Losing your job is not fun and being unemployed is hard.  Real hard.  When a person becomes unemployed, there is a tendency to focus on what has been lost, the difficulty of things to come, and the problems that losing a job could bring to you and your family.  It is important to remember that, when this happens, there are only two ways to look at your situation:  1) everything about this is awful or 2) this is an opportunity to change life for the better.  Which do you think will create a better future for you?

A tale of two outlooks

Most people fall into the everything is terrible category and with good reason:  being out of work is scary.  It’s not fun.  There are problems (or challenges?) that come with it.  The amount of money you can get from the government in your time of need is miniscule.  Tiny.  Almost non-existent.  But, focusing on unemployment as a big problem will only make it a bigger problem.  Why?  Because you tend to manifest what you constantly dwell upon.  Plus, it puts you in a crappy mood and no one wants to hire someone who is in a terrible mood. 

What about the second category?  How can unemployment be an opportunity?  Chances are, if you lost your job, you were not in love with it in the first place.  Sure, you might have enjoyed it.  It may have paid well.  More often than not, however, you were not overly happy there.  Plus, you probably thought you could be making more money or, would like to have been doing so.  Being unemployed will force you to reexamine your life and move onto the NEXT stage of growth.

So I should just get over it?

No, that is not what I am saying.  It feels bad and you have every right to feel that way.  BUT face it, and know that this is an opportunity to grow and become better.  Then, accept it, it’s already done.  Look at this as the opportunity that it is.  An opportunity to move forward, to get more, and to be more.

 “But now I make less,” you might respond.  And, that’s true.  But, when you were in that old job, your ability to make more money was limited.  Were you looking forward to that 2% raise you might get next March?  I doubt it. 

Being optimistic in this situation can be damn near impossible for many people.  And, being optimistic is not going to get you a job more quickly.  But, it will get you a job more quickly than negative thinking will. 

How will it help me?

Take a look at this, which I grabbed from happify.com.

A study from Duke University followed a group of MBA graduates as they entered the workforce: Those who believed good things would happen to them had an easier time finding jobs than those who had a less hopeful outlook.

Segerstrom and Sephton (2010) were able to find a correlation that people who thought positively tended to experience more positive effects.  And, if you are out of work, I bet you could use some ‘positive effects’ in your job search.

Think about it.

Be exceptional,

JIM