In my previous two blogs I wrote about finding a job using a different paradigm and engaging in networking. In this post I will be addressing the style and attitude with which you approach the challenge of finding a job especially in a difficult economic market. I refer to it as a black belt attitude. This attitude not only affects how you approach looking for work, but also impacts how you approach your life.
Since 2008 my life coaching practice has witnessed a shift. In prior years my clients were mostly folks who were interested in improving their life, growing their business, and advancing in their profession. Since the “Great Recession” my clients are focusing on transitioning from one career to another and finding a job after being laid off from their six figure positions.
The old saying, “we cannot control the hand we are dealt, but we can control how we play the hand” is very powerful. Whether it is the economy, illness, accidents, etc., we have a choice regarding how we are going to deal with circumstance in which we find ourselves.
There has been much hullabaloo made by the Tea Party advocates, religious fundamentalists, and other groups, claiming that marriage is sacred. They use the “sanctity of marriage” call as the reason why we should not legalize gay marriage (a clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state.) Yet, we have many Hollywood marriages where celebrities marry for convenience, money (e.g., the Kardashian marriage), publicity, etc. Marriage makes good press! And these sanctity of marriage groups say absolutely nothing. (A bit of hypocrisy, no?)
Bonnie Ware is a hospice nurse. During the course of her years working with people who were dying she questioned them about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently; common themes surfaced again and again. We all should learn from these patients now, while we are alive, and while we can do something today to minimize these regrets. The message is clear. As Steve Jobs said in his commencement address to the graduating class at Stanford in 2005, Every day I look in the mirror and ask myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. What he was advising in that address was to live each day as fully as possible focusing on following your passion, connecting with others, and make a difference in the world.
Much has been written about living a purposeful life and its relationship to happiness. I have addressed this issue in my recent book, Living Life from the Inside Out: Who You Are Matters. The questioned addressed in this post, however, is whether it is necessary to live a purposeful life in order to be happy. Can people be happy and feel satisfied with their life simply by getting up each day and going fishing and watching the clouds go by?
We have been raised on the value of self-reliance. We have been taught to admire independence and to believe that depending upon others is a sign of weakness. We believe in the Marlborough Man; men aspire to him and women seek to find him. If you listen to Tea Party folks, you would think that this country was built on the concept of complete self-reliance, independence, and without government intervention. This is all myth, fabrication, and malarkey.
I often see young couples, who have been married for a short period of time, lamenting that their marriage has lost its sparkle. They tell me that before they married and for about a year afterwards everything was wonderful. But then they began drifting apart, going through the motions of living together, but without passion. Sex has diminished significantly, talking has been limited, and they have little energy to be with one another at the end of the day. They lost their mojo.
I work with quite a few senior citizens in my practice. Some of whom are octogenarians. I imagine I will be seeing quite a few more in the years to come as people live longer and often healthier lives. As teenagers these people, as most of us, looked forward to getting their driver’s license and the keys to the family car. And a parent’s major weapon to keep their kids in line was the threat to take away those precious keys. The car keys meant freedom, independence, and power. Now these adolescence are seniors in the winter of their life. And now it is their children who may have to say, “Mom (Dad) it is time for you to hand over the car keys; it is time for you to stop driving.”
Nationally there is over 9% unemployment; in California it is over 12%. Psychologically, the economic high unemployment rates has had a profound affect on those for whom a job is more than just something one does to earn money, but becomes their identity. Historically it is men who have seen themselves as the primary wage-earner. This role has become a source of their self-worth and their masculinity. They become their job. And without a job, who are they? And with a loss of identity, they become depressed, often severely so.
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