Days 1-5: Trying to settle in

Emotions

Every day, I was thinking, “What experiences do all my directs need to grow? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How will I give everyone the right opportunities?” I felt a lot of self-doubt and overall, had a hard time sleeping. But hey, in hindsight, it shows I care and I think that’s really important early on.

I also felt excited to come to work every day. This role brings on new challenges and a new work atmosphere for me that is going to stretch me and help me grow. The change of pace was much welcomed and the thought of actually being a manager started to sink in just a little bit.

Tasks

Meetings, meetings, meetings galore. All of a sudden, my calendar that used to have 15 hours of meetings a week suddenly jumped to 25+ hours. I attended a couple planning meetings with other teams and was thankful to have my previous manager there to intro me on the phone. My first round of 1:1s was also this week and went way better than my worrisome brain thought they would! I also held my first team meeting where we did introductions and I tried to make it clear that everything was “business as usual”. I managed to snag some time with one of our more tenured managers and had an awesome discussion about being a manager. It was reassuring to hear that I’m not alone in dealing with some of the negative thoughts that can grow on you when you’re a manager.

Learnings

The most important learning this week is that I cannot let the negative and worrisome thoughts take over my life. I wasn’t mentally ready for all these thoughts but by the end of the week, I was getting the hang of pushing those thoughts away outside of work and telling myself that I just need to focus on doing my best. No one is perfect and no one will be perfect - this is something I absolutely have to accept to be successful.