Years ago, I got my first official job. I had wanted a job for a long time, but I mainly stuck to babysitting gigs and the like.

I had a lot of anxiety around getting a job, because of all the responsibilities I would be assigned.

I didn’t know whether or not I would be able to meet all of those expectations, so I kept pushing it off.

But eventually I got a job, and in the beginning it was a very interesting experience.

Let’s just say, after the first week I already wanted to quit. I felt overwhelmed and anxious, because I felt like I couldn’t complete the tasks well.

And despite people telling me that I was doing okay, I still felt insecure about my capabilities.

I didn’t like the structure and environment of the job either, so that didn’t make things any better.

The day I decided I was going to quit, I spoke to my manager and she told me two things.

One, that it is natural to be uncomfortable in the beginning, and that I would eventually get the hang of it.

And two, she told me to give it at least another week to see if my feelings would change.

At first, I was hesitant to do so because I felt like I already hated the job so much, so I didn’t think anything was really going to change.

But I reluctantly decided to stay anyway.

And surprisingly, making the decision to stay at my job another week, was something that helped me grow and learn tremendously in the long run.

For one, I learned that you have to give things time, even when they’re hard.

It’s natural for us to want to quit when things are hard because it’s uncomfortable, but you have to give yourself a chance to get used to new things & to get comfortable with them.

Second, I learned that things do get better even when you can’t see it.

Initially, I could not see my job getting better at all. There were so many things I felt I was bad at, and I hated feeling like I was failing.

But, when I stayed, I realized the job was not as bad as it seemed like it was in the first few weeks, and I was able to get the hang of a lot of things.

And third, I learned how to take on job responsibilities and meet those expectations that I was scared I wouldn’t be able to meet.

A lot of times we don’t do things out of fear that we won’t meet certain expectations. We don’t want to get embarrassed, we fear rebuke, and we don’t want to feel bad about ourselves.

But in order to grow, you must accept new responsibilities and learn how to meet reasonable expectations, which is what I ended up being able to do as time went on.

Ultimately, learning these things not only helped me throughout my job, but it helped me throughout life.

I now apply these lessons and the many other lessons I learned at that job, to my everyday life, and I consider them whenever I get discouraged about my capabilities.