If you’re finding it hard to summon the energy to do the needed next steps in your job search, here’s something that can help…

Let’s say you are currently employed and your job leaves you drained at the end of the day.

How do you make progress when you feel like you have almost no mojo?

Besides upping your self-care game, try experimenting with Type One and Type Two Actions.

These are corollaries to Type One and Type Two Happiness.

Type One Happiness refers to the feeling we have when we do something we love; when the act of “doing the thing” is the reward itself.

If you love Crossfit or surfing or practicing guitar, those are Type One Activities.

Type Two Activities are those that you are happy that you did them, but not necessarily in the doing of them.

Let’s say you don’t enjoy working out, but you like being fit. That’s Type Two.

If you don’t enjoy practicing guitar, but you love performing, the practicing part is Type Two.

You can adapt this concept of Type One vs. Type Two Happiness strategically if you feel stalled out and depleted.

Type One Actions are actions you can take solely for the energy and mood boost they create.

They don’t have to have anything to do with getting you closer to your job search or career change goal, their purpose—besides helping you enjoy life—is to recharge your batteries and fill your well, so you can then use that energy and mood boost to move forward.

Thus Type One Actions not only make your current situation more tolerable, they give  you the energy required to take the actions that propel your job search or career change.

So…give yourself permission to do things you enjoy without telling yourself “I should be doing some other activity that is more ‘practical’.”

Recognize that you are being smart; you are leveraging the mind/body connection to enable you to move forward (and keep yourself mentally healthy).

Now, Type Two Actions are the actions that will directly move you closer to your goal.

When you are already feeling depleted, you want to pick ones which you can see yourself doing and which don’t feel like an added burden.

Remember, you don’t want to add more weight to your already heavy load.

This is where the concept of Minimal Viable Action comes into play. This is a term I heard from best-selling author Mark Manson, which I’ve found to be incredibly helpful.

The concept of Minimal Viable Action is adapted from the term Minimal Viable Product, coined by The Lean Startup author and entrepreneur, Eric Reiss.

An MVP is the simplest version of a product that an entrepreneur needs to build to bring it to market.

So for instance, lets say you want to create an online course on dog training. Your MVP might be a 15 page e-book on the Top Ten Mistakes Dog Owners Make When Trying to Stop Their Dog From Barking.

To come up with a Minimal Viable Action that would work for you, ask yourself “What is some small action I could take that is A) so small I can’t make an excuse about why I don’t have time to do it,  B) would put me closer to where I want to be, and C) would feel good when I’m done?”

So for Type Two Actions, unlike Type One Actions, you don’t necessarily enjoy doing them, but they aren’t so onerous that just thinking about doing them bums you out, and…C) you will feel good when they’re completed.

Type Two Actions are a “two-fer” in that they bring you a tiny bit closer to your goal, and… boost your mood and energy when you’re done…which helps recharge your batteries and fill your well…which restores some of the energy your job is draining from you and…gives you some fuel to take other actions.

 

To Build On This

Besides the Mark Manson I’ve linked to above, I recommend watching Stanford professor BJ Fogg’s outstanding TedTalk Forget Big Change, Start with a Tiny Habit