Two Anagrams Are All It Takes
I recently came across a video demonstrating the psychological phenomenon of learned helplessness.
In the video, a teacher gave her class anagrams to solve. Unbeknownst to her students, she had given one half of the class three solvable anagrams of increasing difficulty, and the other half two impossible anagrams followed by the same final anagram as the first group.
For each anagram, the teacher asked her students to raise their hands once they solved it. Naturally, one half raised their hands rapidly while the other half struggled.
By the third anagram, everyone had the exact same problem. Yet, far fewer students in the second half managed to solve it. When the teacher then explained what she had done and asked the students in the second half how they felt, they said they felt stupid, frustrated and hopeless.
And it only took two anagrams.
The Modern Job Search and the Accumulation of Ls
I saw myself in the second group of students (bless them) as I thought about the rejections I’d accumulated from one job application after another.
It got demoralising really fast.
And much like the students struggling with their impossible anagrams, I found myself grappling with feelings of self-doubt, anxiety and frustration.
These repeated rejections also started to affect how I approached subsequent applications. I found myself spending less time perfecting my resumes and putting off interview preparation for as long as I could. I also started going into interviews with increasingly low expectations, almost assuming by default that I wouldn’t get the job.
Therein lies the frightening possibility of a negative spiral: repeated failures don’t just make us feel worse. They can also change our behavior in ways that make future success harder to achieve.
Breaking the Cycle
Recognising a negative spiral is one thing. Breaking out of it is quite another.
I wish I had some profound insight into how to reset, but I don’t.
What I can share are things I’ve tried, with varying degrees of success.
I tried taking trips to take my mind off matters, but every decision I made while travelling felt tinged with a sense of financial scarcity.
I tried mixing things up and pursuing things with more tangible feedback and results, like courses and mini-projects. These helped to a certain extent, but they didn’t lessen the sting of rejection when it came, nor the anxiety that grew with each passing day.
I don’t have a good answer.
I think, at some point, we just have to acknowledge the toll it takes on us. Allow ourselves to feel the frustration and disappointment, even be a little dysfunctional for a day or two, before picking ourselves up and trying again.
And perhaps we could also be a little kinder to ourselves. Job searching is a full-time job in itself, and we should remember to take breaks.
To everyone still searching, good luck.
I hope that, somehow, the weight of yesterday’s rejections doesn’t rob you of tomorrow’s opportunities.
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