Discipline

My gut feeling is that some readers won’t like this blog post. Not that it isn’t as good as any other, but because the advice I have for you today is easy to read and really hard to do.

After much deliberation and soul searching, I’ve concluded that there is one single thing that may be the most important thing in job search. This one thing may also be the most important thing in your career, your health, and much of the rest of your life. This one thing is something that I struggle with daily. The key to a successful job search – or maybe the secret of life – is discipline.

If you’ve read my previous posts you know about resumes, cover letters, target lists, first impressions, networking, elevator speeches, and hopefully more. Those things alone will probably not get you a job. To find that next job – and the one after that – you have to have the discipline to keep looking; the discipline that gets you out of bed, every day at the same time. The discipline that gets you showered, shaved, dressed, and ready to work, only to walk across the room to sit down at your PC and start your job search.

I read an article about a famous writer (it might have been Steven King from his book “On Writing” – which I highly recommend). This author talked about going to his writing desk every day for four hours and writing. He wrote even when he was not working on a book. He wrote even when the muse had left him and at the end of the day he deleted everything he wrote that day. He wrote every day because he had developed that discipline of writing and he knew that if he lost that discipline he might not get it back. He was afraid that if he waiting until he felt like writing, he might not never write another word.

Looking for a job needs to be a full time job. You need to dedicate as many hours each week to your job search as you plan on working when you find a job. You need to be disciplined, consistent, dedicated, hardworking, and loyal; all those personal characteristics that you tell an employer you possess, need to be applied to your job search.

Discipline is hard. Discipline is what gets you to the gym 3 times a week. Discipline is how you stop smoking. Discipline orders broccoli rather than a loaded baked potato. Discipline is telling those you love, that you love them. Discipline is with you every single day.

If your job search isn’t progressing like you’d like, take a hard look at your discipline. Are you really putting in the time and energy? If you are, great work, keep it up. If not, step up your game a bit and see how that works for you.