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Article > How Your Perspective Colors Your Job Search

If you've been receiving our job tips for a while, you know we usually cover specific tactics you can use in your job search. This week, we're taking a break from focusing solely on tactical approaches and introducing life coach Fernando Lopez as a guest author.

How Your Perspective Colors Your Job Search

By Fernando Lopez, Life Coach

Do you feel stuck in your job search? Are you not getting the results you want? Many clients come to me because they feel stuck. The good news is that you don't need to wait until the circumstances of your job search change to get yourself unstuck. You can simply change your perspective. A new perspective will have ENORMOUS impact, even if everything else remains the same. This article will show you how to harness the power of perspective:

Step 1 - See that you're in a Perspective

The first step is simply to identify your current perspective about job searching. Discover how it is driving your actions, even when you're not aware of it. You are always in a perspective, and many times it is not the most powerful one! To identify your current job search perspective, complete the following sentence:

Searching for a job is ___________________________.

 Now, ask yourself how this way of looking at your job search benefits you. How does it cost you? Take a moment to do this.

Example: Jane (our sample job seeker) thinks that searching for a job is a waste of time. She could be doing something productive rather than activities that don't add value to anyone and may never pay off. She realizes this perspective benefits her because it makes her more productive in the short term. She also realizes that it keeps her from pursuing the opportunities she really wants. Frankly, she realizes, she'll never feel inspired about looking for a new job/career under this perspective.

Step 2 - Realize there are many other Perspectives

The second step is to identify additional perspectives. I challenge you to come up with at least 8 more perspectives beyond the one you discovered in Step 1.

To make it easier, I've provided some ticklers for you below: how would those characters in the left-hand column view job searching? Get a pen and paper and write it down. Free-associate any way you want to. Make sure you come up with perspectives that are also true for you. Jane came up with the perspectives on the third column.

 Now you will have much more choice about how you view your job search. Review your perspectives again. Feel what it would be like to operate from each of them. What would be good about them? What would be bad?

 Step 3 - Consciously choose a Perspective

Once you're done trying on each of the perspectives, it is time to choose one of them. Choose the one that is most life-giving. Which one would get you into action or provide the most learning?

 Example: After looking at her new perspectives, Jane chose her favorite celebrity's perspective: job searching is "a matter of finding what you would really enjoy". That didn't seem like a waste of time to her at all!

 Step 4 - Create an Action Plan from the Perspective you Choose

After you choose your perspective, you will need to put together an action plan. How would you put into action your new perspective?

Example: Jane immediately thought of arranging some information interviews with friends and acquaintances in the fields she is interested in. She decided that this week she would call three people and schedule meetings with them.

Step 5 - Commit to the Plan.

We will talk about commitment and taking action in a future article. Stay tuned.

Too often we take the historical experience and make it into "the way IT is" whatever that is for us, as if we were powerless to have it any other way.

Start by looking at the following statements:  

• "Finding a job is mostly out of my control."
• "Job searching requires that I sell out on myself."
• "Looking for a job is a lot of fun."
•  "Searching for a job is a waste of time."

Notice how you will tend to agree or disagree with them. For our purposes, it doesn't really matter whether they're true or not, the important thing to see is that taking on one of these beliefs will color your job search accordingly and may be the root of your stuckness.

Once you have become unstuck and feel that you have a healthy perspective on your job search, your next step should be to generate job leads. We recommend getting your resume posted on all the important job sites as a good way to get your resume in front of recruiters. ResumeDirector is a service that will let you enter your resume once and get it posted on over 90 job sites including Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder, etc. To find out more about it, visit this link: http://www.jobwerx.com/resume_director.html

 The author of this article, Fernando Lopez, is a life coach based in New York City. Fernando coaches individuals on achieving what they want out of life.  He works with people in person in the New York City area, as well as with people in other areas through his telephone coaching program.  To find out more about his services, visit this link: http://www.flopez.com/

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