Resolve to talk to yourself like a friend

I tend to catastrophize. My mind goes to the worst case scenario and runs with it, willfully ignoring all the other possibilities, sometimes with fairly reasonable rationalizations, sometimes out of stubbornness, anxiety, and fear. One of my resolutions for 2020 is to minimize that type of thinking and break the negativity cycle in my brain so I can see things more clearly and more proactively. I want to work on being kinder and more generous to myself, in every sense. I'm typically good at doing that for others, but learning how to do it for myself is going to be pretty challenging.

I applied to over 44 jobs last year, including those I applied to before and after October. I got one offer, which I accepted, as a bartender at a brewery. I heard back from about half of the places I applied to - which isn't bad, and is in fact what I was hoping for statistically during my experiment. I had 7 phone interviews with 5 companies (2 of them I had 2 calls with), and 4 in-person interviews with 4 companies (including 3 breweries, one of which was with the one I currently at). The main shortcoming is that I didn't get any further explanation as to why I was not a good fit, which I think would be a huge help to me. If I don't know where I'm going wrong, it's tough for me to target that issue and improve upon it. 

Based solely on speculation, I've come up with a few solutions to attempt to change this for 2020.

1. First of all, I'm going to apply to at least 2 jobs a week. By the end of 2020, that will be over 100 jobs, and combined with how many I applied to in 2019, that'll be almost 150. Statistically, I've heard one has to apply to about that many jobs before getting an offer. I am operating on the hopeful assumption that my brewery job is not going to interfere with that statistic, since I technically did receive an offer already. People keep saying it's a numbers game and "it's not what you know, it's who you know", which on their own, those cliches irritate the ever-living f*** out of me, but also because it doesn't seem to be true for me. I applied to 3 places last year where I knew someone who worked there and it maybe got me the initial interview, but that was it. That being said, I bombed two of them, probably because of the added performance pressure of being vouched for by someone who worked there. I did well on the third and was invited for an in-person interview, but that never ended up happening. The VP I spoke with was offered and immediately accepted another job later that week, and when I had to reinterview with his replacement, the call went far less smoothly and I never heard back. C'est la vie. I have never been accused of having good timing.
2. Secondly, I'm working on scripting answers so I can keep my replies concise, and so I don't overshare, which I think is a major hindrance for me. I have a limited time, usually 15 to 30 minutes, to make a positive impression on the person I'm speaking to, and my tendency to overexplain, overshare, and go off on tangents cuts into the time that they might spend asking that perfect question that I subsequently have the perfect answer for that will get my foot into the door for a next step in-person interview. 
3. I redid my resume (again) to focus more on marketing and content, which are primarily the types of jobs I'm applying to, rather than my ecommerce experience. The latter sounds more impressive on paper and has big numbers behind it, but I started to wonder whether someone hiring for a completely different type of position really cares about that since it's not directly relevant.
4. I'm planning to do a mock interview prior to every real interview, and to err on the side of overpreparation, which I have not always done, but I think would help relieve some of the pressure and anxiety I have when I interview. 
5. I've started to change my attitude towards my career away from the self-pity and negativity, albeit slowly, and I'm attempting to "dress for the job I want". That piece of advice has always felt shallow and phony to me, because I live in Colorado where jeans are considered business casual and have always worked in offices where business casual to casual has been the norm (I wear flip flops to work most days during the spring and summer). On top of that, my style in general is pretty casual; I tend to dress for comfort rather than style. That being said, while I enjoy dressing up, I rarely do unless it's for an interview, a date, or a party because it feels too time-consuming, is typically less comfortable than my other clothes, and sometimes feels like I'm trying too hard or am being disingenuous to myself. In addition to dressing a little more business-like a bit more often, I'm attempting to up my game by wearing makeup more often, which I also almost never do unless for the aforementioned occasions. I don't know if either changes are helping, but people around me are noticing that I'm putting myself together a bit more, so maybe it is. While it annoys me that I'm changing my appearance and that is what's being noticed and commented on, I also realize that the compliments I receive from these changes boost my self-esteem, and that by itself is probably a greater game changer than anything else.

My one word theme for 2020 (a suggestion by Gretchen Rubin, of course) is "relax". I want to focus on more self care, relaxing physically with more reading, writing, quiet time, and generally taking better care of myself, but I also want to relax mentally. I want to work on being more optimistic, less negative, and relaxing my own expectations of myself, as well as relaxing about my real or imagined perception of other people's expectations and whether I'm living up to them. I'm an obliger, it won't be easy, but I think it's important for me.

All these changes are pretty daunting, but I'm hopeful that they'll help me turn things around not only in my work life and attitude, but in other areas of my life as well.