This is going to become your Special Place where you have a record of your journey from badlands of unemployment to green fields of regular work. Visit it often to keep updating your plans, record your smallest successes and failures, and unload your emotional baggage.

When you can't bear thought of one more telephone call leading to one more rejection; when you can't find energy to get dressed up to visit an agency or cold-call an employer; when you can't stand sight of another misleading ad or internet job site; then reach for comfort of your journal. Read over what you have written and see changing moods of your long pilgrimage. See if you can identify a pattern. What were you doing when you felt despondent and alone? What were you doing when you felt upbeat and positive about future? Concentrate on your own specific actions, not merely your reaction to outside events. If you can find a thread relating what you do to how you feel, you have found a valuable key for managing your hunt for work. You now know what to do to feel pretty good and what not to do to avoid a recurrence of despair.

Maintain your diary throughout your job search and it will become an increasingly rich source of information about you and your inner self. It will challenge you to get active and it will comfort you when you just want to curl up into a ball and turn your back on life.

When your final exultant entry is made - I got a job! - find a quiet time to completely read through all entries to give yourself a full appreciation of how far you have come and how hard you have worked for your eventual success. Give yourself a mental pat on back for hanging in there and never accepting defeat.

Then close it up and lock it away in a safe place. If you ever find yourself jobless again (and it happens to many of us over and over), take it out. Reread it for insights you will gain, and mistakes you'll be able to avoid, in your next (probably shorter) job search campaign.

The mind set which allows people to adjust to change is vital because one thing is now certain more and more will be forced to change career, so better to be prepared and instigate it, rather than be forced into it.

There was a recent press article about house moves in one of our national papers which illustrates point well.

The article related how when a young family moved to a slightly larger house they needed new bookshelves. Appalled by price husband decided he would make his own.

He was a corporately employed IT expert. He is now a maker of fine furniture because as he explored woods to use and started creating designs he became an enthusiast. His enthusiasm grew when he bought his second hand tools and talked with established craftsmen.

As he explored different woods he started to specialise in design and production of contemporary chairs from Oak or American Black Walnut which can sell for upto $7,000 a time.

This is real life example of career change and a business example of motivation, business creation and niche marketing around a newly acquired skill. These are qualities that will be needed as world economy continues to develop. So it really is about opportunity not threat.

Tip

Bring enthusiasm and optimism to your life and use your many skills and talents to your business benefit, anticipate change, welcome it.

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