You know how it goes when you have an idea in your mind of how the day should go. Oh, how much you’re going to accomplish on your job search! You’ll make important contacts, you’ll craft inspiring cover letters, you’ll devise answers to the hardest questions that will leave your interviewers in awe!
And then…
…you split your favorite pair of pants…
…the furnace breaks down…
…the cat pees on your favorite suit (which you hadn’t picked up off the floor from the networking event you attended two nights ago)…
…the kids in the neighborhood are screaming at the top of their lungs, giving you a monster headache…
…your significant other had a bad day at work and hopes you will understand by “picking up the slack…”
…there’s NO CHOCOLATE to be found — anywhere!
Do you just feel like the universe is conspiring to keep you from accomplishing anything?
Some days, this just happens. Even though you may be unemployed, the other stressors of life are still there, and some days they pile up to epic proportions. This, of course, causes even more stress because you feel like you must accomplish something positive on the job front every single day.
I’m here to tell you — no, you don’t.
Some days are filled with insanity, so trying to be productive amidst all of the chaos doesn’t help anything. It’s OK to take a day once in a while to just…be.
Taking “mental health” days can be an important factor in averting job search burnout, so use them once in a while.
Just make sure that you don’t take too many of them in a row, otherwise you’ll be on a slippery slope to complete inaction. That would be bad news for your job search.
Rock it tomorrow!
(And no, this does not describe my day. For one thing, I don’t have a cat. For another, we’ve got ice pellets here, folks. Not exactly conducive for having windows open or kids running around outside screaming. Thanks for your concern, though!)