Stay Positive During Your Job Search Part II

In part one of this article, I shared with you three ways to keep your mind energized and focused on positive thoughts:

- Relive past wins
- If you can’t get out of it, get into it
- Visualize what you want

This installment provides three more tips to remain optimistic during your job search.

1. Anticipate and Embrace Change. Don’t Be Hijacked by It.
Change is the only constant in the new world of work. Get used to it and get excited about it. If you view change as opportunity instead of threat, you alter your perspective and open yourself up to possibilities – perhaps to things you hadn’t even considered. Often, change brings with it serendipity – and delivers options you had not even considered.

I was speaking to a client who recently lost his job at a bank and he told me that once he got past the anger, sorrow and fear, he was excited about “the infinite possibilities that just opened up.” When he took the job, he had to leave LA, his favorite city, for the Pacific Northwest. He immersed himself in his work and never really made his new location home. Now, with a little severance package in hand, he realized that he is no longer tied to a city where he didn’t feel comfortable. He saw that he could change where he lived, the industry he worked in and even the job function he held.

How has your current job search opened up new avenues for you?

“You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.” Brian Tracy

2. Focus on Strengths, Not Weaknesses.
It’s always to your benefit to apply your greatest strengths to the task at hand; it’s absolutely essential when you are in the midst of a job search. When we lead from our strengths, we are more confident, attractive and successful. So as take each step towards your new job, ask yourself how you can use your greatest strength to make each step of the process more successful.

For example, if you’re writing your career marketing tools and your greatest strengths are your quick wit and incredible sense of humor, think about how you can inject more humor into your resume or cover letter. If your greatest strength is your vast and diverse connections, ask yourself how you can use your connections to find the perfect professional resume-writer who can paint your candidature such that it will attract the attention of hiring managers and recruiters. When you inject your strengths into everything you do, you raise yourself and your candidature to a new level.

What’s your superlative and how will you apply it to all aspects of your job search?

“Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses... on your powers, instead of your problems.” Paul J. Meyer

3. Remember Nietzsche: That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger
Nietzsche’s poignant advice reminds us that we can endure a lot more than we believe we can. When I look back at the most difficult experiences of my life, I realize that they all led to incredible growth – in confidence, self-awareness, strength and focus. I am who I am today more as a result of the challenges I faced than the successes I enjoyed. As painful as they were to go through, I wouldn’t give up any of them.

Know that in the future you will look at the current job search battle with a more affirmative view. And understand that whatever challenges you encounter or struggles you endure, that they will all contribute to your confidence and your candidature for future opportunities.

How has adversity made you stronger?

“If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.” John Heywood