Everybody is talking about how importance self-confidence is when it comes to finding a job; and yes it very important.
But …
One thing that people don’t talk about is that during that tough journey of finding a job, you will face rejections, disappointments and many bad days, things that will damage your self-esteem.
So, it really makes no sense telling someone that developing self-confidence will get him/her a job, because the road is all about lowering self-esteem.
A mean boss, an aggressive co-workers and a tough competition, and before we can really find our place and be able to really “have that job”, we need to make sure that those events won’t hurt our self-esteem.
In this article, we’re going to discuss some of the things that can damage your self-esteem and how to deal with them; we’re going to talk about rejection and inferiority.
1.Rejection:
Yes it hurts badly!
In fact, it’s one of the things that we fear the most, and it can leave us with zero self esteem.
Why rejection hurts badly?
Whether in our personal or professional life, we hate it!
And maybe that’s because it makes us feel like we’re not “good enough” and that we’re not “up to standards”.
Maybe deep within us we don’t want to feel “unloved” or “unwanted”, and that’s why we fear rejection, and also why our self-esteem is affected.
But in fact, in the real world, if we’re serious about success and living a better life, we can’t let rejection control us, because anyway, it’s unavoidable.
Wait! Is it unavoidable?
Yes it’s, it’s like death!
No matter how great you’re, you’re going to come across people who are not interested in what you have, and also you’re going to come across jealous people who will envy you.
So, we have to realize this fact, the only way to avoid rejection is to do nothing, and even then, some people will reject you because you’re not productive!!
And this fact leads us to another important fact, which is: great people get rejected too, famous people got rejected, just look deep within their biography and you will find out that their glory was build up on rejections and failure.
- Inferiority:
Inferiority can be a good thing, in fact some theories suggests that it’s what makes babies become capable adults, as they find themselves in a place where everybody outperforms them, so they feel inferior and as a result grow.
But there’s one kind of inferiority that’s very dangerous, and it usually comes from three major sources:
- The person already feels bad about him/her self, and as a result, always looks for what’s wrong with him/her, and thus always finds other people better than him/her, even if they’re not.
- Unfair comparison: if you’re comparing your basketball skills with Micheal Jorden’s skills, then you’re not being fair with yourself at all.
- Inferiority mixed with helplessness: imagine that little babies feel inferior to us, but yet they feel helpless, feeling like they can’t do anything, that’s a perfect recipe for failure and emotional pain.
These feeling of inferiority can damage your self-esteem, so stopping these thoughts and adopting a new way of thinking is the key to save your self-esteem, especially during the tough times of finding a new job.
So, how do I do that?
In my guide to build self confidence, I talked in depth about perceptions and beliefs and how they affect self confidence, these negative thoughts are nothing but distorted beliefs and perceptions, and to make sure that you don’t let the feelings of inferiority affect you, you first need to be aware of the three points mentioned above.
After that, you need to start questioning and challenging the “bad thoughts”, for example, if you’re feeling like you’re not good enough, then you need to start to challenge those thoughts and realize that they’re not true (YES THEY’RE NOT TRUE).
Also making sure that you don’t become helpless, no matter what, if you can’t do something now, you go and learn how, you practice it until you master it, there’s nothing that you can’t learn.
With such beliefs, inferiority will become a motivation, because you don’t have bad seeds in your head like the ones discussed above.
And also rejection won’t hurt you because you know that you can become better as time goes on.
An action plan:
Write down the good trait that you have (maybe just the fact that you’re searching for a job)
And every time you find yourself in a situation where you start to feel bad while searching for a job, or more specifically feeling bad because of the things mentioned above (rejection and inferiority), I want you to do the next:
Start questioning your thoughts right away with all the tips mentioned in this article, and refuse to tie your worth with your job, all that while knowing that you’re already have great abilities, and remind yourself of your good traits (review your list of great traits, at least you’re trying o find a job, and if you think you have none, you have to open your eyes wider).
As simple as that, even the smallest tweaks can build up overtime and get you in a different place eventually, don’t ever let anything to make you feel like you’re less important or less capable.
Mosab Alkhteb is passionate about psychology, self improvement and basically anything that can help us become better, he spends his time learning and living life, while sharing the “good fruits” in his website, in his spare time, he’s trying to develop some good habits away from psychology and blogging.
