My 14 year old daughter recently finished two hard years of intense Shakespeare studies. I remember the first few months wondering if she would keep up with it… she did, and by the end she had excelled beyond anything I ever learned about Shakespeare.
A huge lesson she learned is that she can “do hard things.” With time, persistance, dedication, the right tools, the right peers, the right mentors, she did it. She did hard things. That is a lesson she’ll take with her the rest of her life.
I am writing this from an airport (Phoenix) after what might have been the hardest week of speaking of my speaking career. It was fun, and rewarding, and exciting, but it was HARD. I gave 13 keynote presentations in 4 days. Some of them were new. Two of them were with a copresenter who I hadn’t even met before this trip. I didn’t have internet access, and I had other pressing business with other parts of my business. It was hard, but I did it.
My job search was hard. Networking, communicating (30 second pitch), creating the right job search documents, was HARD. I wasn’t good at it, but I did it.
You HAVE TO do the hard stuff in your job search. It isn’t meant to be a “fun” time, but it can be a rewarding time, and a time that you can look back on and say “I proved I can do hard things.” This can be a great experience for you, like it was for my daughter.
Do not shy away from the hard things – meet them head-on, and do them!
