Strategies to Reduce Stress When Making a Job Change

Congratulations! You’ve taken the thrilling step of making a change in your career and have landed a great new job opportunity. We get it – the excitement is real! But, so is the stress. Starting a new job is a huge change, not just to your work day but to your life as well. You may be feeling a wide range of emotions going into a new job and with any major life change you need some strategies to be able to manage it well. Below we’ve listed some great tips on how to get through the transition with minimal stress and start your next job off on the right foot.

Give Ample Notice To Your Current Employer

Giving appropriate notice of resignation to your employer is always the right thing to do. Your current team counts on you, and they need to have plenty of time to rearrange job duties and find a new team member to take your place. Typically, a two-week notice of resignation is expected, but you may want to consider giving a longer notice if you’re in a managerial role or if your role is a difficult one for your employer to fill. In the healthcare industry it is even more important for employees to give appropriate notice as patient care could suffer without adequate staff. If you’ve been able to observe the way past employees gave notice to your current employer in an acceptable manner, you can use that time frame as your ethical compass for your own notice of resignation. While working out your notice, help your team and superiors wrap up loose ends and offer to train your replacement if it’s possible. The way you leave a job is just as important as the way you start it, especially if you plan on asking your team members to vouch for you as a professional reference in the future. Knowing you have done everything you can to minimize any impact your leaving may have on your employer, will decrease stress and give you peace of mind about their support for your future success.

Don’t Leave Mentally After You Give Your Notice

Once you give a notice of resignation it might be easy to become disassociated to your current job, but your team still needs you. If you don’t continue the same quality of work you usually provide, things could get out of hand quickly, leading to a lot of unnecessary stress. Consequently, this could cause you to start your next position off on a bad foot. Staying engaged, productive, and even doing a little more than normal to help your team prepare for your transition will ensure your departure goes as smoothly as possible. Keep in mind that some employers will start to disperse job duties between your team as you near your resignation date, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t continue to work hard. Show up to work each day, ask how you can help, assist in training your team members on new tasks and be accessible to answer questions that come up. There is always something to do and remaining present up until your very last day will only reflect positively on your work ethic.

Learn About Your New Employer

Most organizations have an orientation for new employees to help them become familiar in their first days on the job, but anything you can learn about the company on your own before starting will be nothing but positive. Not only will you feel more prepared, you will be able to have informed conversations during orientation and convey your eagerness to do well. Visiting the company’s “Meet The Team” page on their website and becoming familiar with each person’s role will help you recognize some faces and job titles. This will help you to not feel overwhelmed with meeting a large number of new colleagues and superiors. Additionally, learning about the company’s values and mission statement will help you know their goals and how your role will influence their success.

Practice Your New Commute

If you want to show that you’re a reliable and dedicated employee, showing up late on day number one is not the way to do it. Talk about stress-inducing! It’s always a good idea to practice the route(s) that you’ll take to get to work. Time your commute from when you get into the car to the time that you pull into the company’s parking lot so you know exactly how long it takes you to get there on a normal day. Check traffic reports each morning so you become familiar with delays that typically occur on your new drive. Google Assistant can be set on your smart phone to alert you of any incident that might take you longer to navigate and will automatically suggest the quickest route around the problem. Make sure to allow for more than extra time so you don’t panic if you encounter a delay in traffic on your first day.

Take Care of Yourself

Making sure that you eat right, exercise normally, and get plenty of rest is absolutely critical to your physical and mental health. This is especially true when you’re going through times where you might have some more stress than normal. Being well rested better prepares you to be able to deal with stress than when you’re not, so getting adequate sleep is key in staying happy and healthy in times of change. You don’t have to wait for stress to show up before you manage it. If you’re prone to anxiety, routinely making time for calming activities like taking a walk or meditating can help you feel more relaxed when you do encounter a stressful event. Take time to breathe and invest in your most important asset, you!

Post Positive Reminders

It’s easy to feel unsure and even a little insecure when starting a new job. While changing jobs can be stressful, don’t forget that YOU DID IT! Your new employer chose to give the seat to you and that is no small accomplishment. They are confident in your abilities, and you should be too. Write a positive reminder to yourself about why you got this job on a sticky note and post it somewhere that you can easily see each morning when you wake up. Boosting your self-confidence is a great step to take to reduce stress, and you just plain deserve it, you rock-star you!

LeaderStat offers numerous resources to job seekers and employers alike. If you’re considering a change in your career, visit our job board to see exciting opportunities.