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Personal Discipline

Self discipline follows on neatly from personal standards. High personal standards are a waste of effort if you haven't the discipline to follow up and capitalise on your efforts.

To take one of my ridiculous examples, it is of no use whatsoever to rise, bathe and dress yourself immaculately if all you are going to do is watch breakfast television.

You must know in advance your tasks for the day, and I shall cover that subject under "operations" later in the course.

What I need to impress upon you here is not only do you need to KNOW what is to be done but what it takes to DO what has to be done.

Today, tomorrow, the next day and the day after that.

Temptation is ever with us. It will come when you least expect it and throw you completely off course. It will strike when you have had a successful run at whatever task you are engaged upon and will hit you when you are feeling low and seem to be getting nowhere.

You must of course, NOT give in. You must recognise what is happening and learn to defeat the temptation.

You will have set yourself objectives and will need to stick to them. It is very easy to sit in a café on a wet day writing up your notes. To do this when you have tasks that need performing is to delude yourself. I have mentioned self delusion before and will mention it again. Human beings have an infinite capacity to delude themselves and you must not fall into the trap.

You may be really pleased with yourself for having completed an exemplary piece of work. But be wary of complacency that could lead to self delusion.

Even if you are bursting to dash home and pour out your good fortune to your nearest and dearest you must carry on with what you set out to do and see it through to completion.

The feel good factor you will get from sticking to the plan will far outweigh any pleasure gained by abandoning your allocated tasks.

You are working to a plan. Plans need be flexible, but only to a point. You do not justify breaking with a plan simply to "feel good". In the same way you do not justify breaking with a plan because it's raining outside. The only "feel good" experience worth having is the one you get from completing your daily action plan.

Feeling good is another brick in the wall of SELF WORTH.

Personal Standards

I should not have to cover this matter at all, let alone go into any depth on the subject, but I am going to do so all the same. I have seen too many people turning up for job interviews in jeans and sweat shirts that I simply have to cover the subject comprehensively.

I do not wish to imply that the jobless population is made up of people who do not have sufficiently high standards for the task in hand. But working for an individual or an organisation requires the prospective employee to observe certain conventions of dress and behaviour. The only way to be free from these obligations is to start your own business and set your own standards. That is not what this book is about. If a shell suit person turns up for a job interview and mentions that they have bought and are working with JOB HUNT then my work may be called into question. That is why I make this point.

The Job Seekers Guide is a course of study designed to lead students through the educational processes and into a position of employment.

Have you ever heard the term, "interview suit"? It needs no elaboration. Many people simply do not wear a suit, by that I mean a suit in the traditional sense, from one year's end to another. Casual clothes have been acceptable in many council offices and large companies for some time now and the trend is growing.

If someone has not had to wear a suit for work for some time it may not occur to them to wear a suit for an interview.

Why wear a suit at an interview - why wear a suit at all?

Because it's safe, that's why. It is a mode of dress that is not in any way contentious. You will hear people say that first impressions are important and I would be the first to agree. If you walked into an office in a suit of red white and blue union jacks then I guarantee you would make an impression.

The question is, what sort of impression.

Let's look at this from another angle. Who are you dressing up for anyway? Some as yet unknown individual you may see for a few minutes from whom you will endeavour to extract information? Possibly! That activity is part of the process and a very important part. Do you think that person is going to be impressed because you did not bother to wear a suit? Does it matter one way or the other?

If, in a week or so, someone asked if the individual they spoke to wore a suit the chances are they would not remember. They would not know. The point is:

YOU WOULD KNOW - and it's you that you are wearing the suit for.

The establishment and maintenance of high standards affects the way you behave and the image you project. Why not make that image a good one?

It is important that you set and maintain consistently high standards.

To wear a scruffy outfit in the library when you are information gathering, having not bothered to shave or turn yourself out to the highest standards is to let yourself down. Business is, after all said and done, business.

You are on an errand of business, you are working at a task, you are in a position whereby you may have to react quickly to an unforeseen situation. You may pick up a newspaper and read about a job for which you are eminently suitable.

What happens if the guy who answers your 'phone call turns out to be an old buddy who says, "Get yourself here, double quick, they are about to make a decision."

Set your standards at the outset and resolve to maintain them.

Resolve to press the suit every night - it takes two minutes.

Resolve to clean the shoes. It doesn't take much time and will do wonders for your confidence.

Every time you turn out, check your standards.

Know that you are on course and that your standards are being maintained. This serves to give you an air of stability, inner satisfaction and the comfort of being ready for any eventuality.

The most important figure in the JOB HUNT process is YOU.

You simply have to remove the extraneous information and routine tasks from your day to day activities. The more you free your mind of these tasks the more free you are for creative, analytical thought.

If every time you set out on a series of tasks you have a routine that you adhere to then you hardly have to think about it. It becomes second nature and you are able to do what you set out to do.

Having high standards and maintaining them does wonders for your

SELF WORTH

Without which all is lost. Keep up your standards and you will keep up your

SELF WORTH QUOTIENT

Without high standards you cannot hope to achieve that objective.