Archive for the ‘Psychological Barriers to the Job Search’ Category

Goldfish Crackers are a standard in most homes with children. My two children have always loved them.  Yesterday as I was putting away groceries, the word Optimism caught my eye on a big box of whole grain baked Goldfish with the important note: “Optimism is a skill children can learn and leads to greater happiness and resilience.”

As an advocate of Positive Psychology and building optimism, I went straight to the website to read more about “Fishful Thinking”. Pepperidge Farm’s Read the rest of this entry »

My colleague, Career Counselor Ilana Levitt and I were in our respective Yoga classes recently and had a similar epiphany.  We were both struck by the relevance of Yoga practice to our work with people stuck in various stages of their job search or career development.
Ilana and I are dedicated to helping people break through the psychological barriers that are keeping them from moving forward in their job search or careers.   So, what do you say, are you open to some stretching? Thanks Ilana for sharing your experience.

Instructions: Take your left leg and cross the left thigh over the right. 2. Hook the left foot around the right calf. 3. Bring the arms out in front. 4. Cross the right arm over the left and bring the palms to touch. 5. Lift the elbows while keeping the shoulders sliding down the back. 6. Hold 5-10 breaths. 7.  Repeat on the other side.

This is called the Eagle Pose in Yoga. Why do I describe the instructions to you? Because I stood in yoga class last week, and tried this pose, and tried again. My foot kept going back to the floor when I wanted it to stay up. My arms came down as I struggled to keep my foot up.  And then the instructor said something so profound that I thought everyone struggling with career transitions and job searches ought to hear it too.

“Hold the pose, even though your body will naturally want to go back to the most relaxed state possible.  But if you hold the pose, this will become easier to do.” Read the rest of this entry »

As a trained counselor and therapist, it doesn’t take me long to detect that a job seeking client is stuck for reasons other than a challenging economy. Let me introduce the experiences of three people I have met over the last few years:

It took quite a bit of encouragement to get Dan into my office to talk about his job search, despite his reaching out to me with initial enthusiasm. His ambivalence soon became evident. Agreeing to one session, Dan and I met and his fears and anxieties  filled the room. In the midst of  a very successful career, he had lost his job while at the top of his game. The rug was pulled out from under him and he was not prepared to deal with the  sense of anger and betrayal that he felt. The negative chatter in his head had paralyzed him and his frustration was palpable. Starting the job search made him feel very vulnerable. Dan was going to have to process the meaning of his job loss before he could move on. Read the rest of this entry »