Job Searches scarier than Halloween?

When you begin feeling like you have just been run over by a bunch of unruly trick-or-treaters because of a long and difficult job search, it can be challenging to maintain a happy spirit! It happens to the best of us.

Sometimes, you want to put a sheet over your head and hide like a Halloween goblin. To restart your engine and turn smashed pumpkin into delicious pumpkin pie, here are some suggestions to get you going through the holiday job hunt season.

Identify a Ghoul (I mean a Goal): When I get to feeling down in the dumps, I find it is usually because of a sense of overwhelm. Sometimes having too much to do, especially where you need to jumpstart your career search can be paralyzing. 

My recommendation? Choose one task at a time. Before moving on, complete that task. Divide and conquer I say! So to use the analogy of pumpkin pie, I would focus on just getting the pumpkin cleaned for starters. Next, I would mash it, and so on.

Seek Inspiration: I like to read uplifting and positive books, articles, blogs, and other information about overcoming adversity and meeting challenges when I am feeling less than inspired. Try speaking to people you know who have surmounted obstacles in the past. While things may seem frightening or scary now, your research and interaction with others will give you perspective and allow you to maintain a positive approach.

Seeing is Believing: Visualize your accomplishments by using your mind power. Sounds silly, but you can psych yourself into success mode! Your mind is your best ally. Use the power of your mind to develop an image of what you want to achieve. Turn your Halloween demons and monsters into angels and sugar plum fairies.

Hurdle the Gravestones (I mean Milestones): By setting milestones for your larger goals, you can track your short term progress. First crawl, then walk, then run. Give yourself some sort of reward for doing the smaller things. This could be as simple as taking an hour to enjoy a bike ride or a favorite activity. By rewarding yourself for the smaller tasks along the way, you will feel propelled to move forward and leap over the larger hurdles. 

Wear the Mask: Fake it till you make it, as the saying goes. Tell people how about the positive steps you are taking to move forward with your job search and express as much excitement as you can muster. 

Find friends and relatives you trust; but rather than sharing the “woe is me” version that you may have been focused on in the past, spend time talking up the good aspects of all you are doing. This will help you to gain traction and develop a renewed level of optimism.

Follow the recipe: If you taste each separate ingredient of pumpkin pie before it is fully prepared, you might not think it was very appetizing. Ingredients like raw pumpkin, baking soda, and flour don’t exactly scream yummy; but put them together in the right proportions with some sweetness and spice, and voila!

So it is with your job search. You may not have the easiest time of it, but if you follow the path to success recommended by career strategists, the victory will be sweeter than Halloween candy.  

Comments

[Career Sherpa]

Debra:
Seeing is believing! So true. Your post addresses very practical advice with a clever Halloween theme, nicely done!

[Dawn Bugni]

Debra -

When in the midst of overwhelmed, we tend to forget it's a temporary perception and not a permanent state. I love the analogy of putting independently "unsavory" ingredients together to make something wonderful. What a great reminder to keep our eyes on the end result and not dwell on some of the more difficult, unsavory steps it takes to get there. Everything worth having takes effort. That holds true in job search and in life.

Great post! Thank you.

[Rosalind Joffe]

Follow the recipe. How true is that? It's so easy to try to skip steps. We can't ensure success but if you don't follow the recipe, you're a lot less likely. Nice job!