How To Stay Motivated In Your Job Search (6 More Ways!)

In this article, I want to share six practical tips to stay motivated in your job search! These will be actionable changes and mindset shifts that you can start to adopt today. I also want to just share the perspective that our careers are a marathon rather than a sprint. That said, I do know that practicing patience is often easier said than done. So let’s dive into these six tips to stay motivated that you can actually start to implement today. I want you to overcome the discouragement you might be feeling throughout this process! To read the first installment of this topic series, click here: 4 Tips To Stay Motivated In Your Job Search. Continue reading on, or watch the corresponding video below! Let’s dive in.

6 Ways to Stay Motivated In Your Job Search

Tip #1: Zoom Out

Tip number one is to zoom out of your job search because oftentimes it’s really easy to be narrowed in on a situation that feels less than ideal. However, I just want you to like look at the timeline below and really ask yourself, where are you in age right now? My sense is that you have a lot of decades left in your career, if not years to come.

The next few weeks or months are just a small blip on that timeline. I know it’s easier said than done when we just want to change immediately, but there’s a lot of time left in your career to figure things out. One of my favorite quotes by Tony Robbins is, “Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in one year, but underestimate what they can accomplish in three to five years.”

RELATED: HOW TO FIND A JOB ASAP

So what does this mean? Well, if you knew where you were going to be, say three years from now, your current situation wouldn’t have that much of an impact. That’s because you know that you’re ultimately still going to get to your destination. The bigger the goals you have, the smaller the weight you put on each failure or mistake that you make. As you zoom out, you start to recognize that there’s a lot of ways to get to where you want to be. It doesn’t have to all happen this very same day. So I hope that gives you perspective, and just remind yourself that you have a lot more years to work towards your goals in life.

Tip #2: Everything You’re Experiencing Is Temporary

Alright, so tip number two is a friendly reminder that nothing lasts forever. You’re not going to be underemployed or unemployed forever! It might feel that way, but just know that you have control over every action you can take to move the needle in the direction you want to go. So what does this mean in job search terms? Well, if you’ve been applying online to countless jobs and only getting a few interviews, I want you to objectively ask yourself the following questions:

• What is no longer working?

• What can I be doing instead?

• What is working really well right now?

• What can I be doing more of?

I have so many job seekers who come to me feeling really hopeless in their job search. By the time they reach out, they had been job searching for more than three months, went on very few interviews and no offers.

So we would take a look objectively at what’s working and what’s not working. For example, if your resume is not yielding really great results, what can we do differently about your resume? Maybe you need to change directions and orient yourself towards something different. There’s a strategy behind everything, but it really requires you to look at things without bias. Why not try to do something a little bit differently and just measure what your results are? I promise you, everything is temporary. I believe all my clients who had been job searching for months to even years and then joined my program and found jobs sometimes within weeks is evidence that you can get different results if you try different things.

Tip #3: Express Gratitude

Tip number three is a fun one! It’s all about expressing gratitude for everything that you have in the present moment. I know it’s easy to get caught up on all of the things that are going wrong during your job search. But I just want to remind you that things could always be worse, right? So I encourage you to think about how you can start to operate from a level of gratitude and focus on all of the things that you’re grateful for. Whatever you call to your attention is what you get more of. In my coaching programs, I always have exercises that I start my clients off with each week to get them thinking about the things they love and are grateful for, and it’s really amazing.

It could be like very small things such as having internet connection, clean water, clean air, healthy food, your dog, your favorite nail salon- literally anything! There are so many things to be grateful for, and nothing is too small or silly to give thanks for. The more we can focus on these positive things, the less we fixate on the negative. Just like the laws of gravity, the laws of attraction are going to give you what you focus on. So again, like attracts like. If you focus on the positive, you’re going to yield more positive results and welcome positive opportunities into your life. If you’re a skeptic about all of this, start small. Try practicing just 21 days of expressing gratitude and see how that shifts your energy and the way that you view your current situation.

Tip #4: Visualize Your Future

I want to encourage you to put some thought into visualizing your future. So going back to how we overestimate what we can accomplish in one year, we often underestimate what we can accomplish in three to five years. I want you to focus on this future version of you. Really visualize what your ideal future life would look like. What would you be dressed like? What would you be thinking and feeling? What would you eat for dinner? What would your house look like?

The more you operate from that space and vividly picture your future, the more likely it will come to fruition. That’s the beautiful part of us being humans! We have all of the tools to start imagining and creating this vision. And once we know what we want, we can align ourselves and use that as a compass to move into action and do those things that are going to get us there.

Visualization can be a really motivating and powerful tool, just knowing that there is a possibility of you living this magnificent life, and that your current state is only temporary. You’re here right now, but you don’t always have to be. Just like planning a dentist visit six months out, you can plan for your future self in a role and environment, a company, a position that you really love and are challenged in. Get clear on what that looks like and don’t lose sight of it, because you can always reverse engineer and work your way backwards to get there.

Tip #5: Take Care Of Yourself

I want to encourage you to sprinkle in guilt-free self-love and self-care. I attract a lot of heart-centered professionals as my clients. What I mean by this is, they’re really accustomed to putting everybody else in front of them rather than focusing on themselves. And they feel really guilty when they start to do things just for themselves. But I want to give that reminder that if you are not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else! I also want to share that job searching 24/7 is not humanly possible. So think about what would lift your spirits, re-energize you, and allow you to have balance, peace, joy, and happiness.

I want you to make a list of the things that you wish you could do. It doesn’t have to be extravagant or expensive. It can be as simple as going on a hike, doing a yoga class, or cooking yourself a nice dinner. It can also be making a financial commitment to taking care of yourself, like budgeting for a monthly massage or an upgraded gym membership. Make your list and let me know in the comments down below what you’ll do to practice more self-care and self-love into your daily routine.

Tip #6: Find Your People

You do not have to job search alone. This does not have to be an isolating process whatsoever. There are so many people out there who are experiencing something very similar to what you’re experiencing now. Finding a community where you can openly share and be vulnerable about your concerns and your situation is vitally important. You should go through this process feeling like you’re supported rather than just harboring all of your emotions inside. Thankfully, there are a ton of resources out there to find like-minded people.

You can find them through your similar identity, your similar professional years, or your similar hobbies. There are tons of Facebook groups including my own Facebook group called Cultivate Your Career. There are over 3,000 corporate professionals in my group who are willing to give advice and feedback and support and guidance through this interview and job search process. So know that you do not have to do this alone. In all of my job searching programs, I also have a group element to it. It’s been really awesome to see amazing people come together and help one another expand their networks for one another and really share their journeys together.

My hope is that you find your tribe of people wherever they are, and that you really connect yourself with them so that this doesn’t feel like this never-ending roller coaster with just you sitting on that roller coaster alone. There are so many ways to feel supported around this process!