If you do not put the new disciplines in place and create a helping environment chances are you will remain under the inertia of established habits and change will not be enacted.
If you have taken the decision to stop smoking or lose weight, or practice your musical instrument; you need first to create an environment that will be conducive to the new behavior and difficult to the old behavior (putting barriers). When you evolve in a smoke free environment, when you make healthy food available and unhealthy food difficult to get, when you put your musical instrument at arm’s length and not in a closet somewhere you create a favorable environment to enable you to live by your decision. Soon the new behavior becomes a habit and thus you revert to automatic pilot.
When you are between jobs your previous routines are stopped. You get into a transition period and the danger of this no man’s land is to let yourself go.
This transition period can be divided into three phases. The first phase needs to be the shortest. It’s when you are giving yourself time just to let go and accept what has happened to you. Some people start refusing or denying, than get angry, feeling the injustice, then get sad to finally accept the new situation. So the first phase should get you to acceptance.
The second phase is when your start evaluating your options and look for solutions. This is when yo start organizing your environment to facilitate the execution of your action plan. You start putting in place the daily, weekly and monthly routines. You take ownership of your life and start being very productive. This in turn boosts your self esteem. The third phase is when you start getting first results, things start to happen for you and you are moving out of the transition period.
During the job hunt more than ever you want to take care of all aspects of yourself, mind, body, heart and spirit. You will thus establish routines and take the time to develop all these aspects of yourself
Daily Routines:
1- Morning habits
Health:
Training
Mindfulness
Conditioning:
Preparing the day ahead
2- Mid-day habits
Networking:
Eating with someone new
3- Evening habits
Unwinding:
Learning:
Journaling:
Self:
Family / friends:
The rest of the day you are working on your job hunting routines: desk research, appointment setting, exploratory interviews, job interviews etc.
We highly recommend that you keep practicing your profession i.e: if you are a designer you keep working on projects even for free, if you are a marketer you keep developing campaigns for the brands you want to work for. Keep honing your skills; keep up to date with your profession, your industry and the trends affecting them.