Learned helplessness is holding YOU back

 

Learned helplessness is holding YOU back. 

A job loss can increase the intensity of learned helplessness to significant levels in some people, potentially preventing them from cracking the job interview. 

I am starting a series of posts on job search and job interview coaching with this often overlooked topic of "learned helplessness" simply because it relates to the individual's mindset. 

When working with job interview coaching clients, this is the first area of focus—the mindset—and learned helplessness is the first topic I tackle. 

Learned helplessness is a phenomenon where a couple of failures (or the perception of comparative failure) cause people to undermine themselves and lose some of their confidence. 

This eventually leads to a situation where something they could have done easily suddenly becomes difficult. This further breaks their confidence, and they end up in a vicious cycle.  

You can watch the video to see a demonstration by a teacher where she is able to ‘induce’ learned helplessness in students in a matter of minutes, resulting in them not being able to perform a simple task. Imagine what it can do in life over a longer period of time and with increased negative experiences.

 

A job loss / layoff can be a big blow to one’s self-confidence. Once people lose their job, they begin to question everything about themselves—their capability, their ability, and their past success at work—and even start finding a reason why they were laid off and not someone else. 

Often, they assign the blame to themselves (and their performance or relationships at work) or maybe blame the manager. 

Even if one has not been laid off at work, there are times when people look at some of the cases of failure to do a task up to expectation and pile them on top of each other to induce learned helplessness in themselves. 

The above creates an illusion of failure, even when none exists. 

This is important. So I would repeat it. 

The above creates an illusion of failure, even when none exists. 

In both of these situations, the end result is a big drop in your confidence. Confidence is the primary key to excelling at work or cracking a job interview. 

It is very important for people to get out of this state of induced learned helplessness, where they think that they might not crack interviews. They are essentially setting themselves up for failure.  

The lack of confidence itself prevents them from thinking straight and prevents them from being free to respond in the best possible manner. 

We are a week away from Valentine's Day, so let me use some Valentine's Day analogies here. 

Job interviews are like DATING. Yep, I said it. Job interviews are like Dating. 

Just because someone ‘rejected’ your advances doesn’t mean someone else will do the same. You just haven’t met your match yet. So persist. Put in your efforts. You will find the person who is right for you through trial and error.  

Treat your interviews in a similar fashion. 

You will find the place that is right for you. The interviewer is checking how well you will fit into their existing team and workplace. It's not you, it's them 😊 

Get your head in order. Shake off any negativity. 

Use whatever means possible to clear the cobwebs of learned helplessness from your head. 

Give yourself a confidence boost by doing what you do best. 

Remind yourself of all your achievements from the last 1000 days (yes, the last 3 years). 

With your head in the right place, and learned helplessness shaken off, You are mentally ready to begin your journey to conquer the world. 

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What you read above is the first article in the ‘Job Interview Coaching’ series that I am doing. I will be writing regularly on this subject (hopefully 4-5 times a week this month of Feb’2023). You can follow me to ensure you don’t miss out. 

Here is the post about why I am doing this series. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/layoffs-rise-new-beginning-hemant-jain/   

Feel free to like/share the post so that it reaches more people in your network who will find it useful for them. Feel free to share the link to the post with family, friends, colleagues, or anyone else you care about who would find this useful. 

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#kmcc #takecharge #layoffs #coaching #jobinterview