“Most people are as happy as they make up their mind to be.” Abraham Lincoln
Job Security: How to Stop Scaring Yourself
Who doesn’t have days when they worry about things going badly? Sometimes these worries are about job security. Job security worries are often scary.
Here are five key elements to understanding worrying.
No matter how great the likelihood of something happening to our job security, worrying about it only exists in our head. When we worry, we are scaring ourselves with our imagination. We have to imagine that threats to our job security will actually cost us our job.
Worrying about job security requires thinking about something in the future. No one knows the future. If we have a job today, we have job security today. An oft-repeated idea is that people have many problems, most of them never happen.
Worrying about job security does not offer solutions. We find solutions to scary situations when we stop worrying and let our minds give us solutions. The solution to job security is thinking clearly and making good decisions.
Worrying about job security wastes time and makes us tired.
Two thousand years ago, Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger wrote,
“There is nothing so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness it is in your expecting evil before it arrives!”
The anxiety of worrying about job security threatens our health.
A better way to deal with job security anxiety is to start with healthy living:
- Eat healthy.
- Avoid caffeine.
- Take breaks to relax.
- Exercise.
- Write what we feel.
- Talk to someone.
- Read, watch, and listen to positive information.
So what can you do to lower or end job security problems? Take some practical steps.
Stop worrying and start working. If you are focused on working, you won’t have time to worry.
Develop new skills that will give you job security.
Identify the things that could threaten your job security. If you can fix them, fix them.
If getting job security where you work is out of your control, privately seek another job.
Prepare your resume.
Talk to friends you trust.
When you are off work, look for classified job listings.
Apply for a job directly with companies where you would like to work.
Do not worry about job security. Create job security through doing a good job where you are or finding a better job somewhere else.