4 Tips for Keeping Your Spirits up While Jobhunting

Pixabay CC0 License

There are plenty of upsides to making a change in your career, to stepping away from a company that you feel doesn’t represent your interests or that isn’t in line with your passions or values, and to re-entering the job market.

But just because there are these benefits, that doesn’t mean that actually going through the process of a job hunt isn’t likely to also be simultaneously draining, stressful, and disheartening at times – and all that is especially the case if you aren’t simply looking for a new job on your own time, but have been made redundant from your previous one.

Whether your job hunt has just begun and includes dedicating an hour or two a week to searching up terms such as Best Local Truck Driver Jobs Near Me, or whether you’ve been looking for quite a while and simply haven’t had any luck, here are a few tips for keeping your spirits up while jobhunting.

Maintain consistency in your personal routines

If you’re job hunting – and especially if you are jobhunting because you were made redundant from your previous job – you are essentially “venturing out into the unknown” and are simultaneously likely to find yourself feeling at least partially “unmoored,” and maybe even entirely cut adrift.

In order to counteract this potential blow to your sense of well-being and enthusiasm, do what you can to maintain as much consistency as possible in all the other areas of your life – and particularly with regard to your personal routines.

Even if – in fact, especially if – you aren’t currently working and don’t have a set wake up time that you have to keep in order to make it to the office on time, you should nonetheless be sure to maintain your own regular wake up time just the same.

If you are able to maintain structure in your everyday life, you will be much further along the path to ensuring that you remain positive and focused during your job hunt.

Practice intentional positive self talk with regards to your professional prospects and qualities

Self-doubt is an unfortunate but common feature of everyone’s life, at least from time to time – and there is likely no one out there who can honestly say that they’ve never heard the little voice of negative self talk working to undermine their confidence when circumstances get tough.

If you have been searching for a new job for a while, rejected applications can certainly hurt your sense of self-confidence and your belief in your ability to excel. But it’s essential that you don’t let the little voice of negative self talk have a monopoly on your mental space.

So: set aside time during the day to specifically and deliberately engage in positive self talk, and to essentially be your own “cheerleader.” Remind yourself of your good assets, and of your professional qualities, and whenever you notice yourself slipping into a state of mental doom and gloom during the day, work at first to distract yourself, and then to tell yourself a different story.

Take care of your well-being in other areas of life, such as by eating and sleeping properly

In order to keep your spirits up when dealing with an external situation that might be stressful – such as hunting for a new job, for example – one of the best things you can do is to be sure to take care of your well-being in the other, more inwards-facing areas of your life.

Stress often leads to negative behaviours such as poor nutritional habits, and a lack of sufficient – or high-quality – sleep.

Simply ensuring that you are eating and sleeping properly can work wonders with regards to keeping your spirits up and making you more resilient to stress, as a rule.

Participate in regular activities outside of your home

A job search can actually lead to a tendency to be more introspective than usual, and to hyper-scrutinise your own apparent strengths and weaknesses in addition to trying to predict future outcomes.

In order to ensure a bit more balance, and to prevent yourself from slipping into a cycle of self-destructive rumination, do what you can to participate in regular outdoor activities, ideally on a daily basis.

Although the global COVID19 pandemic has restricted choices in this regard in many areas, even something as simple as a stroll around the block, or in a nearby park or field, can help to re-centre you.