You’ll be shaky before you’re steady
Burnout makes you crave instant stability. But confidence takes time, and that’s the real work
Every new role, routine, or even city starts with the same uncomfortable truth: you’ll be shaky before you’re steady.
Right now I’m in France, typing this from a little Airbnb with laundry drying across the room. I feel it here - the disorientation of being somewhere new. Grocery runs that take twice as long. Conversations where I fear saying something wrong or dumb. And at work, I feel it too.
At my last job, I had three years of context. Three years of comfort, credibility, and confidence. By year three, I knew where I fit. Four months into a new company, I’m rebuilding that foundation from scratch. Still proving myself. Still reminding myself I was hired for a reason. Still hoping my confidence eventually catches up to my competence.
And that’s the part that’s so frustrating after burnout: you want instant stability. You want to skip ahead to the part where you feel sure of yourself again. But you can’t. Impact isn’t instant, no matter how much you want it to be.
Why this feels so hard
There’s a reason the early months of something new feel so shaky, and it’s not just in your head:
Adjustment takes longer than we think. Most research shows it takes at least two to three months to feel comfortable in a new workplace, and often up to six months before you really feel proficient.
The “honeymoon-hangover effect” is real. At first, novelty makes everything feel exciting. Then reality sets in, satisfaction dips, and you feel like you’re sliding backwards before climbing out again. Psychologists have been studying this pattern long enough to give it a name.
You’re on the wrong side of the learning curve. The classic “learning curve” shows performance lags before it accelerates. Early on, it feels like you’re doing everything wrong, but that plateau is the necessary friction before progress compounds.
Imposter syndrome loves fresh starts. Up to 82% of people experience imposter feelings at some point, and they spike in new roles or situations. It’s not proof you don’t belong. It’s proof you’re human.
Burnout recovery makes it even trickier
When you’re recovering from burnout, the urge to skip ahead is even stronger. You don’t just want to feel steady—you want to feel steady yesterday. You want proof that this time, you’re doing things differently.
But burnout recovery doesn’t hand out shortcuts either. Rebuilding your identity, your routines, and your confidence is messy. Some days you’ll feel like you’ve made huge progress. Other days, you’ll wonder if you’re right back where you started. And that uncertainty? That’s part of the work.
What helps (at least a little)
Here’s what I’m practicing right now (emphasis on practicing, because I’m far from perfect at it):
Track small wins. The learning curve only feels like failure if you don’t notice the micro-progress. Keep a log of the tiny things you’ve figured out. It builds evidence against the “I’m not moving forward” narrative.
Stop comparing day 100 to day 1000. The colleague who looks unshakably confident today once spent thirty minutes panicking over their first Slack intro.
Reframe imposter feelings as a signal. Instead of treating them as shame, I try to use them as a reminder to stay curious and keep learning. They’re uncomfortable, but they’re not useless.
Give it six months. Most people don’t feel settled until then. It’s not personal failure; it’s the timeline of human adjustment.
The reminder I need (and maybe you do too)
The hardest part of starting something new isn’t the logistics. It’s accepting that you won’t have year-three confidence in month four.
If you’re in the shaky stage, whether it’s a new job, a new city, or the long work of recovering from burnout, you’re not failing. You’re adapting.
You’ll steady out. Just not today. And that’s okay.
Focus on a small win or making 1 person happier each day. That'll keep the endorphins flowing and the shaky state will vanish. Hope to see you at the ADC