What does six months in sweatpants mean for your motivation?

In this interview with job and career advisor Sally Lakolk, you can learn more about what happens to us when the job search fails and one day of unemployment turns into another.

Years ago, when Sally Lakolk was in a new position as a job consultant, a good colleague had a story he often told:

The colleague's story was a personal experience. He had previously become unemployed for the first time in his life and called an old friend who was also out of work and had been for a long time. The colleague envisioned the two friends enjoying coffee and maybe working out together. The friend really wanted to meet up, but when a specific day came into play, he backed out. He had to go to the post office that day...

- The reason I've used my colleague's story many times since then in my work with unemployed members is that I've seen this many times. When you reach 7-8 months of unemployment and haven't had any ups and downs or breakthroughs in the labor market, you are hit by a kind of dullness and passivity that makes even a small, trivial thing like going to the post office feel like an all-day journey. My colleague's friend wanted to meet him. He only had the energy to do one thing that day. And it's extremely important to make it clear to the individual unemployed person that there's nothing wrong with him or her," says Sally, who adds a different and slightly more positive angle on the problem:

- I was sitting with a woman who had been unemployed for eight months after maternity leave - and her discouragement was very apparent. I asked her what she did with her time. She replied that all her time was spent looking for a job and that her family took up the rest. And that she felt guilty all the time," says Sally.

Sally then asked her what she would do if she knew she was starting a job in a month.

- She got really excited and talked about all kinds of hobbies she missed being able to spend time on. Exercise, knitting, baking, healthy food and so on. Suddenly, it was as if there was some life and spark hidden in the woman. And that's what happens to us humans when we can't just put things off until tomorrow. We get our energy back - whereas day after day in sweatpants drains our motivation," says Sally.

Biology is working against us

Psychological research based on biology shows that the human brain is not naturally designed to keep taking an action if it does not produce results. When the same pile of rocks falls over every time you build it, the brain is "programmed" to say: stop it!

That's why most unemployed people work intensely and optimistically to find a job at the start of their unemployment period. And if you attend regular interviews, for example, you'll be able to extend the intensive period because you feel that "it works":

- But if you don't succeed and you feel like you're just sending out applications into the void, your motivation will automatically go down and a kind of passivity will set in. And after a long period of unemployment and many rejections, it disappears for natural reasons - because we are actually designed to be discouraged, and you have to be very aware of that when talking to unemployed people at this stage, Sally explains.

What can you do about it?

Of course, there are differences in how individuals cope with unemployment and how it came about. If you are a recent graduate, you share this with other recent graduates, and it's normal that it can take some time before you land your first job. If you've been fired from a job you loved, it affects you in a completely different way and you're alone with the feeling - but common to all types of unemployment is that there are steps you can take to improve both your job search and your personal life:

 - I always try to get a member to stop feeling guilty. And I explain that there's more to life as an unemployed person than looking for a job," says Sally Lakolk: "It's also important that your private life works and that you have time for your hobby, exercise, friends and family. Otherwise, everyone ends up in the black hole at some point.

That's why Sally always gives the same advice: structure your everyday life so you know when you're working on your job search and when you're "off". Make sure you don't drop what you normally do: training, culture, friends, etc. - that way the job search doesn't hang over you like a shadow and you feel that you actually have a life and a decent life to wake up to every day, even though unemployment is always challenging.

Sources: Einar Baldvin Baldursson