When I Got a New Job, I Was Nervous. I Found the Perfect Way to Hype Myself Up.

This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.

Before I started at Slate in 2022, I was a little nervous about taking on my new job as politics director. I was confident I could learn the ropes, I was excited about my soon-to-be colleagues, and I was motivated by the challenge of covering the news in a creative way, but that didn’t stop the requisite butterflies from flooding my stomach. They were unavoidable.

My coping mechanism? I made all my new company passwords simple affirmations—little reminders to myself to cool it, take it step by step, and enjoy the ride. It was a new job, after all. And one that involved covering the roller-coaster-in-a-hurricane that is American politics. By typing, say, YouGotThis884 or ThisIsAllNew329 or OneDayAtaTimeGirl730, over and over, I found that I could subtly hype myself up or, at the very least, infuse my stress with a little bit of humor.

Sure, this is incredibly cringey. Analyzed too closely, any password affirmation is a perverse truncation—a Glennon Doyle book in 10 to 13 letters and characters. But there’s a reason those books sell a jillion copies: It does help to hear that YouCanDoH4rdTh1ng5! (Also, if you use a password manager, you still need to type out a password each time to, for example, log into your laptop.)

These email or computer passwords don’t have to be straightforward affirmations either. SeizetheDay8763, GoodVibes3000—the possibilities for pump-up passwords are endless. And to be clear, all of the ideas I’m sharing here are examples of this kind of thing. I’m not disclosing my passwords to you, dear reader! Really, anything fun works. An inside joke, a sly cultural reference, a movie quote, BeBestHahaMelania339: All can function as the kind of soothing phrase that can be typed ad nauseam and still manage to perk you up in a low—or chaotic or confusing—moment.

Each time I choose a new pick-me-up password, I’m reminding myself that real confidence takes practice, feeling awkward is normal, and honestly, probably nobody noticed that dumb thing I said in Slack anyway. The best part? When I realize that a password isn’t serving me anymore, I just switch it out.