That feeling of staring at your first real task and thinking “I have absolutely no idea if I’m doing this right” isn’t a warning sign. It’s a normal part of starting a new job, and research suggests it might actually be working in your favour.
Self-doubt when starting tasks at a new job is nearly universal. According to research by Clance and Imes published in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (1978), 70% of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their careers. The problem isn’t the doubt itself. The problem is what most people do with it: they wait. They over-prepare, over-research, and delay starting until they feel certain enough. That certainty never comes.
Why Does Starting Feel So Hard at a New Job?
The single biggest fear for new starters isn’t workload or office politics. According to a 2019 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Employee Benefits Survey, lack of clarity about expectations is the top concern for first-time job starters. Not knowing what “good” looks like makes it nearly impossible to commit to an approach.
This isn’t a confidence problem. It’s a calibration problem.
When you don’t yet have enough context to judge your own work accurately, your brain fills the gap with anxiety. That anxiety feels like a signal that something is wrong with you. In reality, it’s a signal that you’re in a new environment without enough feedback yet.
The discomfort is information, not a verdict.
What Is Impostor Syndrome Actually Doing to New Employees?
Impostor syndrome in new employees isn’t just about feeling nervous. It shapes behaviour in ways that actively slow down competence-building.
Dr. Pauline Rose Clance, who first identified the phenomenon, described it this way in The Impostor Phenomenon (1985):
“Imposters seem to have a deep-seated belief that they are not intelligent, and that they have been fortunate enough to succeed by a combination of hard work and luck.”
That belief drives a specific trap: the more effort you put in to compensate for imagined inadequacy, the more you privately attribute any success to effort rather than ability. So the cycle deepens. You work harder, succeed, feel like a fraud, work harder still.
For new employees specifically, first job self-doubt tends to express itself as task-avoidance dressed up as thoroughness. Spending three hours reading background documents before writing one paragraph. Asking everyone except the person who assigned the task. Rewriting the same opening sentence twelve times.
It feels like preparation. It’s actually procrastination with better PR.
Is Waiting Until You’re Sure the Safer Option?
Here’s the contrarian take: waiting for certainty before starting isn’t the cautious approach. It’s one of the riskier ones.
In Originals (2016), organisational psychologist Adam Grant described the concept of “pre-crastination”: the urge to get started on a task immediately just to reduce cognitive load, which often leads to doing things wrong and having to redo them. The counterpoint, though, isn’t to delay indefinitely. It’s to start with low stakes and iterate.
There’s a meaningful difference between pausing to clarify expectations and stalling because you’re unsure if you’re doing this right. The first is strategic. The second is just anxiety in disguise.
Research on skill acquisition consistently shows that feedback loops, not front-loaded preparation, drive competence. You learn what “good” looks like by producing work, receiving feedback, and adjusting. There’s no shortcut that bypasses that cycle, regardless of how much time you spend preparing beforehand.
Starting imperfectly isn’t a failure mode. It’s the only mode available to someone who’s genuinely new.
How Does ACT Help When You’re Unsure If You’re Doing It Right?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers one of the most practically useful frameworks for this specific problem. Not because it eliminates self-doubt, but because it changes your relationship to it.
Psychologist and ACT practitioner Russ Harris wrote in ACT Made Simple (2009) that the discomfort of uncertainty is part of being human, and that rather than waiting until you feel certain, you can act while acknowledging the uncertainty.
This reframe matters enormously for new employees. The standard advice is “just start” or “fake it till you make it,” both of which ask you to suppress the doubt. ACT takes a different position: notice the doubt, name it, and move forward with it present rather than waiting for it to leave.
In The Happiness Trap (2007), Harris framed the broader principle this way:
“Acceptance and commitment therapy is about creating a rich, meaningful life while accepting the pain that inevitably comes with it.”
Applied to starting tasks at a new job, this looks like: “I notice I’m telling myself I might be doing this wrong. I’m going to submit a draft anyway and ask for feedback.”
That’s not recklessness. That’s how competence actually builds.
What Should You Actually Do When You Don’t Know If You’re Doing It Right?
There are a few concrete moves that research and ACT practice support for getting unstuck on a task.
Ask one clarifying question before you start, not ten. Identify the single biggest unknown and surface it. Asking ten questions before beginning signals uncertainty in a way that can undermine trust. One focused question signals that you’re thinking clearly and acting professionally.
Set a “good enough for feedback” standard, not a “finished” standard. The goal of a first attempt isn’t a polished product. It’s something concrete enough for a more experienced person to react to. A rough draft that gets feedback is more valuable than a perfect draft that never gets started.
Separate the task from the verdict. First job self-doubt often conflates the quality of the work with a judgement about the person doing it. Research on growth mindset from Carol Dweck’s work at Stanford consistently shows that treating a task as a trial run rather than a performance reduces anxiety and improves output quality.
Name the anxiety out loud if it’s blocking you. Telling your manager “I want to make sure I understand the goal here before I go too far down one path” is not an admission of weakness. It’s exactly the behaviour that experienced professionals exhibit. New employees often don’t realise that asking clarifying questions is the actual path to competence, not a detour from it.
The move isn’t to feel confident. The move is to act before confidence arrives.
FAQ
Q: Is it normal to feel like you have no idea what you’re doing in a new job? A: Completely normal. According to research by Clance and Imes published in Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice (1978), 70% of people experience impostor syndrome at some point in their careers. Not knowing how to do something correctly when you’ve never done it before isn’t a character flaw. It’s an accurate assessment of the situation.
Q: How do I start a work task when I’m unsure if I’m doing it right? A: Start with a single clarifying question to surface your biggest unknown, then produce the smallest useful output you can (a rough draft, a quick outline, a partial attempt) and ask for feedback on it. ACT psychologist Russ Harris describes this approach in ACT Made Simple (2009): act while acknowledging the uncertainty rather than waiting for certainty to arrive first.
Q: Why do I second-guess myself so much at a new job? A: Because your feedback calibration is still developing. You don’t yet have enough examples of what “good” looks like in this specific context, so your brain has no reliable benchmark. That gap gets filled with anxiety. A 2019 SHRM survey found that lack of clarity about expectations is the top concern for new starters, which means the uncertainty you’re feeling is extremely common, not a sign of inadequacy.
Q: Does asking questions at work make you look incompetent? A: The opposite is closer to the truth. Experienced professionals ask clarifying questions routinely. What reads as incompetent is submitting work that completely misses the brief because you were too anxious to ask upfront. One well-placed question before starting a task demonstrates professional thinking, not a lack of knowledge.
Q: How long does first job self-doubt usually last? A: There’s no fixed timeline, but impostor syndrome research suggests it tends to ease as feedback loops accumulate. The more times you produce work, receive feedback, and don’t get fired for imperfection, the more your nervous system updates its threat assessment. The key is not to avoid starting tasks while waiting for confidence to appear on its own. Confidence follows action; it rarely precedes it.