For all of you out there dreading the seemingly inevitable, your own unemployment, your fears are not the answer. What you need to keep in mind is that your fear, like everyone else’s, is real and you can control how you think and how you react in any given situation. Keeping your thoughts focused on the here and now and not what lies ahead or what comes next, will keep the fear of rejection at bay, at least until you come up with a strategy to find your next opportunity. Remember, when all is said and done, if you have your health, your family and a good support system, all you need to keep telling yourself is that, “It’s just a job, isn’t it?”
Every job, whether you are in one or not, needs to have a stamp on it stating, “Subject To Change.” Even if the change has to do with you, nothing, as it relates to your career, despite what your pension administrator may claim is for certain. The sooner you realize this fact, the easier it will be for you to “un-attach” yourself from any outcome you are looking to control. Like anything in life, as much as we like to feel “in control” there are some things we just can’t control. When it comes to your job search the basics like resume format, interviewing skills, and networking are all areas which you can control. However, when it comes to knowing for certain where any of these outcomes may lead, that’s where you need to release and let faith take over.
Trusting yourself, the process and releasing the outcome are probably the hardest things you can do during your job search process because it requires you to have complete faith and trust in the unknown. Whether you get the job, the raise, or the call-back, depends on how well you do initially with what you can control. When it comes to knowing the outcome, that’s where you have to give it up and let go. The expression, “If it’s meant to be…” can lift your spirits in accepting the unknown, or stab you like a knife as you fight to control what you can’t. Trying to control your career destiny can take you down a courageous road or make you sick with fear and frustration.
When it’s plain you can’t always get what you want or you don’t know where the road will lead, it’s important to adopt a bit of a laissez faire attitude in projecting the outcome. Sometimes your fear forces you to live in a future you can’t predict further frustrating you when things or events don’t turn out as you would like. That is the time to tell yourself that it is just a job, there will likely be many more opportunities where that came from, and there really was a reason why you didn’t get it at this time. Wasting precious time and energy in dwelling about why you did not get the job, interview or consulting gig is not going to make it come to you any quicker. Focusing your energy and resources on the next thing, whether a meeting, interview, or opportunity you create, will help you move past the doubt and move into the hope that you can and will find you next job.
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Copyright © 2024 Lisa Kaye - HR & Business Consulting - The Career Rebel
Lisa:
Life is “Subject To Change.” I appreciate being reminded that change is integral to everything, including (and importantly) employment. The longer one spends with a particular company or organization, the more and more one might tend to feel “permanent”. Control is, an always has been, an illusion. One of my heroes was a man named William Stafford, who was the Poet Laureate of Oregon and the Poet Laureate of the Unite States. He wrote a poem with the title “You, Reading This, Be Ready”. Isn’t that the best course of action, to be ready for the next thing, change, for the possibility of tomorrow?
I very much enjoy your writing, though I don’t comment on it very frequently.