Resolve to tackle your fears about job search

Are you feeling confident about your career as we begin the new year? If you’re unemployed right now, the most positive emotion you’re experiencing might be uncertainty, tinged only occasionally by panic or terror.

Well, that’s no good. When was the last time you made a good decision while terrified?

I spoke about this topic recently at a job support meeting where the attendees nodded with enough agreement that I knew I had struck a chord. Here are a few of the main points I addressed:

» This may feel like the worst situation you’ve been in, but most likely it isn’t. So remind yourself of other tough situations you’ve survived and trust that you will find a way out of this one, too.

AMY LINDGREN

WORKING STRATEGIES

» Tackle an overwhelming cloud of fear by dragging it down onto a notepad where you can get a good look at it. Write down everything you’re afraid of right now, large and small, and start sorting things out. Which fears can you set aside for later? Which are based on a problem you can take steps to solve? Which are so large and uncontrollable that you can do nothing about them? Those are the ones you need to let go of, by the way. If you can’t control those situations, there’s really no point in focusing on them.

» Ask for help. Then ask again. Even if you can’t imagine reaching out to a particular person for assistance, do it anyway. They may say no, but they will never say yes if you don’t ask.

» Stay on your feet and keep moving. Start each day with a set of steps to help you make progress in your job search, then do those steps. At the end of the day, know that you did your part. If the steps aren’t working after a reasonable length of time, change them or ask an adviser for help, or switch to another plan altogether. Just don’t give up.

» Make a timeline and stick with it. By choosing dates to review your progress you can delay the dates when you need to feel afraid. That is, if you don’t feel like something is working but you know that you’ll be reviewing everything two weeks from now, you can allow yourself to put off the worry a bit longer while you work the plan. Believe it or not, sometimes delayed worry evaporates all by itself.

» Don’t be defined by the fear, and certainly not by your joblessness. You are so much more than your employment status. Keep your life in balance by volunteering to help someone else, by participating in your community, by attending worship services, by enjoying your family. These are all the things you would be doing if you were employed; why would you stop now, when you most need to be engaged in the world?

If all of this sounds like so much happy talk, you’re right. And why not? We trick ourselves into all sorts of frightful things, from surgery to dinners with the in-laws because we know we have to do them. You have more ability to talk yourself into or out of fear than you may believe. If ever there was a time to call on that ability, it’s now.

- Amy Lindgren owns Prototype Career Service, a career consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecaree rservice.com or at 1071 W. Seventh St., St. Paul, MN 55102.