Using your Subconscious in Finding Work

As a follow-up to our previous blog post on Expectations and the Subconscious Mind, we want to share two examples of two separate clients (one working with Isaac, and one working with Denise) who used their subconscious expectations to get a job when they needed it most.

Case #1

When Maci* began having issues at work, she knew she would eventually be let go or have to resign on her own. To plan for that inevitability, she set aside a financial cushion of nearly two months’ worth of funds. So when the day finally arrived that she lost her job, she was prepared to go into her “rainy day” account.

Maci continued attending therapy during this time, and much of our discussions revolved around what she was doing to maximize her time off while actively looking for work. She was determined to work on maintaining the most positive outlook possible for her transition between jobs. She often spoke of expecting the best and continuing to work on making small changes.

 After around 90 days of not finding work, Maci naturally began to feel discouraged. As she approached the two-month mark, we decided to take a strategic approach by scheduling her next appointment (two weeks away) at 7:00pm, with hopes that she would be attending the appointment after work hours. This was a departure from our usual routine; we had gotten accustomed to scheduling Maci’s appointments at 10:00 a.m., since she was not working.

When Maci showed up to our session, she was very happy! She had landed a job the day before our session, and she could not wait to share this news with me! Not only did she land a new job, but it offered better pay and was more conveniently located. Furthermore, Maci said she felt positive vibes at the workplace, which helped her maintain the positivity she was working on during her time between jobs.

Case # 2

Before starting to work with Denise, *Marshall had spent nearly a year looking for work, with no success. During his first session, he reported that he was starting to feel hopeless about ever finding a job. Marshall confessed that sometimes he would set out to approach a store he knew was hiring, but before he even reached the entrance, he would so solidly convince himself that he wouldn’t get the job that he’d walk away without even applying. This had become a pattern for Marshall. The more he got turned down, the more he convinced himself that he’d always get turned down, which decreased his confidence and, therefore, his chances of being offered a job.

Marshall and Denise decided that there must be some way for Marshall to break the pessimistic cycle that inhibited him from more actively pursuing work. The first thing Marshall did was buy a small notebook and pen. Before applying to a job, Marshall spent five minutes writing down what he was thinking and feeling. The first few times he did this, what he saw on paper was a tangled mess of negative, discouraging thoughts and terrifying emotions. By putting his inner experience in writing and then witnessing it, Marshall was able to see that his destructive self-talk was decreasing his confidence. Marshall would then write a more optimistic message, which he would repeat to himself while walking in the door, greeting the store manager, and applying for the job.

During their sessions, Marshall and Denise also looked for examples of times when Marshall was confident. Marshall discovered that he had a great deal of confidence when it came to playing his guitar and teaching life lessons to his young nieces. By identifying examples of his potential for confidence, Marshall discovered that he could apply that confidence in other areas of his life.

After two weeks of journaling and transferring confidence, Marshall called Denise to report that he landed a job at a very popular local restaurant.

Coincidence? Fate? Miracle? Luck?

However you choose to make sense of Marci and Marshall’s stories, the fact of the matter is is that they both focused their attention on maintaining a positive, goal-directed attitude, even when things did not look very promising. They never gave up hope that they would find a job, and they learned to accept the unknown and the difficulty that comes with it.

The power of the subconscious and our inner expectations clearly has unlimited potential for what we can achieve!

*Pseudonyms assigned to clients to maintain confidentiality