Your Job Search; Activity or Accomplishment?
How many times have you set out to go grab let’s say a book out of your home office and while you are walking from your living room, you notice a blanket that needs to be folded on the couch, so while you are folding it, the dog is wiggling and begging to go outside, you drop the blanket on the couch and take the dog out. While your closing the door, you pick up the shoes that were left by the door, with shoes in hand your wife calls for you and asks that you take out the trash while you are letting the dog out. So you make it into the kitchen to grab the trash when you realize that you forgot to put the milk back in the fridge. While your closing the door to the fridge you see a stack of mail that needs to be opened and sorted. You put your shoes down and start looking through the mail and then and only then do you feel like you were supposed to be getting something out of your office. But what was it?
Your shoes are on the kitchen counter, you have mail in your hand, the trash still needs to be taken out, the dog is barking outside (how did the dog get outside?), the living room needs straightened and you are definitely forgetting something. You have been so busy. You are exhausted as you keep these efforts up all day. Same goes for the work environment with emails, phone calls, meetings, reports, projects, people stopping by your desk, etc. All this activity! How much are you truly accomplishing?
I had an old boss who was very militant or dictator like in his leadership style. Despite his verbal lashings, I learned a lot from attempting to extract every possible ounce of productivity out of a given day. This principal was driven into my head day after day as he would pace the boiler room and repeat, “Don’t confuse activity as accomplishment.”
Whether it is your work day, your house chores, or let’s say your job search, how do you ensure true daily accomplishment and not just activity?
- Make a list: We have heard it a million times but begin to list the things that you need to do down to the detail. If it is not on the list, it does not exist. If you are beginning a job search you have to a goal or game plan on what companies you are going to target, what networks you are going to call on, what job boards you are going to use, updating your resume and maybe looking into an interview coach. If you need help on how to get started with your job search, shoot me an email.
- Destination: If you don’t know where you are going, you are probably already there. How do you know you’ve arrived if you don’t know where you are heading? This is list making 200 level. Just because you make a list that does not mean that you are truly accomplishing anything. A wise multi-millionaire once told me that with every decision, you are either getting closer to or further away from your goal. Your goal is set in stone – GET AN OFFER, your game plan is set in sand and can change on a daily basis however there should be no indecisiveness. Is this activity (taking the dog for a walk) getting me closer to getting a job or further away?
- Attitude: Keep your head up. Keep your spirit high. You have to approach your job search
with a positive, winning attitude. A great historic quote from a dedicated treasure hunter rings in my mind. Every day as this sea captain took to the search for the great treasure from the Spanish Atocha off the Florida/Caribbean coast, he would gather his crew and with enthusiasm proclaim, “Today’s the day!”. After over 15 years of this, the largest treasure in those waters was found.
There may be more, but should there be? If you could guide your job search with this focus and effort it is sure to produce guaranteed results. You will feel invigorated versus feeling tired and worried. It really takes no more than 30 days of concerted accomplishment effort to produce more outcome than you could’ve imagined.
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October 20th, 2008 at 1:29 am
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發問者： Hokkiao ( 實習生 5 級)
發問時間： 2008-10-07 06:59:19 ( 還有 1 天發問到期 )
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