When newly unemployed, you may feel like you deserve a break, after all, you’ve been going to work every day for weeks, months, possibly years. So you give yourself permission for a few weeks to take it easy. Because you are likely on this well-deserved mini vacation by yourself (while friends and family continue to go to work or school) it gets boring pretty quickly. But you may slide into some bad habits; sleeping in, staying in your PJ’s or sweats all day, playing Candy Crush for hours! Before you know it, a few more weeks slide by. You started to update your resume, but never finished. You looked at the jobs online a few times, but since your resume isn’t ready, you didn’t apply for any jobs. At the end of the day, you re-commit – you say “tomorrow I will get my resume done! I am totally ready to go back to work, and need to get out there.” But the next day, in spite of all those good intentions, what you do (sleep in, stay in PJ’s, etc.) doesn’t match your intention (whip that resume into shape, job search online, etc.) Nothing is more frustrating and discouraging than this. As days turn into weeks, you will likely feel worse and may even start beating yourself up, wondering if you really have anything to offer an employer.
Good news! There are effective ways for you to move forward. In the “Stages of Change” model you are in contemplation. You are thinking about change, you know what you need to do, but you have not yet moved into action. All of our Employment Coaches at Agilec have been trained in Motivational Interviewing techniques. This is a highly effective way to support you to move from contemplation to action. When used to support someone who is unemployed and wants to work, in a very short period of time, we can help you out of that rut of good intentions, and start you on a path of action.
Instead of saying things like “I want to”; “I need to”; or “I wish”; you will find yourself saying things like “I will”; “I must”; and then “I did”.
We will work with you to strengthen your commitment and confidence; identify with you what you need to do to get that next job; and before long you will be working again.
Drop in or call your nearest Agilec Employment Services Centre today. Get out of your PJ’s and come see us. We are specialists at getting people “unstuck”.
by Kathy Low, blogger for Agilec
