Take a Break

If you’ve been reading this blog, this advice may sound a bit out of character for me. You’ve heard me advocate that if you are out of work, you need to make finding a job your new full time job. You need to spend just as many hours each week looking for a job as your plan to spend working at your new job. Being unemployed is not an opportunity to catch up on your reading, make some house repairs, or get back up to speed on The Young and the Restless. Being unemployed is your opportunity to dramatically expand your network, to overhaul your resume, to practice your elevator speech, and to stop being unemployed. That is the advice you should be used to (and that you’ll hear again).

But, you also have to recognize that you cannot work that hard continuously. Most employers offer you paid holidays and vacations. Maybe not a whole lot, but some, and you need to treat your job search like a job. That means that every once in a while, you need to take a break. Step away from the keyboard, turn off your phone, and relax.

There are amazing benefits to rest, recreation, and recuperation. I know, you’re unemployed and don’t have any extra money to take a vacation. That’s okay. For two or three days, just don’t go “to work.” Hang around the house, putter in the yard, go to the park, visit the zoo, watch a movie, read that book, whatever. Let your mind and body relax and decompress.

After your break, you’ll have more energy, be more creative and be ready to get back to work. Make sure to take day or two off every month. The job search can be a long and difficult process. If you don’t take care of yourself and let being unemployed beat you down, it will make the process longer and harder.

Step back, take a short break, relax, rejuvenate, and then get back to it. We need to get you back to work!

For more details about I’m Fired?!? A Business Fable about the Challenges of Losing One Job and Finding Another, click here.