When everything feels urgent but nothing is working

LIFT Newsletter 022

Read Time: 2 minutes

Content: panic, lost and anxious, responding better

Your job search is making you crazy.

You're sending applications into the void. Refreshing your email every ten minutes. Applying to anything that remotely fits.

And despite all this activity, nothing's happening.

This isn't about your qualifications or the market. It's about your brain.

When your career feels threatened, your brain defaults to survival mode. It screams "DO SOMETHING" so loudly that you can't think straight.

The result? Frantic activity that feels productive but gets you nowhere.

I see this with every professional I work with during transitions. The panic response is normal. But it's also the reason most job searches stall.

Here's what actually works:

Stop applying for three days. Instead, review your last 15 applications. What roles were you targeting? How did you position yourself? Most people discover they've been throwing spaghetti at the wall without any strategy.
Create a simple tracking system. Excel sheet. Three columns: Company, Role, Response. Track your numbers. If you're getting less than 20% response rate, your positioning is off.
Rewrite your story. Not your resume; your core message. Can you explain in one sentence what problem you solve? If not, that's why you're not getting calls.