Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Lack of Self-Confidence at work
(OP)
Hey everyone,
I'm a recent May graduate and have worked in my company since then including an internship last year.
I just wanted to know if when you first started as an engineer, you felt like you really didn't much have self-confidence? That's how I feel right now and sometimes very overwhelmed, but my supervisor keeps telling me that I need to be patient with myself and take it one day at a time. And of course to remember to learn something new every day.
Thanks!
I'm a recent May graduate and have worked in my company since then including an internship last year.
I just wanted to know if when you first started as an engineer, you felt like you really didn't much have self-confidence? That's how I feel right now and sometimes very overwhelmed, but my supervisor keeps telling me that I need to be patient with myself and take it one day at a time. And of course to remember to learn something new every day.
Thanks!





RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
As you become more proficient and comfortable with doing new things, your confidence will likewise increase.
After all, the company had enough confidence in you to hire you.
TTFN
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
"But what... is it good for?"
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Regards,
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Based on how well or not so well that we accomplish task self-confidence can grow or falter. It is how one feels about oneself. We all tend to base our own personal values on how successfully we perform in different situations and we often require perfect performance of ourselves. Failure to obtain our perfect standards, we end up lowering our self-confidence. Society values flawless performance and places great emphasis on winning and performing perfectly. One loses sight of the fact that we can value ourselves in spite of making mistakes
How can we go about increasing our self-confidence, when we discover it decreasing?
1. Make a list of the things that they do like about themselves. Rediscover those very likable qualities about ourselves that we often take for granted.
2. Take some time to do something for oneself, something enjoyable.
Continued frustration or attempting things that we have difficulty with can lead to feelings of clumsiness and inadequacy. It doesn’t take long when we experience these feelings to find our self-confidence seems to have decreased.
Make a list of the things that we do well and to do one of these things on the list everyday.
Find a mentor, your supervisor sound like he is a good, but if you want some one outside of work try the NSPE Mentoring program http://www.nspe.org/pd1-mentoring.asp . In addition, other technical societies have mentoring programs.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
"How do you tell an extroverted engineer?
Ans. He looks at your shoes when he talks to you, not his."
The best thing to do is use what you know and to know what you don't know where and/or from who to find it.
Also know what things are critical and which are not.
If you do ten things a day and get three wrong you got seven right. Your seven ahead of the guy who was indecisive and did nothing.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
I'd rather hire someone who knows they have a lot to learn, than someone who appears to know it all (they don't).
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Please take advantage of this time to learn your job and ask as many questions as you can, no matter how silly they seem. Making mistakes at this stage of your career is essential and no one is going to hang you for them as long as you don't repeat the same mistakes over and over. McCormick93 is right, don't appear to know it all when you don't. No one will go out of their way to help you if you have an ego. You don't seem like you have one, but stay humble.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
People don't mind being asked questions. It gives them a chance to show what they know. Why do you think there are so many people on this forum. Some ask questions, most are here to volenteer help.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
I found out quickly that school only taught me how much I didn't know. School gives you all the problem variables and tells you which formulae to apply; then you get onto the job and nothing is cut and dried at all, sometimes its pulling teeth to get even one variable. We've all been there, all had our young'n'eager graduate egos kicked in, and we all took your supervisor's advice. Just be patient with yourself. You *will* make mistakes. You may get teased for it; brush it off and if you have to, remind the teasers that they were once fresh off the boat themselves.
Something that helps me is to ask myself, after I come home from work and sat down with a cup of tea, "What did I learn today?" If I solved a problem by drawing on a previous experience, I'll remind myself of that; that's me on the road to becoming a senior engineer. School shows you the base of the mountain and gives you your picks and crampons. They may be further up the mountain than you are, but they left their hooks for you to use. They did it, and so can you.
"Eat well, exercise regularly, die anyways."
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
TTFN
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Then, you get to your customer that he's an idiot; politely, of course.
Just had that happen on a proposal we submitted. Knowing what the correct answer should be ought to be a good discriminator, assuming that the customer picked up on that at all.
TTFN
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
In my case, and with many fellow engineers I know, an engineer goes through the following evolution:
1. Starts out pretty confident, after all you graduated, have a great new job, and you are used to being the "senior" person around school. This ends after the first couple of days on the job.
2. For the first few months, feelings of Ohmygosh jump in every so often as you are given work and you feel like those around you are all focusing on your performance and, well, you'd better not screw up or everyone will shake their heads at your utter "green-ness"....you are the center of the universe in your own eyes, but in reality, most others don't really notice or don't care.
3. After stage 2 you settle down a bit, get into some semblance of a routine and begin to know how to do certain tasks. You still feel very uncertain at times and find yourself asking more and more questions.
4. After a couple of years, you can be given a variety of tasks but you still feel like the hammer will drop at any time when someone will require you to do something you have no clue how to approach. Still lots of questions of your supervisors - a very knee jerk reaction when you find yourself getting up from your desk to go ask - to make sure you're doing it right.
5. After three years or so you finally realize, as you are walking over to ask your supervisor another question, that, jeez, I know the answer and my supervisor doesn't really have a clue as to all the parameters involved in this particular problem. You turn around on your heels and go back to your desk....but still a little queazy.
6. At some point, you just swallow and DO YOUR JOB, feeling that if you don't know how to do it, then you will simply find out, research it, etc.
7. Even after 30 years you still have questions, still have doubts, but that old "will I be revealed to all as a phony" feeling is quite dim.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
When I got my first engineering job at a defense company that was when reality hit hard, especially in manufacturing where I first started. At the lab it was more academic, but in the real world they kept to a time table and cost matrix. The reason my boss put me in manufacturing (designing test fixtures and some process engineering tasks) first was to get my feet wet and to get a chance to see how the company worked. In essence I had to get over a learning curve. I had to learn how we manufacture before I can design. At first it was tough because of the fast pace and the hesitation of making a decision in fear of being wrong. But as the weeks went by, I started to gain more confidence in my self. It was just a matter of time to get over the learning curve and growing pain.
My advice would be to do the task that they ask of you and observe how your company works. Once you get the gist of how your company works and what the company expects of you, your confidence will start to rise.
Good Luck!
Go Mechanical Engineering
Tobalcane
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Company should never expect a new graduate to know everything. There should be a good training program in place where junior staff gets assigned to assisting senior level engineers to perform task specific duties. This is part of the training. If the training program is not in place, I recommend looking for another job. Picking up good habits the first few years as an engineer is extremely precious.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
I first needed to learn two very important things:
1. I knew little to nothing about real-world engineering when I graduated. It took two years just to familiarize myself enough with the codes I use on a daily basis.
2. Most everything will probably take twice as long to do as you intitally think it should. Don't get to worried if you think you're working to slowly. Rushing to be more "efficient" only makes things worse.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
I really appreciate your feedback. Thank God, all my coworkers seem to be "impressed" with my work and have congratulated me with a few projects I've done so far. But I felt weird, because honestly I felt like I didn't deserve their congratulations. I felt like I didn't do those things on time, or I just took too much time reading the very basics that I felt "I should've known."
My company is really good about this and I have a mentor who has been extremely helpful. Also, my supervisor is really cool and understanding and extremely supportive and repeats all along what you all just told me. I'm still quite stressed out, but I think is all part of being very hard on myself. It's been getting better in the past few months though.
Thanks for your feedback!
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Another thing that is difficult but doesn't hurt is to admit not to know something but that you're willing to learn it. This will impress even more your employer ;)
And don't dwell on your mistakes, learn with them and carry on!
My company has a policy that says "Making a mistake is human, repeating it, is not!".
Lot's of luck in your future! ;)
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Take advantage of your boss character, learn and build relationship with him. It sucks when you have no mentor, no role model, and you need to go thru it by your self. A good manager is everywhere, but a good manager who is willing to mentor you is very hard to find.
Good luck.
APH
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
Don't worry too much about your feelings as described. Praise is generally much harder to get than blame.
When it comes, take it and revel in it; for the next time may be long in coming.
TTFN
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
These things arise, in my opinion, when we are (over)confident about our intelligence or we are envying other good engineering colleagues. Nothing wrong in it and in fact this will help us excel in the future. As others already suggested, try to learn things and put your thinking into them.
You keep on observing the depth of impression by your superiors and colleagues. This is inversely proportional to your experience and you should also learn to mask your smartness in the future.
Good luck,
I strongly suggest you to go into deep basics now. You won't find time for this later.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
"But what... is it good for?"
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
What's sweeter than learning from one's own mistakes is learning from someone else's mistakes.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
I've been working in engineering going on 20 years, have a B.S., and M.S. in engineering, and my PE, and to this day I find so many things I don't know that I wonder if I will ever be knowledgeable enough to feel competent. I've heard it said that the more you know, the more you know you don't know; so I have hope that being totally ignorant is a real sign of having great knowledge.
Sounds kind of Zen, doesn't it?
In my experience it is far more pleasant, and productive, to work with someone who still has things to learn, and is willing to do so, than it is to work with someone who knows everything. The corollary to the statement above is definitely true: If you know you know it all, you know nothing!!
Just keep learning and you'll be fine.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
They are people who over time begin to know more and more about less and less until they know absolutely everything about nothing.
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work
RE: Lack of Self-Confidence at work