How to Deal With Career Transition 'Stress'

Career transitions are stressful, especially if you have little

experience dealing with them and don't know how to leverage the

stress they present to your future career advantage. Whether

your employment loss was your choice or someone else's,

unavoidable feelings of anxiety and panic can prevail. If you

find yourself in a career transition, you need to understand

your own stress "profile" to minimize its potential negative

interference with your daily life and personal health.

Understand What "Stress" Is for You

Self awareness of your own stress symptoms is a critical first

step in dealing with a career transition. You need to know in

what form(s) your stress manifests itself in your life before

you can establish a means to address the circumstances.

Stress from life transitions can manifest themselves in a

variety of physical and mental ways. Stress from employment

loss can also present itself in both negative and positive

ways. Often in a career transition, minimizing negative stress

consequences is most challenging.

You, better than anyone else, know how negative stress surfaces

in your life and when it particularly affects you the most.

Physically you may experience irregularities in your breathing,

heart rate, appetite, muscles or digestive system. Mentally,

you may experience depression, lack of sleep, headaches,

irritability, feelings of being overwhelmed or unusual levels

of uncertainty due to self inflicted "damage" to your own self

image.

From a positive stress perspective, stress is really a direct

by-product of our body's adrenaline flow, our natural reaction

to "fight or flight" in dealing with life's extraordinary

challenges. For many people, when they are forced to

immediately deal with a stressful situation they get a great

energy boost, they CHOOSE to seek and accomplish things that

they have never done before. As exhibited in so many

extraordinary human events of record, stressful events can

bring out the best in us!

Define What Stress is Career Related

Because we are attempting to specifically deal with career

transition stress, it is important to differentiate symptoms

caused by this temporary situation from other typical stress

generators in your life, such as your: family, spouse, health,

finances and friends.

Although your unique reactions to these "other" life situations

many be similar to those of your career challenges, it takes a

focused effort to effectively define your specific stress

responses related to a career transition issues.

Attitude is Everything

How "stressed out" you think you are, or how physically and

mentally you influence yourself because of your career

circumstances, is not as important as how you REACT to your own

perceived stress contributors.

Like most things in life, your attitude is everything. How do

you use job loss stress to your advantage while protecting your

health and life from ill effects? Make an effort to try these

positive career transition stress tactics:

Three POSITIVE Career Transition Stress Tactics

1) Fortify Your Self Image:

For many people, their self image is significantly influenced by

their perception of their own career successes and failures. A

job loss can be a traumatic event, an opportunity to "beat

yourself up". This is particularly a natural consequence of an

unexpected career transition. Continuously recognize yourself

as worthwhile, competent and successful, independent of how

your career transition came about. Again, attitude is

everything!

2) Work to Stay Motivated to Get to Work:

Clearly define for yourself what is best for you in your next

career move. Refine your career objectives with others who have

your best interests in mind. Proclaim your next career

intentions to everyone who is important to you so that you

position yourself to stay motivated to seek your career

objectives. Develop a written plan to get you where you want to

be professionally. Tweak the plan as you implement it for best

results. Plan to work, work the plan!

3) Treat Yourself Well:

Focus on developing and advancing healthy behavioral routines

while you seek your next career opportunity. Establish a daily

ritual that is both physically and mentally progressive and

rewarding. Exercise, eat healthy foods, improve your

relationships and establish a finite sleep regime. Strive to

communicate your frustrations more and seek advice to lessen

your stress burdens.

Whether this is your first time in a career transition or one of

many, it takes a concerted effort to leverage positive stress

and to minimize negative stress to your career advantage.

Stress from a career transition does not have to rule your life

and ruin your health! Hopefully reading this article is a

helpful first step to taking advantage of your next career

opportunity.

Mark Smock is President of http://www.business-buyer-directory.com, the FIRST international business buyer directory of its kind. Business Buyer Directory provides a non-traditional means for proactive business buyers to locate businesses for sale worldwide that meet their exact registered purchase criteria.