The Road to Nowhere

Are you sure?

I am often asked how I am remain so positive no matter what seems to be going on around me. I am asked if I have some super human powers, or if I am simply a dreamer and it happens to work in my favor. My answer to that question doesn’t come as instinctively as my ability to think positively.

This morning the answer came to me clearly though, as I sat at my mac, and decided to change my screen saver. After scrolling through a few pictures, I found the perfect one. The photo actually made me stop and stare in almost a trance. It made me wonder, think and question. It silenced my ever-running mind that always thinks it has the answers. It stopped me in a place of question, yet in a place of comfort as well.

It was a black and white photo with a wooden pier that I guessed to be about 20-30 feet long. Surrounding it was a calm body of water that forced my eyes to stare into the distance and see nothing else but more and more water. The only land to be seen was a small area of sand near the beginning of the pier. An area so small, that my eyes had difficulty staying there.

I immediately could hear voices of worry from clients and friends looking at this same photo. I imagined them expressing feelings of concern about being alone or abandoned. I could hear their voices saying there was no reason to keep looking, since it was a road to nowhere. Yet as I continued to look, I could not see the picture of emptiness that most might see. I was not met with fears as I gazed down the pier. I was not engrossed with worry about what lurked in the open space. Instead, what I saw was very similar to how I see life.

It was not a road to nowhere, but rather, a road to anywhere. It was not a body of water that had nothing to offer, but rather a body of water that held opportunities that could not yet be seen. I was clear from this viewpoint, that all could not be seen, but that there was definitely more. I was confident that what lie in the unknown, had the potential to be great and felt comfort in the possibility of being able to create it any way that I wanted.

Check your road again. Is it really the road to nowhere? Or are the possibilities so endless, you are afraid to look?

Unemployment is a Full Time Job

The only way to turn around being unemployed is to work!

If only it were that easy, right? Wrong. While it may not be easy to find a job as quickly as you would like, the quickest way to turn it around, is to immediately treat the ‘search’…as your job!

There are many stages one enters (or sometimes settles into) after being laid off, and this process is often what keeps once successful working people on the unemployment line. Stages of depression and low self-esteem (I should have worked harder) often combined with an entitlement (I am sick of working so hard and not being appreciated anyway!) usually lead to a defeat of doing nothing or an acceptance of ‘time off’. Either way, you have already begin the job search a few steps behind.

This is not the time to wallow in your self-pity, nor start vacationing. Instead, this is the time to get motivated and/or get even and begin your search. You can’t change the current situation, but you can create a different perspective, which will ultimately design a new future. Assume that your job search is now your full time job, and your severance pay is what you are going to live on minimally, until you find the next place to land. While in this situation there will be no time to wallow, celebration and time off will be just around the corner, if you follow a few ground rules.

Just like when you were working, you will need to set up a daily and weekly schedule. You will need an especially strong system in place now, since there won’t be anyone to hold you accountable to your tasks and goals.

To start your system:

1 – Get your planner ready and write in daily and weekly tasks. Be specific. If you simply write: call recruiter, most likely it won’t get done. Write their name and number, as well as the day and time you will call.

2 – Choose specific times for scanning the web to find the right recruiter for you, or job postings through the classified sections on the web and then stick to that plan.

3 – Include in your schedule when you will update your resume, make calls to friends that may have leads and even when you will check emails. (A simple task of checking emails can consume your whole day if you let it.)

4 – If you are overzealous about tasks and find some aren’t getting done, simply move them to the next day. Do not assume it will get done. If it isn’t done on Monday, rewrite it on Tuesday. Your brain will need the reminder and you will feel good about accomplishing it.

5 – Find other places to work besides your house. Sometimes the process of getting yourself up and out of the house is just what you need to get motivated. Most places that sell coffee also have free Wi-Fi so take advantage of it!

6 – Add breaks to your schedule, to keep yourself feeling fresh. Actually add to your calendar when you will meet with friends, take walks or hit the gym. If you see it written you will feel less guilty about doing it.

Perspective will make all the difference in your search. Treat the search like an opportunity to find what is truly next for you. Who knows, it may be better than you ever could have anticipated. Don’t give up. No matter how shut down you feel, remind yourself that there is no time for tired now, but there will be later. Do what you have to in order to land a new job. Then once you do, celebrate and even take some time off by telling your new employer when ‘you’ are able to begin.

Stay present in this moment and know that it will never again occur in just this way.