Jerry Seinfeld
Searching for a job is not easy, and it can be difficult to keep up your spirits day after day. You send out resumes and never hear back, try to call people who never seem to be around or get distracted by all the other things going on in your life. These problems will not go away, and you need to develop techniques to overcome them.
One of the best techniques we’ve ever heard of comes from stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Remember him? Or maybe you’re too young to know who Seinfeld is, but he starred in his own TV sitcom, “Seinfeld,” which ran from 1989 to 1998.
When he was just starting his career as a comic, Seinfeld developed a very effective technique to help him keep good work habits. He called it “don’t break the chain,” and it can work for you as well.
Seinfeld believed that to achieve success as a comic, he had to write better jokes, and the way to do that was to write them every day. He took an oversized calendar with an entire year on one page and hung it on his wall. Every day when he wrote jokes, he put a big red X on that day on the calendar and after a few days had a chain with all the Xs linked together.
If he decided not to work one day, he wouldn’t be able to put in an X on the calendar for that day and would break the chain. He never wanted to do that, and you shouldn’t either.
The goal of this exercise is to never break the chain. Take your job search one day at a time, and never stop. Do what you set out to do each morning to achieve your goal.
By doing this and using a calendar to record your efforts, you’ll build momentum in your job search. Sometimes it may seem that you’re not getting anywhere, but like Jerry Seinfeld, you won’t reach your goal without continuously working toward it. It’s not possible to force someone to hire you, but day by day, little by little, step by step, you are setting the stage to ensure your success.
Keep on plugging away. Don’t break the chain.
