9 Lifestyle Choices That Are Accidentally Sabotaging Your Job Search
Searching for a job can feel like another full time job and it takes fortitude, commitment, and loads of self-compassion. Your lifestyle choices may be helping or cramping your job search. Here are 9 lifestyle choices that might be sabotaging your search:
1. You go to happy hour and skip your workout.
Even if you’re headed to a networking happy hour, stop skipping your workout. Movement is incredibly powerful for your body, your heart, and your mind to move forward powerfully. There are some pretty powerful neurological reasons to make time for a workout some of which include: raising your endorphins (your happy vibes!), increasing your cognitive function, and managing your stress and anxiety better.
2. You aren’t making time for fun.
We’ve all known the person who is stressed out all of the time. Their anxiety is readable in their text messages, emails, and interactions. When you are having fun in your life, other people can tell and they want to be around you. Additionally, when you engage in a hobby, you are building new neurology that allows you to make new and different connections. Make fun a priority this week and see what solutions come up.
3. You spend a lot of time complaining.
I’m not saying you can’t vent or complain at all. There’s a healthy release that comes with a good vent and strong yell. Yet, if you find yourself complaining a lot, you’re strengthening the negative feedback loops in your head. Call a friend. Set a timer. Vent for 10 minutes and then ask yourself, “What is one action I can take to move towards a solution here?”
4. You trash talk to yourself about not doing enough in your search.
Our Western culture frequently uses shame and guilt as motivators. Except research shows that shame and guilt don’t actually work as well as self-empathy and self-compassion. The next time the voice in your head ridicules you or yells at you for not doing enough, put your pen to paper and practice rewriting that voice as your friend might speak to you. Kindly.
5. You’re only applying online because you’re an introvert.
While the internet is a wonderful tool, life is still so deeply about relationship. Get to know people. Reach out on LinkedIn and ask for informational interviews. Activate your network and let your community know that you’re looking for a new role.
6. Your emails and communication are unclear about what you’re looking for.
Do you want an informational interview? Are you looking for a connection to someone on the inside? Make an ask and be direct about what you are seeking or needing. Most people want to help you, but if they don’t know what you’re looking for then they can’t help.
7. You get up in a flurry and rush to get yourself out the door in the morning.
While your job searching, you want to continue to build in time to reflect. Making even just 10 minutes in the morning to think through your day can help you stay focused on what truly needs to get done. Also, spending just a minute or two to reflect on what’s working and what’s not working is going to inform the direction you’re headed. As you go through your job search, you’ll be learning a lot about what you like and you don’t want to miss harvesting the truth of what you’re craving AND what you really don’t like in your career.
8. You look at job applications and think “I don’t meet all the criteria” and then you don’t apply.
Stop that. Research shows that women apply for jobs when they meet 100% of the criteria and men apply as long as they meet 60%. Don’t sell yourself short.
9. You don’t have free time blocked into your schedule.
There are times when there’s nose to the ground grind, yes. But free time, actually open space where you’re not accomplishing or achieving, let’s you dream and scheme. We can’t create what we can’t imagine. Allow your imagination to be a tool that you use to create this next role and next step.
--
Jessica Leigh Lyons is a life coach residing in Minneapolis and all around personal development obsessed. When she’s not facilitating groups or working with clients one-on-one, she can be found running around Minneapolis parks, enjoying chai at Spyhouse, or planning her next road trip in the great US outdoors.
Why women love us:
- Daily articles on career topics
- Jobs at companies dedicated to hiring more women
- Advice and support from an authentic community
- Events that help you level up in your career
- Free membership, always