Focus on the positives. Focus on what I have done. Be mindful and stay in the moment that I'm in, instead of worrying about what has already been and has already happened and stop being anxious about what may happen with the next customer. 

The past has happened it can't be changed, and I'm too busy worrying about what I may or may not do, what may or may not happen that I'm overthinking things and over worrying about things that I can't control when the next customer does come in, I’m not always fully focused on them.