It’s weird…I’m at a point in my life that I really thought I’d be bouncing off of the walls with excitement. I’m signing a lease to a new place with Sunshine on Saturday, I’m preparing to start a new career somewhere, and I’m inching closer to being 40 years old. There is just so much going on, it should be easy to fall prey to being overly excited and putting the cart before the horse.

My problem is that I’m not even hitching the cart up at the moment.

Y’see, I’m actually pulling back a bit leading up to everything because of fear and nervousness. It’s no secret that I’ve always had self-confidence issues, and I actually thought that I was past them as I entered my 40th year. I mean, I’m engaged to the most amazing girl in the world and life seems to be coming together for me.

The reality of the situation is that I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid of rejection. I’m afraid of being told I’m simply not good enough. So when I found out that there were two voicemail messages for me yesterday from two job prospects, I actually got nervous instead of excited. I sat back and thought about (1) maybe these jobs weren’t good enough for me to take, (2) I actually have to interview for these and I’m not ready, and (3) I guess I should go for it because I can’t get anything better.

It’s silly. I should have been stoked to be contacted as it’s been a month without as much as a nibble. Instead, I got butterflies in my stomach about the realities of actually having to call these people back and move forward with the entire process.

Sunshine told me last night how much she believes in me, but if I don’t believe in myself that others will notice…which is NOT good for a job interview. She’s absolutely right (she usually is when giving me a pep talk).

The job search can be very depressing. I see a ton of jobs that I would love to have…jobs I think I could do well in if I only had a bit more experience in certain areas…and I get deflated thinking that somehow my professional life has passed me by because I don’t have required skills. But then the flipside of the search is that it appears most of the remaining jobs are just minimum wage positions or sales positions requiring cold calling “for competitive compensation”. That’s just not me and I can’t imagine anybody doing that.

What’s left are jobs that not only I want, but (seemingly) everybody else wants, too. Thus, there is always somebody more qualified out there for the jobs that are best for me.

Of course, this is just my lack of self confidence rising to the surface. My interpretation of the job search is probably not nearly the reality of the situation (heck…my ex-wife, who is an HR Generalist, has offered to hook me up with a contact or two via LinkedIn because she believes in me and my abilities), so why do I have this nagging fear of things?

So today I need to walk into the placement agency that wants me for a pretty decent-paying job (very similar to what I’m making now) that looks to be pretty challenging professionally and would pretty good on a resume. Once done there, I need to call back a potential employer about a position that may or may not be a simple call-centre position (sometimes it’s difficult to tell from the job descriptions online), but I need to set that concern aside and call them because it may be my dream job…I won’t know if I don’t call.

I need to kick my own ass and show the world that I’m ready for anything. Of course, what I want to do and what I will do are two different things. Fingers crossed, I’ll get this done.