DOES ANOTHER DOOR OPEN?

You know the saying, “One door closes and another one opens.” Have you found that to be true? One door closed, you lost your job. What is your opening door? If you are only focused on a new job as your next open door, you may be overlooking all the open doors in front of you. You might also be a candidate for burnout.

Remember all those things that you wanted to do when you were working? Now is your “open door” to getting them done. Here is a short list of things you now have time for:

• Spending more time with the family
  
• Cleaning out the garage/attic/junk drawer
• Reconnecting with your spouse or significant other
• Reevaluating your career direction and decisions
• Doing an in depth self-assessment of your strengths, skills, abilities and experience
• Volunteering at your favorite charity (giving time instead of money)
• Learning new skills to improve your career
• Working at an unpaid (or token pay) internship to explore a new career

NOT “JUST” KEEPING BUSY

This is more than just keeping busy and out of trouble. When you maintain a schedule, you also maintain a focus about your life. This occupies your mind with new ideas and new people. It also makes you more interesting to others. Good conversation is helpful in all areas of your life.

As you are out and about, you are meeting people and building relationships. Sometimes the volunteer job can lead to a paying job. Sometimes the colleague you volunteer with has a job lead. Sometimes you can help out the volunteer colleague and the organization. That’s a double whammy win! Keeping your self-esteem high is important in the hunt for a job.

BURNOUT

If everything is focused on getting a job, you can become burned out fast. The unemployment rate is the highest it has been for decades. Employers aren’t rehiring the people they laid off. That is a lot of rejection. Every time you submit an application or send in a résumé and no one even acknowledges it, you feel rejected. You finally get an interview and you don’t get the job, more rejection. Even seasoned salespeople suffer burnout in these conditions.

The consequences of burnout are that when you get your next interview, you sound desperate or disinterested. Desperate because all you are thinking is “Please, please let me get this job.” Or, you are already resigned to failure, making it self-fulfilling.

By keeping yourself useful to others, you get positive reinforcement. That in turn is an antidote to the burnout a prolonged job search can create.

A dream with a plan is a goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream.

All things are possible,

Elisabeth

Elisabeth Adler-Lund

Executive and Life Coaching

Telephone: 916 • 803•1494

E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com