“I just want a job, any job!” is a cry I often hear.

Yet it’s not true. Most people won’t settle for just any job. Suggest they work at Starbucks or Barnes & Noble and you’ll see (not that there’s anything wrong with those places!).

People want to use their talents, skills, abilities in their work.  When rejecting job suggestions, you are de facto starting to zero in on what you DO want to do.

Instead of approaching it indirectly, why not start with what you love to do?  Do it consciously. Target jobs that let you use the skills and abilities you love to use – that’s your ‘right fit’ work

Everyone has heard about the Law of Attraction by now.  In short, it says that you attract to you things, people, opportunities and circumstances that match your distinct “energy vibration.” Quantum physicists observe this in the laboratory and we can observe it in our lives.  What LOA means in everyday terms  is that I get what I focus on. Wherever I focus my attention, I am giving energy. And so I attract it to me.

How does the Law of Attraction apply to job search?

Well, if I’m focused on what I don’t like to do, that’s all that will come to me. I will only see jobs I don’t want, only hear about jobs I couldn’t tolerate, only be referred for work that would bore me or torture me.  That’s all I can see.

For some reason, the universe doesn’t understand negatives and discards them, leaving only the subject of the negative. How that works is that if I say I don’t want to trip and fall, I probably will trip and fall. However, if I say I don’t want to trip and fall so I will be careful and watch my step, my focus goes to being careful and watching my step – and I don’t fall.  You may have observed this with children, as I have. I say “stop running!” and they keep running. If I say instead “walk, walk,” they start walking.

Using this seemingly universal truth, I have learned to talk about everything in positive terms, in terms of what I want instead of what I don’t want. I change my frame of reference, my lens through which I see the world. I see what fits with what I want, what supports my goal and intention, what can get me where I want to go.

That’s why I emphasize focusing on what you want to do for work, instead of what you don’t want to do.

When you focus on what you want to do, your energy shifts and you start to attract opportunities to you that are closer and closer to what you want.

When my clients create an “intention statement” that states positively the skills and abilities they want to use, I have seen them immediately start to attract recruiters and serendipitous meetings with a person who knows someone who needs what they can do.

The initial opportunities may not align perfectly with your skills and abilities, which is great! Those allow you to investigate further, gather more information about yourself, and get even more targeted about your “right fit” work.

Eventually, if you maintain the attitude that you will find that work, you WILL find it. I see it happen every month for clients, even those who’ve been looking for a long time.

So give it a try. Say “I just want a job that will allow me to use these skills and abilities.” Stick with it and see what happens.

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