A habit is a recur­rent, often uncon­scious pat­tern of behav­ior that is acquired through fre­quent rep­e­ti­tion. I’m a con­sul­tant so my job is rarely the same, and I love that.  Tonight, I real­ized I have a ter­ri­ble unique habit for first days. I break most of the rules and still man­age to succeed.

First, I hardly sleep. Some­times I don’t at all. First days make me anx­ious and ner­vous so I over­an­a­lyze and think crit­i­cally about what’s com­ing my way. It usu­ally makes me really pre­pared, or the lack of sleep keeps me on my toes all day. It’s great and makes me won­der what else my human body can do.

Sec­ond, I wear the same out­fit. I’m a guy who loves to take chances with his wardrobe selec­tions but not on the first day. I have an “IBM blue” dress shirt and stan­dard grey dress slacks that I pair with black dress shoes and a black belt. I can’t think of any impor­tant occa­sion that I haven’t worn this ensem­ble. My dad gave me the shirt, giv­ing me the “IBM” line for inter­view­ers, and I was with my mom when she bought me those dress shoes from Glen­dale Mall in Indi­anapo­lis. I think she shared some of her knowl­edge about retail upselling at the time. I have a ter­ri­ble mem­ory, but I remem­ber those small com­fort­ing details that relax me on a first day.

Third, show up early. This is actu­ally one of “the rules” but it’s very impor­tant to me. I hate being the first one there. It’s an anx­i­ety trig­ger that I’m doing some­thing wrong (e.g. where is every­one else?). If I’m cut­ting it close on time, it usu­ally sparks an adren­a­line rush that makes me super atten­tive for the first hour. Being just early enough is the most chal­leng­ing part of a first day for me.

Finally, do you. If you need eight hours of sleep and a cup of cof­fee in the morn­ing, do it. If you func­tion bet­ter with­out sleep and a quirky rou­tine like me, do it. The sooner you iden­tify your DNA (what makes you, you), the more suc­cess­ful you’ll be on your first day. Some need chaos, some sim­plic­ity, some don’t need any­thing out of the ordi­nary. What do you need? What are your first day habits?