Worrying about work

LegacyUser

Has anyone ever felt like a massive failure. I've been working in a professional services role fully qualified for about 6 years. I feel like a massive failure at it. I have a mortgage so I feel tied to it I make about €60k which to me is huge money.

I did v badly at the end of my last job I kept getting really stressed out & making mistakes & I had a terrible relationship with my boss she gave me a terrible performance review after which I discovered a mistake was overwhelmed & resigned. When I look back now I realise that she neglected all her responsibility to me & her clients by mot supervising me properly. That said I am still v mindful of my own faults in that situation.

I found another job in a much better work environment after that but I have still made mistakes. My new boss is quite tolerant of it & says she expects that a certain amount of things will go wrong & not to worry so much. I feel the fact that she likes me asa person makes her reluctant to give out to me.

My life is in pieces over work the last few years I spend huge amounts of time worrying about work. I've spent Christmas crying about a mistake I made in my old job that I only thought of since I left. I'd go back & point it out but I've done that before & I'd worry they d think I'm crazy.

Anyone has similar problems?

dockleaf

I have been working in professional services for over 20 years.

Worrying means you care, caring probably makes you good at what you do. I worry all the time, about files, about clients. When I think of something that is worrying me, I send myself an email at work and the next time I am in work I make sure to look at that first. I have a to-do list at all times at work. I keep a diary, simply microsoft outlook, and make sure each time I meet a client or open a file I diary ahead a review. Then I do an independent review of all files whenever possible.

In my experience the best things to do would be:

Take courses to boost your knowledge and therefore confidence. I am not sure what profession you are in but most professions require you to do CPD hours anyway, boost this and do an extra qualification, diploma, whatever you can. This has the added bonus of connecting you with like professionals.


Also make sure you have parameters around each file- ie build yourself a check list of things you need to be sure you have done on every file/ with every client,.

Build a net work of fellow professionals that you can talk with- and sometimes this simply means that you are the first to reach out and say=- hey , I am not sure about something, can I run this by you?

And remember, we ALL make mistakes- what distinguishes us is how we deal with those mistakes- learn from them, move on and make yourself better.

Big Bag of Chips

Your first boss was a poor boss, and took her own failings and mistakes out on others rather than acknowledged them. Your new boss is a good boss. She acknowledges that mistakes will be made. She makes them herself!

Read up on "imposter syndrome". It's very common.

LegacyUser

Thank you both for replying.

I feel like I'm stuck in a never ending cycle of mistakes. The reality is there are people with my level of experience who are junior partners in professional services firms. The last year in my previous job was a utter disaster from almost the word go, and I have thought of a least three mistakes I made there since I left. I even rung my old work about one, and the partner said well yes that is a mistake but it's hard to see what can be done about it at this point. While a lot of the problem was my old boss a good portion of it was down to me.

In my new job generally things seemed to be going much better for the first while, but I've still made mistakes. I haven't brought down the company or anything yet but they shouldn't have happened and there will be some cost involved in fixing them.

I don't want to sound like Generation Snowflake but I struggle to cope, my job on paper really isn't rocket science but I seem to forget small details which have bigger consequences. I'm sitting here now checking something and I'm supposed to be off. I don't cope well with stress at all, I never really did. I am mindful of the fact that I have habits which contribute to stress like putting things off until close to the deadline, which I then feel guilty about.

Whilst my immediate team are very good, some of my other colleagues are not, in some cases because they just don't appear to care that much and I feel I end up picking up the slack for that which adds to my stress. Also because I work in professional services, other colleagues feel getting it 100% is my responsibility and they just have to ask me to do it type thing. If something goes wrong I feel very guilty anyways so maybe that bit doesn't make that much difference.

On the CPD, yes I do have CPD requirements to fulfill and in 2017 I will try to make maximum use out of picking relevant topics to improve. On the imposter syndrome I am familiar with it but I don't have it, everything I have said here is true, I'm not exaggerating or blowing it up in my head.

I'm stuck in an endless cycle of under performance, mistakes and endless guilt. I feel so guilty all the time I feel like I don't deserve my salary and the life I have made with it because I'm such a disaster!

frogstar

Would you consider changing career to something less stressful ?

while your salary is good I would think that it is actually on the low side for professional. It's not a huge salary by any means

Do you actually like your job? I know from my own job I work with lawyers and accountants and I just could never do what they do. I just don't have that level of detail that is needed. Is there anything else you could see yourself doing?

There are lots of areas you could look at that might be more suitable

December2012

You may have a problem with stress itself. Would you consider talking to a mental health professional, or maybe a career counselor?

Does exercising help your mental state?

LegacyUser

Thanks for your replies.

I am thinking about switching fields. The problem is both my degree & my professional qualification are specific to what I do and I've been working in a specific area of my field for quite a long time. I'm not sure what areas to aim for. If there was something that jumped out at me I'd throw my energies at that but at present there isn't. A family member has warned me about grass is always greener thinking, I think I might be guilty of it but only to a point, I appreciate that other jobs have stresses but they don't appear from the outside in to be quite as stressful.

One thing holding me back is what do I say in interviews I haven't made a roaring success of my career!

I have tried counselling & medication. While I did enjoy counselling while I was there I became addicted to it, at one stage I was seeing several people in a week so I went cold turkey & haven't felt any worse for it.

I'd be slow to say to anyone don't go for counselling as very much each to their own & it seems most people find it very useful. Overall I felt it didn't change anything for me it didn't make the mistakes go away or their impact any less.

Sorry for typos - on my phone.