Your attention when job searching can be your greatest gift or biggest blocker. Understandably, people pile all their effort into their search, committing to hours behind their screen, as well as leveraging their network in person or virtually. Its human nature to think the more effort you put in the greater chance of landing a new role, and soon. Effort tends to equate to hours. And it can fast become demoralising. Minding our wellbeing during a job search allows you to show up as your best.
There are two healthy ways to protect your well-being and ultimately get to a better place, which are:
- Limiting when you engage by creating a time container
- Limiting what you hold in your mind
1) Limiting When You Engage
Boundaries around your time are essential, otherwise time creep will be inevitable. Work out what your “contract hours” need to be do an excellent job search and then stick to them. For example, can you do all you need to do in four hours every day? Setting a time limit then enables you to take calls when the head-hunter phones at different times and enables you to be boundaried with your time. This enables you to focus when you are on and switch off when you need to be off. The off is essential to enable you to look after your well-being.
2) Limiting what you hold in your mind
This can feel counterintuitive to what you know about goal setting, but don’t focus on getting the job. Yes, you heard that right – don’t focus on the end goal. When you focus on getting the job, the gap between where you are and what you want can feel significant, and full of milestones which need to be crossed – a long journey fraught with challenges at a time when perhaps your confidence is not as high as it normally is. Instead, I encourage people to focus on the next goal and doing that as best they can. This might be in getting an application in, or doing well in the next round of interviews. By shortening your focus to the next milestone, it allows you to put all your energy into that and do it as well as it can. I often see people focus on whether they will take the role, and what factors would allow themselves to accept the job, and yet they have not been offered it yet. When we focus on doing the net stage 11/10 it helps ensure we get to the stage after that. For example, if you know your application needs to be 11/10 then you will write a cover letter even when it is not requested – you will go the extra mile. Shortening your focus to your next step, importantly allows you to celebrate when you reach it.
This last piece of advice is repeatedly cited as one of the best practical tools I suggest to my clients. It works. It makes a difference to people’s well-being, which in turn makes a difference when they are talking to prospective employers. Leading them to get what they ultimately want – the next role.
Photo by Brands&People on Unsplash
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