niftynews

Self-reflection, self-nuturing, learn a new skill?

Unemployed? How To Use This Time Wisely

by Robin Ryan at forbes.com
 

I’ve been working with Maria, a Baby Boomer and career counseling client who is unemployed. She left her job because of the toxic work environment and an awful supervisor who was making her physically ill. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. Within two weeks, the coronavirus started going through her state. Now she finds herself unemployed and probably not able to find a job for the next couple of months until this coronavirus thing subsides. I talked to her today about her situation, and she was much less stressed than she had been before.

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If the lifestyle gurus are to be believed, starting a side-hustle is one of the surest paths to wealth at any age. But, on the whole, it is Millennials who have truly embraced the “Four Hour Workweek” and similar books…

    I want to try to persuade our older readers that starting a side hustle could be the difference between a luxurious retirement and decades of financial worry.
 

Watch the video.

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J.T. O'Donnell

Over 50? Out of work? You need confidence.

3 Science-Based Habits to Boost Confidence

by Christopher D. Connors at theladders.com
 

As we face the toughest times many of us ever have in our lives, we must take a pulse check to see how we’re feeling. I’ve observed an alarming lack of confidence, and conversely, a massive upsurge in fear in all of the business conversations I’ve had. It’s not surprising, given the public health crisis we’re facing with COVID-19. But we should never, ever give in to this state of worry.

    We can do a lot better. We can boost our self-confidence.
 

When older workers lose their jobs, it’s only natural to feel lost. You feel like you’ve lost control – not of just your career, but of your entire life.

    As part of your self-evaluation – which all job seekers, regardless of age, should do – your need to assess and to realize those things that you can control, and those things that are well beyond your control.

    You lost your job. You’re looking for something else. You have no idea when you’ll find suitable employment. That’s your new world. Try as you might, short term, you can’t change it. If you’re persistent and diligent; if you’re smart and strategic, you’ll get through it. But it’s not the knowing, the uncertainty that makes you feel like, today, you’re out of control.

    There are other things well beyond your control. Certainly the Covid-19 and being quarantined are the most obvious. The effect all of this has on the economy and how employers will react, definitely are exceeding your grasp.

    Other issues like legal situations and the environment – not much you can do there.

    But you do have control over a lot. Certainly your non-professional circumstances – your family, your household. These are things over which you have some say, and sway.

    But even in your job search, you have control. How are you marketing yourself? What are you emphasizing in your resume? In your cover letters? Who are the contacts to whom you’re reaching out? What are your expectations in your dealings with your contacts? These are all firmly within your bailiwick.

    How about the companies where you’re applying; the positions for which you are applying. You have almost total control over that.

    No matter how unhinged things may seem right now, you’re still in control of your destiny – even during a quarantine.