Being a barista difficult. Learning the ropes and getting a sense of confidence in your role comes as you work through challenges and grow in your skill and understanding of coffee and the cafe. In my 20+ years working in cafes I have learned quite a few things through either personal experience or observation that I believe will help you truly thrive in your position as a barista and set you up for success in any other ole you choose to take on in the specialty coffee industry.

1. Set Goals:

What is it that you want to get from this experience of being a barista? What is you goal and what do you want to get out of being in the industry? Ultimately it is up to you to guide your own career.  I think you should have two or three goals in each of these categories:

Coffee Skill, Hospitality, Personal development.

If you are making progress on at least 1-2 of these goals then you will have a touch point that will prevent you from despairing when it hits the fan at the early end of a long shift.

At the end of the day you will know you made progress on something meaningful.

Hold it with an open hand though, you can change the direction of your career as you experience more of the industry over time.

2. Craft an long-game mindset:

You must determine ahead of time what mindset you bring to work with you or someone else will.

A good place to start is to embrace the long game, be honest with expectations of failures, and determine to lean into that feeling of awkwardness rather than trying to alleviate it. If you are weak in an area its easy to favor where you are strong but that brings on atrophy. You need to be balanced and lean into the weaker points and that comes form a mindset of embracing that this is a long game.

Who you are is based on lots of small decisions over time. Who you become works the same way.

    3. Everything is a lesson:

Every experience can teach you something that will serve you later. In order not tombs out on those lessons you must absorb what’s around you and be curious about what it is teaching you.

It’s not the end of the world if you make a mistake but it maybe the end of your professional world if you let it be larger than it is. It takes more energy to get mad than to simply observe what happened and quickly but stoically fix it and let it adjust your actions the next time.

If you are only concerned with being embarrassed or being perfect in the moment you wont learn from that mistake and you may miss out on a lesson that will make you more resilient.

So have faith in your brains ability to learn and absorb the lessons and prepare yourself ahead of time and determine how you will view things through that lens.

4. Work with urgency and focus.

We can be distracted on the bar with lots of different curiosities, industry events, culture, and other peripheral things. You have to determine that everything will be subject to the main responsibilities you have on the bar. Curiosity becomes a distraction when it takes the place of what you should be doing. Latte art for example, is great but it is also one of the biggest distractions to new baristas.

Our best energies and focus should be on doing what our job is and what our boss hired us to do. We should be zeroed in on serving the guest, serving our co-workers, and representing both the cafe and the coffee well on every shift. As you grow you will gain more freedom to explore what you are curious about.

5. Give yourself grace

I cannot overstate the importance of practicing patience and grace toward yourself and others. Especially not proclaiming some kind of final judgment on yourself or your career.

The temptation that too many of us give into is to engage in negative self talk. This creates a reality that will define you for years to come if you let it. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

You are not stupid, clumsy, inept, or useless. You are learning, dedicated, growing and as imperfect as the coffee you serve and the people you work with. Don’t let a lack of patience and grace halt your growth and progress and cause you to plateau.

The sooner you can extend grace to yourself the sooner you can give grace to others.

You will not only end up a better professional but a better person too.

6. Serve the customers for better reasons

We tend to look for validation in the eye of the customer but many times we are searching in vain. Most of the time the customer is rather ambivalent to our service no mater how good it is. Service is taxing both physically and emotionally and the customers may love, hate, or be neutral so you cannot base your motivations for service on their actions or reactions. That is why we need to first be doing what we are doing for our own reasons and our own high standards.

We must bee prepared for rude people, sweet people, and indifferent people. No matter who we get, they are not the final word on you or your career.

In the end, we should always pursue and have a goal to make someones day or to make them feel better when they leave than when they came in, but cannot let it be the only or final place where you are placing value.

7. Fix it and apologize later

As we have said, mistakes happen. But there is nothing like a mistake in a rush! When you make a mistake take responsibility quickly, fix it quickly, then move on and apologize later when the rush is done. More than anything the more veteran coworkers really want to get things back on track. I have seen too many new baristas make a big song and dance about a mistake they made to the more seasoned people but that can come later.

Yes, people will be annoyed with you, and that’s fine, its human and its not personal

Throw yourself into fixing the problem, gain clarity where needed, moving on and apologize when things are calm. This will build rapport.

8. Be mindful of the space and your wake

Knowing where to stand and what to do is very critical. Observe how and where people move during the shift then get to know your station inside and out. You are going to be in the way at first. That is natural. Eventually though as you study, observe, and learn you will become more comfortable and then you can predict  what needs to be done, assist others with their tasks, and add momentum to the shift rather than slowing it down.

Additionally you must be aware of how you impact the space. If you are creating anything you will inevitably create a mess. The wake you leave will determine how conscious you are of the other around you. Make sure you are others minded in your actions.

9. Pursue Accountability and Feedback:

We need feedback in order to grow and do better. If you work for a cafe where you get a lot of good solid feedback from engaged managers and owners then you can count yourself as one of the lucky ones! Most baristas will need to pursue feedback and accountability from their bosses in order for it to happen. This is usually just due to your boss being a bit shy or insecure with their role as a leader. Bu pursuing accountability with them and initiating meetings and feedback sessions you will be setting yourself up for success and also you may be helping them be better bosses to future baristas. Another way to pursue accountability is to ask your coworkers to give you feedback or give them permission to speak frankly about areas you need to grow in. Ultimately we want to pursue accountability and feedback because without it we cannot see fully how to improve.

10. Prioritize Self-care and Wellness:

I survived my early years as a barista on large quantities of espresso and pastries and small quantities of sleep and water. Needless to say my body eventually did not let me get away with that and it started to impact my mind, and that in turn impacted my work. More importantly though how we take care of ourselves not only impacts the work, but our actual lives. We spend a lot of time at the shop and we owe it to ourselves to care for ourselves in the face of what is already a very taxing job. I would encourage you to explore meal planning healthy whole food options for your shifts, hydrate like crazy, engage in exercise of some kind even if you are tired from work, take vitamins and supplements, create space before and after the shift for silence or meditation. There are many ways to care for your body and mind. Unfortunately we tend to only think of these things when they create problems after years of build up. Just like an espresso machine needs regular preventative maintenance, we also need to be taking care of our health regularly if we want to thrive in this career.

As you continue to work in coffee I hope these tips help you create a solid foundation and give you a leg up as you build you career. Our ability to thrive as baristas and coffee professionals depends on how mindful and purposeful we are sin pursuit of it.

Start by taking just one of these tips and apply it. Make it habit then move on to another. Over time you will be amazed what how far you and your career have come.

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