Surrounded by Toxic Voices, Find What You Want
Posted on December 18, 2024 by Chris Farmer, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
Some First Thoughts for Male, The Hague.
Your request is loud and clear, and I hear you:
“An always stressed and ambitious career-driven person with some layers of creativity and flexibility to take risks in career and life. Burnt out dad, burnt out professional and possibly derailed after multiple times of career gaps/unemployment and post-long covid hiatus of any professional activity.
“Fed up with comments like you are unlucky, or you had some really tough situations to deal with and there is always a silver lining, or you will get out of the tunnel or the darkest hour is before dawn…Fed up with this also that you are too selective, why can’t you get any job and not THE JOB? why are you so elitist or perfectionist?
“I knew what I wanted in the first place, but I haven’t gotten it and all my fallback plans that used to work out for me in a short or long period have vanished. My own family (not the family i built) has shattered my confidence from an early age and didn’t accept that I moved to new chapters in my life. I am just 48 years old and I feel like I have been retired or just an unemployable person or a career misfit or a plain bad and clumsy liar because I pretend to show that I work on LinkedIn so as to have offers but none…It sounds like you have been listening to a lot of very negative voices around you. I can fully understand why you are frustrated and fed up with the nay-sayers. The reality is that they are all full of crap. And you know it already.
Every one of those responses only shows the lack of care, empathy, or understanding (usually the latter) of people responding to your situation. Being burned out and professionally in the dark is something completely normal and happens to almost everyone!
The key, which I will mention after, is to see what is the next step. The one you will take now. Today.
You told us what you were looking for -
“Today, a new job that will stop my career derailment and I will get back my career and life on track.”
As a life coach, I would begin be telling you to forget all those people who are spreading their darkness over you. It does not matter if they are friends or family; when they start talking this toxic spew, you have to just tune them out. Just the wind.
Because it is not their fault. No one knows your situation as much as you, and no one is really going to help you except yourself. My job is only to clear some of the fog and get you back to the real task.
If you do get a coach after this, I would then be asking you about your career and the different jobs. Which ones were good (moneywise and/or emotionally) and which sucked. Your life working shows you what you know how to do, and from this point on, we should stay focused on how to turn that self-awareness into your next job. Remember: the wolrd of work has changed a lot since you began. Jobs could be anything – full time, part time, projects, gigs, advisory, entrepreneurship, and old fashioned 9-to-5’s.
I hope you read this and get something out of it!
