How can adopting a winning mindset help you secure your perfect next job?

If you are looking to boost your career in insurance or financial services, a winning mental attitude will be vital to your success.

For tips on how to do this, you need look no further than our elite sportsmen and women. Below we suggest four key mental tactics that our sporting heroes frequently use to help them achieve glory in intensely pressured situations:

1. Get yourself a brilliant team

Don’t try and plough ahead with your job hunt in total isolation. Surround yourself with a gold medal team of mentors, advisors and supporters (friends or family) to help you – just as most topflight athletes rely upon an entourage of coaches, physios and role models.

Lean on your team when you need advice, when you need motivation and – especially – when you need some (tough) love!

An excellent source of support and advice is your network of former colleagues and industry contacts. They can help you hone your search by commenting on your strengths and directing you towards potential or actual opportunities.

2. You ARE the greatest!

Give yourself a good talking to! Tell yourself how amazing you are – because if YOU don’t believe in yourself, then no one else will. Mohammed Ali told anyone who’s listen that he was the greatest years before he’d won a single title. Then he spent his career living up to his own hype.

Take a good look in the mirror and remind yourself just how awesome you are.

3. Create your own vision of success

Many athletes say that they have already run a race or played a match in their heads long before the event itself. They visualise in advance what tactics they are going to use to triumph and they build sensory cues into that visualisation, for example the smell of the court or the roar of the crowd.

You can do this with your interviews: imagine how you would like the interview to proceed, rehearse scenarios, imagine the sound of a glass of water being poured, the feel of sitting in the chair, what the panel may look like.

If you do this, the interview proper will feel more familiar and less intimidating and you will have strategies available on how to respond to questions.

4. Tweak your vocabulary

Sir Chris Hoy famously refuses to use words like “anxious” or “nervous” ahead of a race. Instead, he refers to his excitement and feeling adrenaline.

The language you use – especially in your own head – can hugely shift your mental mindset from worried, intimidated and pessimistic to optimistic, positive and relishing a challenge. This demeanour will shine through your expressions and body language, helping to create a highly favourable impression on the decision makers you need to impress during your job search.

By changing your internal dialogue, you can banish those butterflies and give yourself wings instead.

These are just four simple but highly effective mental strategies which we help our candidates incorporate into their successful job hunts.

For more, and to find out how we can help your career go “faster, higher, further”, call our friendly and highly experienced team today on 01483 668700 or email us at careers@insurerecruitment.com.

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