Career transitions are stressful, especially if you have little
experience dealing with them and don't know how to leverage the
stress they present to your future career advantage. Whether
your employment loss was your choice or someone else's,
unavoidable feelings of anxiety and panic can prevail. If you
find yourself in a career transition, you need to understand
your own stress "profile" to minimize its potential negative
interference with your daily life and personal health.
Understand What "Stress" Is for You
Self awareness of your own stress symptoms is a critical first
step in dealing with a career transition. You need to know in
what form(s) your stress manifests itself in your life before
you can establish a means to address the circumstances.
Stress from life transitions can manifest themselves in a
variety of physical and mental ways. Stress from employment
loss can also present itself in both negative and positive
ways. Often in a career transition, minimizing negative stress
consequences is most challenging.
You, better than anyone else, know how negative stress surfaces
in your life and when it particularly affects you the most.
Physically you may experience irregularities in your breathing,
heart rate, appetite, muscles or digestive system. Mentally,
you may experience depression, lack of sleep, headaches,
irritability, feelings of being overwhelmed or unusual levels
of uncertainty due to self inflicted "damage" to your own self
image.
From a positive stress perspective, stress is really a direct
by-product of our body's adrenaline flow, our natural reaction
to "fight or flight" in dealing with life's extraordinary
challenges. For many people, when they are forced to
immediately deal with a stressful situation they get a great
energy boost, they CHOOSE to seek and accomplish things that
they have never done before. As exhibited in so many
extraordinary human events of record, stressful events can
bring out the best in us!
Define What Stress is Career Related
Because we are attempting to specifically deal with career
transition stress, it is important to differentiate symptoms
caused by this temporary situation from other typical stress
generators in your life, such as your: family, spouse, health,
finances and friends.
Although your unique reactions to these "other" life situations
many be similar to those of your career challenges, it takes a
focused effort to effectively define your specific stress
responses related to a career transition issues.
Attitude is Everything
How "stressed out" you think you are, or how physically and
mentally you influence yourself because of your career
circumstances, is not as important as how you REACT to your own
perceived stress contributors.
Like most things in life, your attitude is everything. How do
you use job loss stress to your advantage while protecting your
health and life from ill effects? Make an effort to try these
positive career transition stress tactics:
Three POSITIVE Career Transition Stress Tactics
1) Fortify Your Self Image:
For many people, their self image is significantly influenced by
their perception of their own career successes and failures. A
job loss can be a traumatic event, an opportunity to "beat
yourself up". This is particularly a natural consequence of an
unexpected career transition. Continuously recognize yourself
as worthwhile, competent and successful, independent of how
your career transition came about. Again, attitude is
everything!
2) Work to Stay Motivated to Get to Work:
Clearly define for yourself what is best for you in your next
career move. Refine your career objectives with others who have
your best interests in mind. Proclaim your next career
intentions to everyone who is important to you so that you
position yourself to stay motivated to seek your career
objectives. Develop a written plan to get you where you want to
be professionally. Tweak the plan as you implement it for best
results. Plan to work, work the plan!
3) Treat Yourself Well:
Focus on developing and advancing healthy behavioral routines
while you seek your next career opportunity. Establish a daily
ritual that is both physically and mentally progressive and
rewarding. Exercise, eat healthy foods, improve your
relationships and establish a finite sleep regime. Strive to
communicate your frustrations more and seek advice to lessen
your stress burdens.
Whether this is your first time in a career transition or one of
many, it takes a concerted effort to leverage positive stress
and to minimize negative stress to your career advantage.
Stress from a career transition does not have to rule your life
and ruin your health! Hopefully reading this article is a
helpful first step to taking advantage of your next career
opportunity.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar