Job Search Survival – 3 Tips For Maintaining Motivation
When you are on the job market, faced with putting yourself out there and facing rejection time and again, you will need to stay focused on what matters to you, set smaller attainable goals, and find internal motivators that are sustainable. If you are going to have the ability to pick yourself up, you will need to manage the 40% of your propensity for happiness and resilience that is within your control.
To do this, focus on 3 main strategies that will help build the stamina you need to keep going:
1. Set Modest Goals: Rather than striving for a potentially unattainable dream job, set your sights on something that is within your grasp and see it as a stepping stone rather than a final destination. Also set goals that relate directly to the search and not just the final outcome. This way, even if you don’t get a particular job you can still feel a sense of accomplishment in making it to the interview stage, or making a new contact, for example. You need to give yourself some credit for the effort if you have any hope of sustaining yourself throughout the process. Set the goal of making 5 new contacts this week, or conducting 3 informational interviews. Developing those relationships will help to build your confidence and broaden your network.
2. Focus on Intrinsic Rather than Extrinsic Motivators: Think about what makes you feel satisfied, interested and rewarded (intrinsic factors) and set your sites on those jobs. Because those sorts of goals are based on your values and things that you care about you are going to find that it is easier to motivate yourself to work towards them. If you are looking for a job that is going to impress others or make you the most money (extrinsic factors) then you are less likely to be genuinely motivated to achieve those goals and may burn out sooner.
3. Frame Your Goals Positively: Rather than striving to avoid something negative like unemployment or being dissatisfied at work, (“avoidance goals”) think of yourself as moving toward something positive such as finding a fulfilling job (“approach goals”). As Biswas-Diener and Dean explain in their book Positive Psychology Coaching, “There is a preponderance of research evidence linking avoidance goals to increased distress and anxiety, decreased levels of happiness, lower levels of social satisfaction, and poorer perceptions of health.”(66) By focussing on moving toward something positive rather than avoiding something negative you will find that you have more energy to focus on action and you’re using less energy on worrying.
And when you have just been turned down for a job and are starting to feel defeated, take the advice of Napoleon Hill that “most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.”
via How to Survive the Job Search [3 Tips to Maintain Motivation].
How to Survive the Job Search [3 Tips to Maintain Motivation]
