After graduating from college with a degree in civil engineering, I got my first job working for the state transportation agency in July of 1993. I was told by my fellow workers statements such as this is a life time position, a recession proof job, or you will never be laid off. Unfortunately for me my secure job only lasted two years before I was laid off by the State of California. After getting over the shock of losing my job, I learned that no job is permanent because management will do what is necessary to keep the company profitable. To make matters worse, the economy of California was in recession. It took me two years to exceed my salary I was receiving before losing my job. In order to find job opportunities in a weak economy, I had to change my way of thinking along with teaching myself to handle failure. Today I am running my own company, called Mind Road LLC, a company that teaches self-improvement skills to clients.
In the next few articles, I will give you some tips you can use to find a new job, advance in your current position, accomplish your goals, and to help you live a better life. I will briefly cover the following issues:
- How to learn from Failure/Developing Mental Toughness
- Dealing with Family and Friends after Losing your Job
- Learning to Analyze Trends
- Developing your Intuitive Skills
How to learn from Failure/ Developing Mental Toughness:
The reason why some people never reach their full potential is because they are afraid of taking risk and don’t know how to deal with the pain or embarrassment of failure. I will discuss some techniques I used to find jobs and other financial opportunities during the past California recession.
Stop and Think: Once you have failed or come up short of your goal several times just stop and think. I had filled out many applications and mailed resumes without getting any interviews. After about two months of doing this, I finally stopped to assess the situation to find out what I kept doing that caused me to not get a call back. Once I reviewed what I was doing along with speaking to several job specialists, I realized I was doing things on applications that prevented me from getting an interview. I began receiving calls for interviews as I made changes to correct the mistakes on job applications and resumes. Therefore, I recommend you stop and think when you are not getting making progress toward your goals.
Develop Strategies: After stopping and thinking, I was able to try various techniques until I was able to get called in for interviews. After getting interviews, I was able to finally start getting jobs to work my back into my field. In addition, I was starting to build a mental database of strategies as I took chances improve myself to advance at companies I worked at. I knew if I failed I would learn from the experience to do better next time. In addition, I began to teach myself to settle for more not less. With every risk I took, I was getting closer to getting what I exactly wanted that I could be happy with.
Be honest with Yourself: Another lesson I learned during the dark times of my lay off experience was to trust myself. I had many family members and friends abandon or turn on me. I also realized that I was mentally weak taking the easy way out to avoid making the tough decisions. In order to make myself stronger mentally as well as find my own inner peace, I had to remove or limit my exposure to people that did not fit into my new life. It was hard at first but eventually I removed negative individuals from life and replaced them with people that were positive and honest. By being honest with myself and with the people I associated with, I was able to reach my goals faster.
Building Mental Toughness: Anytime you try something new you are making yourself mentally stronger. You are also building courage in yourself to seek more out of life by not following the path others have followed. Your most enlightening experiences will come when you come up short. For example, you could look stupid at party trying a new dance, forget a speech at meeting, or run out of gas. These various experiences cause you to feel pain or may even cause you to want to escape to a deserted island. However, if you remember the techniques discussed in this section, the experience of losing has brought you a chance to learn new things, develop strategies to be successful in your other ventures, and helps you become mentally stronger.
Conclusion: I hope you can utilize the techniques discussed to find the job you are looking for or advance in your current profession. While working toward your goals, you may find other paths that could bring you equal happiness. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself to get what you want you have nothing to lose but everything to gain.
