How to Get Motivated To Start Your Job Search
Episode 481 | Author: Emilie Aries
How do you tackle one of the trickiest parts of the job search: getting started?
We’ve covered a lot of job search topics on this podcast. I’ve released episodes on job searching full-time, job searching part-time, updating your cover letter, expanding your network, and on and on. But all these steps assume one thing: that you’ve already gotten started—and that can be the hardest part!
If you haven’t yet found the motivation to get started, it doesn’t matter how much time you have to search or how impressive your resume is. The first step is always going to be turning your analysis paralysis into forward momentum, and I have three tips that will help you do exactly that.
What’s your vision, and why?
If you’re in a job that’s not fulfilling you right now, I’m guessing it often feels easier to list out what you don’t want than what you do. But getting clear on what you want is a vital first step, so let’s play the fast-forward game. Jump ahead a few years into the future. Imagine the wave of a magic wand has let you live exactly the life you want. What does that life look like?
Get the fantasy tokens of success like the mansion and the yacht out of your system if you need to, and then focus on what your dream workday might look like. Get granular: what do you see when you wake up, what do you have for breakfast, how many hours of that kind of work are you doing, and what’s on the docket for the rest of your week?
Once you can feel the kind of workday your heart desires, tease out the values that this dream highlights. Your top priority might be quality family time, financial stability, health and wellness, or something else entirely. Getting your inner compass calibrated in this way will help ignite the feelings you need to propel you forward into this difficult and sometimes frustrating pursuit.
Before you move on, write these values somewhere you can see them every day, and keep that fire burning!
Your personalized plan of action
You don’t need to dive all in. But you have to start somewhere, and once you have your values and your vision in mind, you can figure out some first steps that will let you dip your toe into the world of job searching.
Consider your current situation. What is your schedule like, and what is your preferred way of building connections? If you have the time and social inclination, look for networking events to attend. If you’re on the more introverted side, make a plan to start regularly scouring the job boards.
Figure out an action plan that is strategic and realistic, one that fits with your personal approach to accountability and incorporates your preferred ways of recruiting assistance—from both your current support system and the one you’ll continue to build. “Realistic” is key here. However tempting it might be to decide you’re going to apply to 50 jobs a week, avoid the temptation to set unattainable goals, which will make it harder to stay motivated.
Take the tiniest step forward
Momentum builds on itself, so at the end of the day, it’s really about doing something, whether that’s setting a couple of job posting alerts or registering for an industry event. It’s never going to be the “perfect” time to go all in, but you deserve a career that fulfills you. You have your vision, you have your strategy, so even if you don’t quite feel ready—jump in!
If you need to stack some guidance and external motivation on your existing processes to really get into this groove, check out our HIRED job search accelerator. It’s packed with assistance on everything from clarifying your narrative to negotiating your offer, so you can land your dream job.
What motivates you to get started when the rest of you wants to put it off? Weigh in and connect with like-minded professionals in our Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn to share your goals and successes.
Related Links From Today’s Episode:
Episode 2, When is it time to quit?
Episode 453, Prioritizing Your Job Search While Holding Down a Full-Time Job
Episode 455, How to Create a Sustainable Job Search Schedule When You’re Unemployed
The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin
HIRED: my Job Search Accelerator
Tap into your intrinsic motivation to discover your dream job:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey, and welcome to the Bossed Up podcast, episode 481. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up. And today I want to talk about one of the hardest parts of job searching, and that is just getting started.
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There's a lot of episodes we've done here and a lot of resources on my website all about the job search, and the intricacies of the modern job search, and the complexities of navigating technology involved in the modern job search. But at the end of the day, none of that advice matters if you can't motivate yourself to even get started.
And let me tell you, I've seen countless women, countless clients of ours who've gone through our HIRED: Job Search Accelerator, get really hung up on that first step, get really stuck in not knowing if the timing is right or, you know, what we even would do, how we would start, or is it even worth the trouble, kind of avoiding the question, even if it's gnawing at you. And I think the real important takeaway here is that this is not a logical argument that you need to make with yourself. You don't need to persuade yourself to get started. This is not about just the game plan for how to get started. This is really about the emotion behind getting started.
You got to figure out how to tap into your own inner resources, your intrinsic motivation that's actually going to get you out of analysis paralysis, and into movement into some forward momentum, which can be hard when you're feeling scared, and stuck, and uncertain, and honestly, like, what job seeker isn't uncertain? It's sort of part of the package deal you get when you decide to wait into the unknown. So I've got three tips for you to incorporate into getting yourself started, getting out of park, and into drive to get your job search underway.
The first is to give yourself the space and time to really tap into and connect with your vision for the future that you want for yourself, for your family, for your career. This is where you have to spend time not just thinking about what you envision for yourself, but why that matters to you. What is your why behind the impetus to leave? Now, one thing that gets really hard for folks is when you are feeling like you're stuck at a toxic job or your current workplace has become untenable. Most of my clients can only articulate what they don't want. They can, they struggle often with articulating what they do want.
So I like to play the fast forward game. I like to play the ten years into the future game. Or maybe it's just two years into the future. If I waved a magic wand and everything your heart desires came true, what would your life look like? That is your journal prompt. That is the conversation I want you to have with your loved ones or partner or bestie. That is the idea. I want you to aerate a little, like, swirl it around in your wine glass. If it helps you brainstorm, talk it out, write it out, but spend some quality time tapping into yourself and your own desire.
We are so busy nowadays. We feel so much pressure in so many different aspects in our life that we rarely even allow ourselves the space and time to dream. And I'm not saying, like, this isn't about, like, the material showings of success. Like, well, I'd have a Bugatti and I would live in a mansion, and I wouldn't work a day in my life. Like, that's fine. Like, write that out if you gotta get it out of your system. But beyond the superficial tokens of success, how would you feel? How would you spend your time? What would give you a sense of purpose and fulfillment? What would add joy and positivity and peace into your life? And once you start to articulate that, in as descriptive, as terms as you can, you know, I would wake up in the morning, and here's what I would do first. Here's how I would feel, what I would be eating. Here's what I would be getting dressed in. Here's how I'd be spending my time. Here's how that would make me feel.
Once you've written out, like, your dream day of work, two to ten years into the future, then I want you to articulate what it is that you value. Based on what you just wrote down, based on what I'm aiming for, what I'm really valuing at this time in my life is quality time with family, or is, financial stability, or is, my health and my mental well being. What are the values behind what you just articulated? And really giving yourself just some kind of inner compass to start guiding you forward and to actually tap into the emotions, the feelings that are going to propel you forward into what can be a scary, uncertain, volatile environment and world, which is the job search process. It's a pain in the a** like, people avoid it. I get it. It's hard work. It's uncertain. It's exhausting. So you need to know what's in it for you. Your WIIFM. Like, what's in it for me? That feeling of peace, of quality time, of health, of mental well being, whatever it is. I need that to be central to why you should get started. Because only you are going to be able to motivate yourself to take that first step forward.
You got to know why it's worth doing so. And then find a way, if you can, to post those values or that vision somewhere. You can see it regularly so that you can really feel those feelings in a way that'll help you overcome the procrastination, the avoidance, the denial that you have to make your first move. Okay? So tap into your feelings first to even begin the journey that is the job search.
Then step two here is to make a plan of action for how you can make it as frictionless as possible for you to get started. What are your individual needs? Schedule options what I'm trying to say here is like, how can you make it easy to just dip your toe in the water? Just to get a little bit acclimatized to what the job search is like these days, I want you to consider your schedule. We've got two really helpful podcast episodes already on how to create a sustainable job search routine. One for folks who are job searching full time, Perhaps you're unemployed or you've been laid off or you've been caregiving. That's a great episode for you because that's going to look really different than the other episode we have on how to create a sustainable job search routine. When you have a full time job, your schedule is gonna look really different. Your approach is gonna look really different. So check those episodes out if you wanna get more examples of what a concrete job search routine can look like.
But make it manageable for yourself. Do not set unrealistic expectations for yourself because the minute you fail to achieve them, you're just gonna get so disappointed in yourself and down in the dumps that your motivation's gonna go out the window. So think about your individual preferences and needs. Am I a social person who likes talking things out? Then I should get my a** to happy hour. I should go to my industry events. I should go to some conferences. I should go see who's who and what's going on in my industry and talk it out with people as I practice my elevator speech in real time.
If I am an introvert, and that sounds like a true nightmare to me, then maybe I'll start by scrolling the job boards and just seeing what's out there by looking electronically first. So think about your own individual preferences. Think about your own schedule limitations, constraints, and opportunities. And finally, think about your own approach to accountability. I love Gretchen Rubin's book on The Four Tendencies. She talks about obligers who always stand out in my mind because it's such a concrete concept. But if you're an obliger, you're a lot more likely to show up to, let's say, tennis practice. If you have a tennis partner who's waiting on you to be there, right? You've got a built-in accountability, buddy.
If you are a rebel like me, you are almost less likely to show up if other people are asking you to show up there. If you don't think it makes sense for your own personal needs, wants, desires, and purpose. Right. Uh, you're asking, why? Why do you want me to do this? Like, this isn't an important use of my time, so I'm going to rebel against it.
So, knowing your own sort of relationship to accountability, what works for you in terms of holding yourself accountable, set yourself up for success by incorporating others strategically, even at this early stage. Yes. That takes being vulnerable with people. It takes being willing to articulate that you might actually want to try for something better or different. And that can feel risky, I know. But as Brené Brown always says, right, like, vulnerability is the cornerstone of every real relationship. So take those risks, incorporate others in your process early and often, and don't incorporate just anyone. Right? Invite the people in who you trust, to honor your vulnerability with love and support, and to match that trust with trust along the way.
And finally, my last boss tip for you here is to just rip off that band aid and get started. I'm a big believer in Teresa Amabile and who is it, Steven Kramer's principle, known as The Progress Principle, which says that if you make some forward momentum, you have a little boost of intrinsic motivation that makes you want to make more forward momentum. Progress begets progress.
So whatever your plan is, no matter how perfect or imperfectly you start, move forward. And that sensation of forward momentum is going to create a little bit of, like, cognitive inertia. Like an object in motion is going to remain in motion. So don't wait for the perfect plan to get moving, start before you feel ready. Jump into the job search however you see fit.
At this point, you've already clarified your why behind your vision for your future. You've articulated something of a strategy or plan of how you want to proceed, how you can set yourself up for success. At this point, it's like, don't overthink it. [LAUGHTER] Just start. You know, it's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be risk free, so you might as well wade in and test the waters and just see how it goes. It's like it's never going to be a clean break, you know what I mean? You're never going to wake up one day and say, okay, I'm officially ready to start my job search, and it's just gonna be a process that is over and done with in the next week or two, right? This is a voyage.
As Herminia Ibarra put it in an older book that I love to reference called Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies For Reinventing Your Career. She describes the career transition process as being in transit. Right? Transit is in the middle of the word transition, and really what stood out to me is a metaphor she used where starting a job search can kind of feel like you've got one foot on a ship that's ready to sail across the ocean and you've got your other foot still firmly planted on the ground. You don't even really know where you're headed yet. You don't know the destination you'll arrive at on the other side of that journey. But in order to start, you have to be willing to kind of pick up that other foot and leave the land you've been on behind. And it can just leave you kind of feeling pulled in multiple directions, like who you are and who you have been is leaving you behind, you're transitioning, you're changing, you're evolving. You're on a voyage to who you will become.
And so if it feels vulnerable, if it feels a little destabilizing, you are probably on the right path. And the most important thing to do is to move, to get moving, to get started. If you've been feeling that pull, if you've been thinking about what's next for you, if you've been, you know, haphazardly exploring, keeping one eye on the job boards for months now, it's time to get real about this.
So, to recap, start with that vision. Where do you see yourself in two to ten years, and why? What is it? What are the values underneath that vision that's actually going to motivate you to step forward into the unknown? Step two, create an action plan. Some kind of strategy that specifically caters to your personal preferences, your personal availability, and your personal accountability style. And finally, just get started.
If I can help you get started, know that my job search program HIRED is an on demand bingeable video course available at bossedup.org/gethired it's a great sort of fast track course to get you up to speed on the modern intricacies of how to practically do the work that it requires to get a job in today's market. We get into everything from, like, clarifying your narrative so that you can use it as an elevator pitch at those happy hours or even at an interview someday, to the mechanics of writing a h*** of a resume, like a modern resume that actually gets the job done and knows how to navigate the ATS systems that are involved in pretty much every hiring process, all the way through negotiating your offer. So there's so much in HIRED check it out now bossedup.org/gethired.
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And as always, I'd love to keep the conversation going after the episode in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook and in the Bossed Up LinkedIn Group. Until next time, let's keep bossin’ in pursuit of our purpose. And together, let's lift as we climb.
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