6 Steps to Staying on Track When Job Hunting

1) Try to stay objective:

You’ve been job hunting for a while now, and it feels like pushing a boulder up-hill.

The economy is awful, no-one’s hiring, if they are it’s for terrible hours and pay.

The situation seems bleak.

But try to remember that everything is subjective. Situations by themselves cannot be inherently good or bad. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are adjectives that we bring to situation via our perceptions. “Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” as Shakespeare put it.

Don’t let the “bad” feelings overwhelm your senses. Try to step outside of yourself: think about the advice you would give your best friend if they came to you in the same situation you’re in. And try and follow it for yourself.

2) Control your emotions and keep an even keel:

Go ahead and feel your emotions, bottling them up is unhealthy. But so is associating a situation with these emotions in the same way we associate ‘good’ and ‘bad’ situations. The best way to do this is to defeat emotions with logic in the form of questions and statements as follows:

Statement: I’m really struggling to find work.

Question: Did you expect that to happen when you left university/your last job?

Yes.

Have you explored every possible avenue yet?

Not necessarily.

So there is still opportunity out there, right? How could that be so bad?

Although doing this will not necessarily change the situation, taking a step back and looking at things rationally will allow your emotions to settle. Try having these types of conversations with yourself when you feel overwhelmed and see how long these extreme emotions hold up.

3) Revert to the present moment:

The future is such a massive concept that often it can be incredibly overwhelming. At the end of the day, the present moment is all we really have. Endeavour to take the trouble you’re dealing with in the present and use it as an opportunity to focus on the present. A way of doing this is to focus on one small thing you can do today to move you closer to your dreams. This can be as small as reading a newspaper article to as big as starting a blog. Just one thing a day will take you step by step in the right direction, instead of staying paralysed by the enormity of your task. The problem isn’t where will I be in ten years’ time, its where can I go and what can I do right now? There are many other ways to pull yourself into the present: strenuous exercise, a walk in the park, meditation, getting a dog – they’re a constant reminder of how pleasant the present is.

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