By Amelia Ishikawa
I am a glass half full person, with a general sense of abundance. I thrive on connection to people, lots of people, and have crafted a career and a life that provides for plenty of meaningful interaction. More recently I’ve decided to make a career shift. It feels like a timely and important move for me, but it’s also been surprisingly challenging. I find myself falling very squarely into the ‘over qualified but under experienced’ basket. The skills are all there, my education and training check all the boxes and my willingness to try anything for the sake of gaining community sector experience alive and kicking, but still it’s proven to be a bumpy transition.
So, I’ve found myself – madam glass-half-full – feeling a little deflated and lacking my usual ‘everything is possible’ zest for life. As a trained career practitioner I’ve asked myself all the right questions, I’ve completed extra training, I’ve started volunteering like a fiend and had colleagues look over my applications and resume. Most people who are in this position can connect with the soul crushing deflation that accompanies numerous rejections, only eclipsed by the angsty silence following other applications.
Those of you who have been there, or who are currently there, will likely attest to the negative thought stream that starts to bubble up and eventually dominate a lot of airtime in your head. Sometimes you just want to howl burning and important questions (such as ‘WHYYYYYY!!!???’) at the moon.
A few weeks ago, in a moment of mindful contemplation, I realised that I have started to slip away from my ‘who.’ Spending so much time trying to convince others of my skills, expertise, abilities and achievements (my ‘what’) I had started to neglect my essence, the part of me that pre-exists all the rest of it, the part of me that can not be replicated by anyone else.
I started to ask myself how I could get it back, and I kept coming back to the idea of gratitude. One thing that seems to fly out the window pretty quickly during fruitless job hunting is a sense of gratitude.
My interest kindled, I started to investigate the relevancy of gratitude.
‘Is it really all that important?’
‘Does it actually make a difference?’
‘Can I be bothered?’
Thus began my exploration into the world of being thankful. I’ve been reading papers, articles and studies. I am happy to say that what I have discovered so far has confirmed what I intuitively suspected- that a general orientation towards gratitude is good for our overall sense of well-being – and furthermore, it’s not too complicated to cultivate.
In fact, I’m such a gratitude convert that I have added a gratitude practise to my evening wind-down routine. As suggested by a few findings, jotting down three things that I’m thankful for just before bedtime can greatly impact feelings of well-being. More importantly, it takes seconds to do, so it’s a very sustainable practise.
What are your thoughts about gratitude?
Does the word make you shudder in recollection of twee ‘gratitude journals’ you see in airports and the endless ‘#happy100days’ posts clogging up your newsfeed?
Maybe you’ve had an experience where counting your blessings was the only way you could get through a particularly difficult time in your life?
Yes. I do shudder at the overload of gratitude posts on fb and other social media. WHY? AM I A BAD PERSON? I completely agree with the concept of gratitude. I encourage it in my children. I think it’s a wonderful thing to do. What makes it so naff? Perhaps it’s not the gratitude but the public display of it that causes the cringe. We’re just so used to hearing the opposite. Complaining. The public expression of the great things in one’s life is usually left to the Americans, I think we Aussies tend to roll our eyes a bit- in our “just get on with the job” culture. But that should change. It’s making us better people. Let’s embrace gratitude. I’m grateful I read this post (and that I have a job- hang in there, I’m sure the perfect job is just around the corner)…
Hi Sita, thanks for your comment and encouragement! Looking at the amount of satire that surrounds acceptance speeches, I don’t think we’re alone in wondering what is going on with gratitude. I’m going to write a little about that in my next post, but briefly, I think the ‘spirit’ of it is important. Are we using ‘gratitude’ as a way for getting attention or is it a pure and quiet state of being? Moving onto how we teach it to our kids…well there are probably a million view points but my experience, and I’m sure yours as well, is leading by example. What does it look like to ‘be’ grateful? Stay tuned, you’ve given me food for thought!
Loved this article! As someone who did contract work for years I relate to the angst of waiting for the next job to fall into place! You know that it’ll happen but when doubt kicks in it’s a slippery downward slope – and not too many employers are eager to hire ‘insecurity’. 🙂 So I can see from this post that it’s actually really smart business sense to cultivate gratitude during career transitions (and every other time). Loved the mention of incorporating it into a wind-down ritual for the day… so it actually gets done. Thanks, I might be stealing that one. 🙂 The thing that I most love about the times I’ve been grateful is how contagious it is… to other parts of my life, other people – the results are far greater than the act itself.
Hi Nagmeh, Thanks for your comment and insights. It is true that desperation is pretty repellent, and gratitude seems to keep that very firmly in check. Once we are able to acknowledge that abundance in our life things start to look quite positive. Your comment really highlights the importance of taking care of our emotional well being during the job hunt, as we often get bogged down in the other stuff. I do agree that for a little bit of effort we get massive returns when it comes to gratitude. I’m looking forward to writing my follow up post with much inspiration from your ideas.
Ah yes, I hear you… my half full glass is now in the freezer so I don’t drink it!! Great article … Thanks. My gratitude … I am grateful to have access to others like you who share my thoughts and ensure I remain positive in outlook! Good luck with the job hunting
Thank you for the encouragement Julie! The image of a frozen glass is quite something, especially here in Canberra where it was so cold this morning that my fish pond was frozen over. Let’s pull that glass out of the freezer and top it up to overflowing with some lovely hot chocolate. I’ll provide the marshmallows.