Practical Positive Thinking 4 - Overcoming The Jobless Chasm

A few years after becoming professionally qualified as a management accountant in the UK, I had an opportunity to move to what seemed a great job. It was in a lovely part of the country with some attractive properties, in idyllic villages. All seemed perfect, and my years of hard work were about to reap just reward.

However, after I met my future boss for the second time, my intuition told me it was not going to work out. It was a powerful bout of negative intuition, which happens quite rarely in my life. I felt physically quite sick as my stomach told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should not take the new job, despite the higher salary, excellent benefits, and superior location.

Against my better judgement, I took the job. I set off south from Cambridgeshire, where we lived at the time, lacking the excitement and anticipation you normally associate with finding a “better” job. Within only two weeks, I knew my gut instinct had been right. I knew I had to act quickly, otherwise the following weeks and months would be a nightmare. I scribbled out my resignation letter Friday lunch time, and drove over 100 miles home.

Home was a house we had not lived in for long, with a new and high mortgage; our second child had only just arrived. I had no job and no income any more. As I drove home, my mind was in a whirl, swaying between “Thanks to God” that I am away from there, and a dark shadow of financial disaster hanging over me. Intermingling with those extremes, though, was a sense of excitement; without a job or income, what was around the corner? Where would I be in a month's time?

The next few days were a mix of worry over the financial consequences of what I had done, and the excitement of thinking “I don't have any idea what is going to happen next”. As a keen traveller in my younger years, I had always loved the idea of not knowing where I would be the next day. But this was playing with fire; a wife and two children to support, a brand new and very high mortgage.

Quickly, the positive thoughts took over, and I began to tell myself I would get an even better job; not just any job, but one that was better paid than the job I had just resigned from. Despite the severe financial pressure, my mind was most focused on the positive, although I do admit that, in the UK winter, my body was reeling a bit from the stress.

I could not actually see that I would be without a job for long, and that was what kept me going. I turned out to be right. I did get a better job, and in two quick moves of employment, had increased my income significantly.

With hindsight, I could so easily have gone a long time unemployed. Whatever your qualifications, getting a job in the UK at over 35 was not easy. However, the positive thoughts won in the end.

That experience, and those recalled in the two previous articles, are just three major examples of where positive thinking has played a major part in my life. Whether or not you can agree that positive thinking could have played a part in those events, will depend on your own belief. However, they are three reasons why positive thinking is now an every day part of my life.