Prehistoric Fear In The Job Search

Fear is a constant companion to everyone. No one gets out of this life without dealing with dread, anxiety, short bouts of worry and the occasional rush of raw terror.

In context of the job search, fear is always hiding in the wings, ruffling the curtains, letting it’s presence be known to the job hunter as s/he plods along slogging through the process with either whimsical enthusiasm or a painfully organized plod. It’s either bold and brash, making life difficult or it’s mild, like a wart on the elbow.

Only 2 things really separate the bum on the bowery and the wonderfully successful renaissance type. How they use their God given 24 hours and how they deal with fear. Both are never more evident than in the job search in these difficult economic times with the unemployment rate hovering at 10%.

Fear in the job search spreads over a landscape of topics: fear of success, fear of failure, fear of being perceived as stupid, fear of a new environment, fear of being subjected to new faces and judgments, fear of whispers, fear of ridicule, and even fear of using the phone to inquire about a job. Fear or anxiety can keep us from moving ahead with our lives. Most fear is irrational if there isn’t a clear and present physical danger. Fear is an emotion that first materialized about 5 Million years ago. Centered at the base of the brain (the limbus system) is where fear and anxiety come from, still.

Fear, that prehistoric emotion was a mechanism to defend against the prehistoric creatures who wanted to have us for dinner. (The Friend or Foe Emotion) Fear changed mankind dramaticaly. And along with fear came other emotions and feelings: desire, caring, glee and so forth.

While the brain’s sectors have steadily grown in size since the last 5 million years, the limbus system has barely cracked the 3% growth mark during the same time. Some scientist think it’s because the need to process the expansion of increased feelings and emotions and life in genereal has pushed the brain’s growth to over 5%. In other words, the brain is struggling to advance with society. Whereas the small collection of masses (limbus system) is still sending ‘fear’ signals (emotions) up to a data processing center located at the front of the forehead called the prefrontal Cortex PFC. The PFC is the central processing system that’s connected to virtually every other section of the brain.

Whenever the Limbus System sends up a perception of danger to the PFC, it’s the PFC’s duty to decide if it’s friend or foe and accordingly give directions on how to handle the emotion. It decides to stuff the fear or catch fire and get the hell out of Dodge. The Limbus system has conjured up quite a few new dangers since the big lizards back in it’s heyday.

That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about the brain and why you fear innocent little things like… I’m afraid to pick up the phone and call into a company and ask for a job because I just know they’ll say no.  ‘Rejection, Rejection, Rejection flashing neon red!  It’s a throwback to when you were standing in a cave 5 million years ago and your limbus system flashing danger emotions, because it’s aware of a T-Rex waiting outside to eat you. Yes a prehistoric emotion from a somewhat outdated system thats keeping you from experiencing a 21^st success.  Kinda stupid isn’t it? I’ve over simplified this by about a thousand percent, but it’s basically the way it is.

Fear is fear and it touches us all.  For some it’s just a matter of feeling the fear and moving past it easily. Others aren’t so lucky.  They have to conjure up courage, establish determination, face it head on and find a way to move on.

In this blog I’m going to offer a series of posts with suggestions on overcoming job-search fear.

Here’s the first suggestion: Fear Of Rejection

Don’t fear rejection so much that you can’t pick up the phone and make an appointment or ask for an interview. Never take rejection personally. Fear of rejection is irrational. Rejection cannot permanently hurt you. It’s just that limbus system banging away at the PFC, drilling the emotion of fear, fear, fear.  With no reason other than that.

Let’s look at overecoming fear of rejection as a sales job.

A job search is an act of selling. You sell yourself to people, who you probably don’t know. People accept you or they reject you. Rejection is a fact of life in the sales world.  The people who you will be calling or meeting with are certainly not to be revered. They are no better than you. Don’t make any assumptions about who they are and how they will react to your call. Don’t make their decision for them.  Let them decide what to say. It may surprise you.

But if you do get a NO from the other end of the line, learn to accept it and NOT take it personally. Just move on.

So if fear of rejection is preventing you from making calls into HR, or bosses, friends or even just networking, know that you’re getting a prehistoric fear emotion from an almond size mass of goo, telling you not to venture out of the cave for fear of being rejected.

Flash, there are no big lizards our there anymore. You will not be eaten by calling into HR. It’s irrational to think like that.