Anxious about a work based task!

Hi everyone

I've just got a new job and so far quite enjoying it. I feel quite competent with most of the tasks and the people are nice.

ATM I'm in one of my social anxiety grips where I'm literally overthinking every interaction I have and I need a bit of advice (even posting this is causing me anxiety as I'm frightened of being judged!)

Someone I work with (who's senior to me) has asked me to do a series of phone calls for something we are working on together. I'm doing the calls alone and phoning up people who are pretty busy. The people are getting nothing out of this, it's just to check a few things and the calls each take about 10 mins.

For some reason I am SO SO nervous about these calls. It's not a regular part of my job and I've never had to do it before (in this one or previously) I'm pretty good at communicating but I get ridiculously nervous about phone calls for some reason. I know that many people with social anxiety struggle with making phone calls. I guess the fact I've got to do quite a few and ive been thrown in the deep end has led me to feel a bit overwhelmed.

I'm pleased that she obviously thinks I'm capable of doing this. I just feel so nervous I don't actually want to go to work and am counting down the days between til the next one. I'm beating myself up like crazy thinking that it means I'm not good at my job, that I shouldn't feel this way as it's not normal to get overwhelmed by 10 minute phone calls. I have done one and I had terrible belly ache before hand so I'm having some kind of anxious, physical reaction to it.

I told the person who gave me the task that I felt worried and she said she found them difficult too. I'm just wondering if there's anyway I can approach this with my boss (who didn't set the task) If I want to progress in my role there will be more phone calls to do (although a different nature to these anxiety provoking ones) . I would like to be able to do them without having tummy trouble and struggling to sleep etc everytime! I think it's a case of building my confidence gradually and am wondering if it's ok to bring this up, and how do I do it without looking incompetent ?

Thanks if you've read this far!

Would it help to view the calls differently? Instead of feeling like you are bothering people, you could purposely try to brighten the day of the people you call. Maybe say something that makes them feel special or important. Shifting the focus from your internal nervousness to the person on the call could help.

At my work I have to make calls asking for information. There can be some benefit for the company/government office being asked, but the people I call don't always see that. I find that being polite and genuinely thanking people for their time definitely helps smooth things over. Also, I intersperse that between other tasks, so I'm not doing it all at once.

Do you have some sort of notes that you can refer to, to make sure you are asking everything you need to? That might help you feel calmer and help you complete the call more efficiently. I think the more times you do it, your comfort level will increase.

It could be worse. At another past job of mine, my boss wanted us to do these surveys that would have asked for a lot of sensitive information from companies, at no benefit to them and without being allowed to say what it was for. I refused and ended up quitting due to that and various other issues.

I have wondered at times what ever happened with those surveys. I'm pretty sure it was a big failure because most companies aren't going to provide that information. Our company owner was definitely lacking in ethics. I always wondered if our company was hired to do the work because other, more ethical companies wouldn't want to do it.

Ah, I feel for you. I had to do this as a volunteer and was so nervous, but you are right it will likely get easier with practice - that was my experience.

I really like the above suggestions, 'dial a smile' is one phrase that I used to keep in mind, and I would keep on thanking the person on the other end for their time and patience. They almost always responded positively and actually in the end I quite enjoyed the task. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Thanks everyone. I've done a couple so far and apart from the jitters I think I've done alright !! I do have a script type thing to refer to although I find I don't use it much. I'm still nervous but getting better and I think tackling my fear!

I guess I'm just not used to doing it! But I will get there.

Thanks for the update. It's great to hear it's going well so far, and it should continue to get easier with time.

I hope so. It's weird how much confidence I've gained just from doing that! Even like at work in general I feel like I'm coming out of my shell more and such so I feel like it's helping. I suppose by avoiding it I never knew if I could do it or not.