I just went through a stressful job search not long ago. One of the biggest struggles was staying optimistic and mentally strong. It felt like the process was simply bad for my mental health, and the longer I was in it the worse the impact. Whenever I wasn’t doing anything towards the job hunt, I felt like I should be doing more. Every day, or even hour, I didn’t hear back from companies I spoke to, I thought more negatively about their perception of me as a candidate.

I found myself going down a spiral overthinking and interpreting everything negatively. It got to a point where I started having trouble falling sleep, so I had to do something about it just to survive however long it would take me to land a job. This blog documents the ways that worked personally for me.

Focus on actionable items that are in my control

Almost every day during the job search I jotted down to-do items for my application processes, which could be anything from polishing my resume, calling the headhunter, preparing for interviews, to following up with a company. However, there were some days I did not have an item to do towards the job search, which made me quite anxious, because I would start feeling that I was not doing enough.

What I ended up doing is on top of action items directly relating to the job search, I started including things I wanted to do to manage my stress, such as taking a walk, texting a friend, or reading. This way, I not only made sure I did self care on the slow days, I shifted my focus to actions I could take and parts of the process I could actually control.

Examples of what wasn’t in my control but stayed on my mind a lot are whether companies were going to respond to my application, if/when companies would reach out about next steps after an interview, and whether they liked me (after an interview was done). These are things that are completely up to someone else after I already did my part. Even knowing this, I couldn’t help but feel anxious about them, so I tried to focus on what I could do. Some examples of that include having a neutral to positive mindset, or keeping my focus on the future. Instead of trying to control things, I worked on having faith that no matter what happened I had the courage and ability to know what to do next.

Stay connected with people

During the job search, I was mostly alone in my apartment. Even though I was still working my full-time job and interacting with coworkers, it was all remote and mostly work talk, so I would go days barely connecting with another human being.

This wasn’t too out of the norm for me back in the US, but during job search it had a greater impact. The more I was alone, the more my mind sank into negative overthinking cycle. So whenever I could, I met up with both old and new friends in Tokyo, and stayed in contact with those not in Tokyo as well.

When I chatted with family/friends whether online or in person, my mind was put at ease. When my job hunt came up, they helped me shift things back to perspective. With me often overlooking positive things and dwelling on the negative during this time, simply hearing people objectively describe the process I was going through put things back in their original context. Even when my job hunt didn’t come up, I still got to share some fun times with great people, often giving me the much needed boost in energy and mood.

And of course, my friends and family were often my biggest cheerleaders and encouraged me by telling me the stress I’m having is normal and reminding me the successes in my search should not be canceled out by the negatives.

I’m blessed to have people who support the changes I’m making in my life and are committed to my success in tremendous ways. It is also in those stressful times that it becomes abundantly clear who is really going to be there for us. I have been pleasantly surprised by many people who I wasn’t that close to but have shown more kindness than those who I was, so stress aside it was also a very revealing experience.

Take a walk or get a workout in…or both

These two things might sound like they provide similar benefits, but that’s not necessarily the case. For me, they served quite different purposes, so I did both. An active, high intensity workout helped me forget about everything temporarily, but long walks allowed me to think more clearly and reflect calmly. Some people prefer to just sweat it out over an intense workout, but for benefits they bring, long walks are a must for me. I ended up consistently doing both. Sweating it out releases stress, and taking long walks gets me out of negative thinking. Plus, Tokyo is so much fun to walk around in.

Keep something small I enjoy in my routine

I love the cup of coffee I make each morning. No matter what happens, each morning I grind the beans, put the ground coffee onto the filter, and pour water in slowly to make a cup of coffee. I am able to enjoy that time without thinking about much else. It’s a window of time in my daily life that nothing can really take away from me.

During my job search, I found myself cherishing this time a bit more than usual. There is something about going through this familiar process where I know what to expect that helps ground me. It also never hurts to start my day off with a cup of great coffee.

I recommend picking something that involves doing something with your hands. Personally, it helped me feel the part of my life that is still consistent and within my control, contrasting my worries which often came from areas outside of my control. Whether I got good news, bad news, or no news the day before, I had my coffee time in the morning to look forward to.

If anyone is like me and start having trouble sleeping…

I’m noticing that these days more people have trouble sleeping than before, so I thought it’d be good to share my experience dealing with it too. Here are some things I tried that worked for me.

• Have a pre-bedtime routine - I dim the lights around 8-9pm to create a calmer mood for rest. After dimming the light, I try not to be on work or job hunt related tasks and instead do something relaxing, like have a nice bath or watch something funny.

• Use eye masks - either the actual eye masks that just cover your eyes to block out lights, or the heated scented eye masks which have been working for me. There are non-scented ones but I like the lavender and rose ones. I had only used them to relax my eyes before, but interestingly they have helped me sleep too. These were a godsend for me during this job search.

• Play something instrumental and calm when going to bed - I play it on my iPhone and set a 20-minute timer that stops the music (instead of sounding an alarm) when time is up. If anyone doesn’t know this function on the iPhone, it’s definitely worth looking into. I use it frequently to set a playing time as I fall asleep to my music.

Conclusion

It is extremely important to keep our mental health in check during job search. As someone who slips into negative mode and overthinks quite easily, I could sense how much stress I was under during my time job hunting the last few months. My body was also giving me various signs. I am glad that I was able to not only discover what worked for me but also learn the value of self realization and human connections in new ways.

I would say staying connected with people was the difficult one for me. When I’m stressed out I usually keep to myself because I think inwardly a lot and don’t like to burden others with my troubling thoughts. However, through this experience, I really felt the value of staying in contact with people instead of getting stuck in my own thoughts, which are often distorted from reality during tough times. Even if the topic doesn’t come up, the light hearted conversations refill my mind with positivity and nourish me back into a healthy mind space.

Next time I’m overwhelmed and feeling like I’m losing control, I will think back to this stressful time. And I will have this list to remind myself of the tricks that worked in staying mentally strong and pushing through.