Overcoming Internal Job Hunting Hurdles

How to take Positive and Deliberate Action using A Woman’s Guide: Cultivating Everyday Personal Magnificence

A podcast series on taking action.

Overcoming Internal Job Hunting Hurdles

When Living at Home (Forever) Is Not Your Destiny

Era Lewis

Greetings. My name is Era and I am the author of A Woman’s Guide: Cultivating Everyday Personal Magnificence.

Firstly, an important note: If you are suffering from mental health problems which affect your ability to enjoy life, or you have suicidal thoughts, then it is imperative you seek professional help, now. Seeking mental health is a sign of true strength. This discussion isn’t a substitute for those times when you need in-person counseling.

Today we will talk about how to use emotions, a source of free energy, to change your life in positive directions. These ideas are more completely discussed in the A Woman’s Guide: Cultivating Everyday Personal Magnificence. Remember, emotions are to be used as personal and positive tools. Emotions can help you to get going when you are stalled out. Emotions should not be a huge or an ongoing display to get others to take on your responsibilities. Emotions can be used internally to overcome fear, doubt, lack of confidence and other such emotions holding us back from positive action in life.

This topic, job hunting, is one that is close to my heart. I have spent considerable time during my life looking for jobs and I know how hard it can be. I once left my resumé for a person at a business and the receptionist at the front desk had me talk to the intended recipient of my resumé on the phone. He asked me where I got my degree and I told him, UC San Diego. He spent the next few minutes yelling at me about all the people from California coming to Washington, and how terrible Californians were. Finally, he proceeded to tell me to go home and slammed down the phone. Well, I wasn’t born in California, and I didn’t grow up there, so many of his ridiculous accusations were completely false, not that it really mattered. I went home discouraged and cried. I was very dejected and unhappy. But then something within me changed, and for the better. We will come back to this idea.

Let’s begin by looking at the situation you might be in. You are a healthy adult but stuck at home with your parents. The list of reasons for being at home might be long. Here are the main factors:

First: You have limited financial resources compared to expenses incurred if living on your own.

Second: Related to the first item, you don’t have a job and aren’t really looking for one. There are reasons you aren’t looking for a job, but mainly, you just can’t muster up the energy for it.

You are unhappy and possibly despondent about your situation. You feel stuck. Then something worse happens.

I am going to use a term here that you may not like, but I think it is important to address it. This is something I have done at times in my life, and it is a very, very bad problem. It is an expression of annoyance and displeasure, what we call pouting.

I bring up pouting, because I have had several major pouting sessions during the last two decades, so I know what they are, and I have ideas on how to get out of a pouting situation. If you’re thinking, don’t just kids in kindergarten pout? Well, no. Adults do to.

Several years ago I was trying to start up a Bed and Breakfast and things were not going well, the business was failing. One evening, during a time of frustration, I started to pout. That pouting turned into more useless thoughts. It sounded like this: Nobody loves me. Nobody cares. Nobody understands. This is a cold world. Then I went further. Why doesn’t someone help me? Why doesn’t anyone help me? There isn’t a person to help here.

 Oh dear. There was a lot of unhappiness at that moment.

Let’s look at the logic here first. Why was I pouting? I realized I was pouting because I wanted someone to fix the problem for me. Right. If I was asking why someone didn’t love me, it was because of this thought: if they loved me, they would fix this problem. That entity (parents, God, family) will fawn all over me and make things better.

Yes, it is nice if someone will help us out. But that is completely different from someone fawning all over you and carrying the load for you. There are several reasons why someone shouldn’t fawn all over you:

1. No one is going to fix your problem like you want it fixed. If someone tries to fix our problem, we find ourselves giving all kinds of reasons why their ideas and approaches won’t work. Ultimately, we want the freedom to fix problems ourselves.
2. Why do you want to fix the problem yourself?  Because you came to earth to experience life here. If you were destined for a limited experience, you would be a rock or something like that. But you aren’t a rock. You have come here to experience and conquer those problems which hold you back from your true expression, your true positive self. You and I are adults, and that means you and I want to carry your own loads because that is how we experience.
3. If someone fawns all over you, you don’t learn about who you are, who you are at your core. To understand what you really are, you want to experience for yourself.

Let’s look at this one other way to really understand what is happening. When we are pouting, it is like going to prison. No joke. You just locked yourself up. I know this, because when I was having my pouting session about the failing Bed and Breakfast, it put me in this catatonic state of inaction. This is ridiculous because if someone locked me up in jail and said, “Now you can’t do anything,” I would be indignant. I would be furious.  I would say things like, “What! You can’t lock me up for nothing! You are crazy to try to lock me up for nothing!” And there is the uncomfortable truth. I was locking myself up in a pouting pity party.

How do we fix all of this? Now that we understand why pouting isn’t helpful, what can we do to make things better?

1. Pause by spending quiet time in nature. Some of my best thinking has occurred after I have exercised in nature. Why? Because the bombardment on my senses was reduced in nature and my system benefited from the endorphins generated in exercise. My muscles could relax. Put away the electronic devices and walk the dog in a safe location. Make a raised bed in the yard. Plant a rose bush. Let your nerves relax and your subconscious mind work for you. Let your biochemistry get back into the groove. (For more information see Competing for Attention in A Woman’s Guide: Cultivating Everyday Personal Magnificence.)
2. Think about what is important to you. Not superficially, such as money being important (who doesn’t need money), but deeply. I have always felt supportive of women and their equal rights. I also find nature to be very important. This means that if I align my basic belief about women with what I am doing, I am very enthused and look forward to the work. Or if I am doing something to support nature, I have lots of energy for it. If you don’t know what your inner passion is, that is ok. Spend some quiet time with yourself and learn about yourself.
   1. Here are some ideas about what might be important to you. You have always loved staying in shape thought a good diet, you think moderate sports are excellent for long term health, you believe helping the poor is vital.  Those things may not be an avenue to pursue yet, but do not exclude them. (For more information see the chapter on Inspiration and Motivation in A Woman’s Guide: Cultivating Everyday Personal Magnificence.)
3. Cultivate an emotion that will help you to take positive and deliberate action. This idea is more fully explained in my book. These are some examples.
   1. Get irritated. I would say to myself, “Nobody is going to tell me that I can’t succeed. I am not going to sit around and let the media dictate my thoughts with negativity. This is my life and I will succeed in what I believe is important. I will help those in need.”
   1. Get resolute. “I am taking charge now. Here is my calendar to fill up with positive tasks. I am fed up with this inactivity.”
   1. I pump up my ego with some repeat thinking. I say things like, “If so-n-so can do this, I can too. There isn’t anything special about them. I am free to succeed, and I can do this.” I keep up that thought, so the other stuff doesn’t come in and beat me down. “I CAN DO THIS!”
   1. I will lump emotions together to get into action. I might be frustrated with my lack or type of education. And I am mad about all the job rejections. I bundle those emotions together to be waspishly frustrated and say, “Enough!” Then I approach the job hunting in a different way. Instead, I begin searching on LinkedIn for contacts. Or I could look for classes that will help me at a community college.
   1. I cultivate an action emotion by exaggeration. I say to myself, “I am not going to live at home my entire life. How could I stand that? The constant, do this, do that, would go on for decades.” So you exaggerate that this would go on forever! Build up the idea that you will not tolerate living at home with your parents forever. Just not going to happen. You think, “I need to call my friends to see if they have job ideas and a place to live.” Or you go to the library and take our books on job hunting and resumés.
      1. If you are afraid of resumé rejection, I have a solution to that. Job hunting and getting going in life is a numbers game. You can’t look at what you have done but look at how many it might take. I was reading about an article and a young person was complaining about sending out 100 resumés with no response. Back in the 80’s I sent out a massive number of resumés. Finally, one came back interested. You don’t need interest from gobs of potential employers, you need one who is interested. Follow up with a letter to an employer. Go on social media to help find a job.
   1. Develop a positive relationship with your higher power. Go explore spirituality at the library. Find a good spiritual book and read it. Spirituality can be balm to those ego lacerations when living at home and your friends are out on their own. I find spiritual help to be the best source of constant positive energy.

Points to remember:

Use the emotion to take action. Don’t blame your parents or teachers or Presidents of the U.S. Take some positive action. Write down what you will do. Get a calendar going with tasks. Go to the library or bookstore.

Turn off the TV and social media. Just sit if you must and think about what you can do.

If you get back to pouting, then ask yourself, “What does this accomplish? Will it improve my situation? What emotion will get me going?” Remember a time in the past when you excelled at anything. Maybe it was a relay race in grade school. Take that feeling and take a step forward.

That concludes our talk today. Thank you for listening. I am confident that once you take positive action, then you will begin to make the changes you so desire.

You can find me at eralewis.com and a printed version of this talk.