Category Archives: Hope & Encouragement

9 Ways to Dispel Thoughts of Suicide During a Job Search

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Photo courtesy of Flikr Creative Commons
Photo courtesy of Flikr Creative Commons

The holiday season can be so lonely for many or amplify stresses for others—especially those in career transition. Although a sensitive subject, I felt it important to share this section of my book to encourage anyone who’s ever had the thought of suicide skitter across their mind.

As private and ugly a thought as suicide is, I think everyone entertains the option—especially during an extended job search or times when they are not experiencing positive results from their efforts or are receiving a lot of rejections. Here are some ways that have helped me fend off these negative thoughts.

1) Make a list of what you’re thankful for—what you do have and the things that are going right for you currently. Think about what you’ve accomplished today, who you helped or plan to help, what made you happy today, and anything you’re looking forward to next (e.g., dinner with friends, that vacation or holiday party, buying something from your wish list). This should help get you into a more positive frame of mind.

2) Hang in there. Sometimes getting that right job takes longer than we’d all like because it’s a matter of timing. Perhaps the job is not quite open yet because, for example, the person in it now hasn’t been promoted or left to be a full-time mom.

3) Take comfort in the fact that God may need you somewhere new now, to encourage or help others or to bless your new employer with your skills, knowledge, and experience. Maybe you’re a high-level (C-suite) manager who’ll be brought in to completely change a location’s culture for the better.

4) Remember, regardless of your work situation or anything else that’s a burden on your mind during this time, your friends and your family still need you. Say it out loud: “People… need… me.”

5) Fact, faith, and feelings—I remember years ago as a youth seeing The Four Spiritual Laws tract. Simple as it may seem, the analogy is a train. Fact is the engine, so regardless of your feelings, remember the facts and what your actual situation is without a lens of drama or worry. Your feelings are a section of the train, the caboose. But a train can run without a caboose. So although your feelings are a part of the equation, remember Fact is out front, Faith knits it together, and Feelings are last. Put your faith in what God has promised in Scripture and in His trustworthiness.

6) Journal—whether it’s a paper journal or just making a new document for each day you write, journaling is a healthy and effective way to pour out your sadness, frustration, thoughts, disappointments, joys, etc. This is not only cathartic, but it can be a means of sorting out your feelings and thoughts. Further, most times you can figure out a solution to what’s bothering you. As much as I can, I try to end the journal entry with what is going right or well, stating the key thoughts I’ve distilled out of that journal entry, and/or the things I’m thankful for.

7) List the good things about yourself. As stated earlier, most people derive self-worth and identity from their job. And that’s to be expected. Heck, it’s one of the first things someone you’ve just met asks you about, not to mention where you spend a majority of your time! So in seasons when you’re not working, it’s easy to forget your value outside of a job. Shoot for 5 good things about yourself…I bet you can come up with 10! These can be personal traits and/or about yourself as an employee. Consider your strengths, things for which others have complimented you, etc. You can even ask a close friend or 2 for their take on what your strengths are.

8) You never know what awesome thing is to come, personally or in your work situation! For example, I never thought I’d be able to travel internationally until one of the music dot-coms I worked for closed down. We got 3 full months of pay and some other great things in our severance packages. Then, in just a few weeks, I got a new job under my former supervisor at the next company he moved to, so I didn’t really spend much of the severance package and was later able to use those funds for a trip to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. I’ve gotten to do several other amazing international trips, songwrite with some of my favorite artists, buy a house without debt or a mortgage, write this book, and on and on. Think back over your life to some things you’d have never believed would happen if someone told you 20 years ago.

9) Seeing your pastor or a Stephen Minister can definitely be a no-cost way of having a shoulder to lean on and discuss thoughts, etc. that are too weighty to express to a friend. Search the web, or call a large local church to see if they can help connect you. Again, hang in there. This is a season, and better days are soon to come.

More on this topic. Betterhelp.com/nyt for affordable access to licensed therapists via phone, video, chat, or text.

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Looking for a new job? Want to get the one you want faster? Check out my book, Here Today, Hired Tomorrow.

Hope In A Hopeless World: One Thing You Should Consider During the Low Times of Your Job Search

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Photo by photojordi
Photo by photojordi

There she sat in her in her silk blouse and pink wool skirt, feeling her worst but looking her best. She doesn’t mention what age she was as she recounts this story but seems to be in her mid twenties.

Pop artist/songwriter/author Margaret Becker has been nominated for four Grammys, won four Dove Awards, and has had 21 number one radio hits. But despite her commanding talent and noteworthy career success, she endured dry, discouraging, desperate times like you and me.

Further, this excerpt from a chapter in her book With New Eyes doesn’t even mention that she was told at a young age by her voice teacher that she wasn’t a good singer and never would be!

Resuming the story, we read that she was at a confusing dark time in her life. After much prayer and following God earnestly, she felt as if she had hit a glass ceiling. She couldn’t move forward with her dream of singing, writing, and performing. And despite her job search efforts, she couldn’t get a position that would allow her to move out of her parents’ home. Worse, she felt as if her prayers were not falling on deaf ears—that feeling of “God, are you there; can you hear me—and will you ever help me?” we all experience at times.

Her best friend Scott, put her in touch with Dr. Breene, a teacher from his college. As she sat tight in the waiting room thinking over her situation and what she’d say to such a wise and learned man, she fought back emotion but also considered just bailing on the meeting. But she mustered courage, entered his office, and told her story. Margaret was seeking encouragement, hope, explanation, and more than anything, a way to break through, to end this anguish.

I love Dr. Breene’s response. It’s one I couldn’t have anticipated and makes me think of a crucible. He told her that despite his empathy and desire to ease her mind, that he was only a man and that this time in her life was for a season, to refine her—a stop on the way to a higher place in her career, artistry, life, and relationship with God.

Dr. Breene felt he should not interfere so that God could produce out of this difficulty what he wanted in Margaret. He told her to wrestle with this time, to pray that God give her the strength to endure since it was his great love for her that was allowing it.

As two tears escaped her eyes, she took it in and left feeling not like everything was fine, but that she had direction, that she no longer had one foot nailed to the floor. Knowing there was more “surgery” on her character and mind to come, she left emotional but with hope for healing and vision for recovery.

I’m sure it wasn’t the comforting directional meeting she’d sought or expected, but this time in her life DID come to an end, and she was stronger for it…like (as she mentions) a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. If a birthing larvae is assisted with its liberation, while fully formed and beautiful, it’s wings would be useless, not having endured the stress of the struggle that forces enough blood into them so they unfurl strong and functional.

As I’ve said many times before, career transition is one of the most difficult—and usually painful—times in a job seeker’s life, regardless of his or her position or field. If you can relate to this story, be encouraged.

Know that Kelly Clarkson was right when she sang, “What doesn’t kill ya makes ya stronger.” Know that it will take some time and diligence, but this season will pass. It’s not IF you will ever find that next right job, but a matter of WHEN. And this crucible of time, doubts, fears, and refining will yield a better, stronger you. Remember what you’ve accomplished thus far; move forward with hope and press on.


Please experience Margaret audibly by listening to this song from her album What Kind of Love.

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Looking for a new job? Want to get the one you want faster? Check out my new book, Here Today, Hired Tomorrow.

Don’t Let Fear Camouflage Your Passion

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Trusting God in Your Job Search
Last year, I read Pete Wilson’s book What Keeps You Up at Night. What an amazing encouragement to identify and forge ahead with your passions and trust God to guide you through making each next right decision. This excerpt from the book I felt is so refreshing and relevant to career transition that, with his permission, I wanted to share it:

I am convinced that fear defeats more dreams than all other causes combined. Many of us find fear standing between us and the pursuit of our passion. On the other hand, many of us surrender to fear and resign ourselves into a life that is so much less than it could be.

But what if we could learn to lean into the fear, into the transition? What if we could take the first step toward pursuit of the dream, and then the next, and the one after that?

Certainly, doing that requires going forward in the face of uncertainty. None of us ever gets 100 percent clarity about the finish line while we’re standing at the starting gate. Only by moving forward are we able to begin to see what might be next.

Without a doubt, leaning into transition requires much of us. It will mean encountering stress, uncertainty, cost, discomfort, and a certain amount of temporary chaos. It will require us to learn new skills and acquire new relationships. None of these processes is without risk.

Leaning into transition may even require a certain amount of “fake it until you make it.” You may need to learn some improvisation skills. After all, you are taking steps into the unknown—the untried. You may have to wing it for a while.

Remember the story of Jesus walking on the water? Just before this takes place, He had performed a great miracle, feeding 5,000 people with only a little boy’s five loaves of bread and two fish as His starting point. After that, He sent His disciples in a boat across the Sea of Galilee while He went away from everyone to spend most of the night in prayer.

Just before dawn the next morning, He went out to the boat, walking across the water. The disciples weren’t making much headway in their craft because there was a strong headwind. As they saw Jesus approaching, they were frightened at first.

Peter—possibly the owner of the boat since he was a fisherman by trade—called out, “Lord, if it is really You, let me walk on the water to You.” Jesus told him to come ahead, and Peter started climbing out of the boat.

Why would Peter, this experienced fisherman, do something like this—something that makes absolutely no sense, based on a lifetime of experience? I think it is because of the desire burning in Peter’s heart: to be near Jesus. At that moment, the thing he wanted most in all the world was to stand next to his teacher, atop the waves.

So, he clambers out of the boat and takes off, headed toward Jesus, but then something happens: fear gets in the way. The Bible says Peter “saw the wind” and was afraid—and he began to sink. Peter realized he was completely off-script. He was in a situation that no previous experience of his life had prepared him for. He was on uncharted ground—oops, I mean uncharted water. And he became afraid.

Fortunately for Peter, he was in the vicinity of the only Person in the world ever known to have walked on water. Jesus grabbed Peter’s hand and helped him back into the boat.

We can talk about Peter’s lapse in faith, of course. We can discuss how his fear got in the way of the pursuit of his goal, but we have to give him credit for getting out of the boat, don’t we? And from this story, we can also learn that leaning into transition in the pursuit of a dream will often put us in situations we never expected. In fact, the unexpected seems to be a basic element of taking those first steps.

So, the first fear we often have to face is our fear of the unexpected. And it’s in the midst of that fear that we have to find the courage to accept every experience—including the negative ones—as merely steps on the path. Then we have to proceed.

You may face a long and complicated time of uncertainty before you see your passion bear fruit, and you may spend a lot of time wandering in your own “desert” of obstacles, opposition, and unexpected difficulties. But if you commit to the long haul and lean in to the transition—trusting God to equip you for whatever you need to do—you will one day see your purposes fulfilled and your fears conquered. It may not take the shape you imagined for it in the beginning, but it will be perfect, as with all things God designs.

–Pete Wilson

Pete Wilson, the founder and former senior pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee, a frequent speaker at national and international church conferences, and an avid blogger, and author of Plan B, Empty Promises, and Let Hope In. Pete’s fourth book, What Keeps You Up At Night?, will challenge you to take steps of trust along the path toward God’s best for your life and enable you to withstand doubt, opposition, and worry.

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Looking for a new job? Want to get the one you want faster? Check out my new book, Here Today, Hired Tomorrow.