Self-Discipline – A Key Ingredient When You’re Unemployed
Posted on 08. Jun, 2009 by Matt Shelly in Job Search Tips
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By Todd Bavol, The Job Search Ninja.
CEO, Integrity Career Transitions
Maintaining a sense of self-discipline when you have been unemployed for a while can be really tough. The trouble is, when the days and the weeks seem to be stretching before you and there is always tomorrow, procrastination can so easily become the order of the day.
In some ways it is easy to see why this happens. For one thing, losing your job means losing your self-confidence and your self-esteem, and with them go your self-discipline and your self-control. With no eagle-eyed boss checking the clock to see what time you arrive at the office or whether you are getting on with that latest project that he dropped on your desk, with nobody’s expectations to meet but your own in fact, it can be hard not to let things slide.
Going from being employed to being unemployed is not dissimilar to going from being employed to being self-employed when it comes to self-discipline. There is nobody there to crack the whip and you get to choose whether something gets done or not. However, in both cases, the buck stops with you and your actions determine the end result. Granted, the self-employed person probably does not have quite the same self-confidence issues to deal with, but he does have them nevertheless. His business is new. He doesn’t know whether he is up to the challenge. Despite this, however, he forges ahead and develops new routines and learns to discipline himself.
If your self-discipline seems to have gone AWOL, don’t panic and don’t beat yourself up – it is not impossible to get it back. Start small. Begin with something simple like going to bed and getting up in the morning at a ‘normal’ hour, as you would if you were going to work. Even that might feel hard to begin with, but keep at it and it will soon become second nature. Then try progressing to a different area of your life until you have mastered that.
You won’t be able to do everything overnight. Your whole lifestyle might have changed over a period of time and you can’t fix it all at once. When you have managed to get one or two areas under control though, what you will probably find is that you actively want the other areas to be subject to some kind of discipline too.
The other thing to try is imagining that you are in fact self-employed. Your job is to find a job. Imagine that you are carrying out a job search on behalf of a client. How would you behave if somebody were paying you for your services? If it’s differently than how you are behaving now, then adjust accordingly. Okay, so you are not getting paid, but you could still give yourself a reward at the end of the week if you meet your targets.
For information about career products and services, visit www.integritycareertransitions.com. You can also follow The Job Search Ninja on twitter at, www.twitter.com/jobsearchninja, for great career advice.
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