A parent's job search anxiety gets picked up by their kid and shuts down the conversation. Instead, calm your own energy first through exercise or meditation. Then ask open "what" questions and listen without fixing or relating it back to yourself. Silence helps them think.
One of the most difficult conversations to have with your young adult is the one about jobs. When they're applying to jobs, it is so stressful because you're sitting on pins and needles and want to know what's going on. And when you ask them, you say, "Hey, what's going on with the job search? How are things going? Do you have any interviews lined up?" And while those seem like innocent-sounding questions, To them, it feels like judgment and they put up a wall. And what's going to happen is they're going to ignore the question. They're going to change the subject, or they're going to say things like, "I'm working on it." So in this video, I'm going to give you 3 tips so that you can have that conversation without them shutting down. Step number 1, The most important thing you need to do is to check your energy. Are you coming in with that frantic, I want something to happen right now, what's going on energy? You can't approach him with that. You have to have the calm curiosity energy. So what you need to do to get into that state is whatever works for you. If exercise works for you, if a walk works for you, if journaling works for you, if meditation works for you, whatever works for you, that's the thing that I want you to do. Because if you come in with anything less than calm energy, they feel that immediately. They feel the disturbance in the force. So you never want to approach them with that energy. Step number 2, you want to ask curiosity questions. And what I mean by that is questions that start with the word what. What looks interesting to you right now? What would your future self be proud of? What roles seem interesting to you right now? What's something that would actually get you excited to go to work in the morning? Those are great curiosity questions. And you have to deliver them with that calm energy that we talked about before in step 1. So when you ask these questions, make sure you have that calm curiosity energy. Step number 3, listen without fixing. And I have to say, this is probably the hardest one of them all. Because when they start talking, you have to listen. And I don't mean listening to react. You don't want to put your agenda in. You don't want to say things like, "Oh, when I was a kid," you don't want to make it about yourself. Do not get into the box with them. Stay away. And when they talk, listen. And then what you do after that is you embrace the pause. Let there be a pause. Let there be silence for as long as you can take it. If you have to count to 10, great. If you have to just nod, that's fine too. But let them be the first one to break the silence. That is key. Otherwise, they're not going to feel listened to. They're not going to feel heard. And when people feel heard, the good news is they actually grow. By the way, if you want more tips on how to have these tough conversations, I just made a PDF that has 5 prompts that you can use and when to use them. So if that's of interest to you, hit me in the comments down below and I'll send it to you. Have a great day, and I'll see you in the next video.
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