Richman: Regain your balance, one step at a time
Richman: Regain your balance, one step at a time
Whether you’re looking for a job or want to hold on to the one you have, keep your attitude in check. When you have a negative attitude, it will translate into negative behavior. That’s a mess you don’t want to have to clean up. Think positively and your behavior will follow suit.
If you’re bothered at your place of work because half the population is whispering and the other half is hiding out, then do yourself a favor: tune it out and do your job. Focus on what’s in front of you and encourage others to do the same. Take care of yourself, too, but remember that the rules still apply: Conduct personal business on personal time.
When you get down to the business of looking for a new job, you need to know what the right one looks like. Combine your strengths with your skills, your likes with your values, and you’ll begin to see the where, when and how you can make a difference to an employer.
Always do unto others. People will treat you as you treat yourself. If you downplay your abilities, understate your attributes, keep your head down and your voice on mute, others will likely think that you haven’t the will or the want to do more. Speak up, take credit for what’s yours, share credit for the rest, and ask to do more of what you do best.
This is the time to let go and glide. Life might be taking you down corridors you have never traveled and to places you have never wanted to visit, but if you’re flexible and go with the flow, you might arrive at destinations that are far better than those from which you have departed.
Make looking for a job your new job. Shower and dress for your search. Conduct it outside of your home, out there in the sunlight, with people you know and the people they’ll introduce you to. Get away from your computer, get out of your slippers and take off that ratty robe. You have work to do in networking meetings, with job search groups and at job fairs.
Turn down the noise and tune out the static. Pay attention to facts, not opinions. Pay attention to actions, not rumors. The more you listen to the cacophony of voices that know less than you, but talk as though they know more, the more you get sucked down into the quicksand of stress.
Take action. If you think you might lose your job soon, do something about it. Assess your strengths, update your résumé and work on your self-esteem.
Pretending that all is well won’t make it so. But if you substitute worry for awareness, and distraction for action, you’re an accident waiting to happen. Ask questions and seek counsel from those trained to provide it: financial advisers, accountants, career coaches, therapists, social workers and religious guides. Take one step, then another, until you regain your sense of equilibrium with the world as it is, not as you fear it might be..
Joyce Richman is a speaker and career coach conducting seminars and workshops throughout the United States, and the author of “Roads, Routes & Ruts: A Guidebook for Career Success.” You can reach her at 288-1799 or JERichman@aol.com. Watch Richman’s latest career advice Wednesdays at 6:35 a.m. during “The Good Morning Show” on WFMY News 2.
