I reached a milestone yesterday: I finally got 500 LinkedIn connections. If you have 499 connections, LinkedIn says you have 499 connections. If you have 500 it says you have 500+ connections. I now look like I could have infinity LinkedIn connections!

It was a goal for me to reach 500. I really wanted to get there this summer. This summer I was looking for a job, so I spend a good amount of time on LinkedIn. Looking for a job is very uncomfortable. It felt as if my goal–getting a new position–was entirely the product of happenstance.

Except everywhere I looked, there was someone giving advice on how to do it the “right” way. Which was a lot of pressure.

So every day I would get up and try to look for a job. I began to get more and more single-minded and narrow in my focus. A JOB. I WANT A JOB. I NEED A JOB.

And every day I would not get a job.

I knew I was starting to get crazy. I was super unhappy. I didn’t want to be.

I knew I had to set myself up with an achievable victory, or a goal that I had more control over.

So. I decided to try to get 500 LinkedIn connections. I had 400 something connections. Surely I could fill that out and push it into the 500+ realm.

And still I couldn’t quite get there. So I was doubly foiled. Even the thing that I thought should be easy and achievable I was failing at.

Some of the job search advice talks about this. Our jobs can easily become our identity. I know I had put on my job–the one I’d lost–on like a fancy uniform and told the world what it was I did.

It was as if that uniform came off and so did my skin. I had no buffer. No wonder I was unhappy!

I didn’t have a space in my own mind to inhabit. What it seemed like I had a big clear spot for a vicious fearful inner voice to talk to me. A perfect acoustic amphitheater for my fears and insecurities.

I knew it was getting out of control. Here’s a job for self help and support groups!

One of my groups is reading a book called Loveability, which talks about self-love. Self-love is not something I would have pursued on my own. And yet…

In the isolation chamber of applying for jobs, nobody loves me. They don’t hate me, usually; they just don’t care very much. In the face of overarching indifference, I was left with the voices in my mind that were very mean and afraid.

If I wasn’t on my own side, it’s hard to persuade someone else to be.

So that’s what this self-love thing is trying to tell me. I get to be on my own side and keep a good opinion of myself. That I can move closer to compassion for myself and further away from being critical.

I haven’t finished the book yet. When I found this sentence, I saw myself:

How I felt about me was determined by how they felt about me.

I don’t want that to be true about me! And yet, especially during my job search, that is exactly how I felt. I must be worth nothing because that is how these hiring managers and HR people are treating me.

I know I am of value. How on earth did I let myself fall to these depths?

I have a job now. For three months I’ve been going to my office and doing work. Nobody is mean to me. I could tell myself, “Whew! I’m glad that’s over!”

I am glad it’s over. But it will happen again. I will find myself looking for a job again. Or there will likely find myself in a situation where I am valuing others’ opinions of me more highly than my own opinions of me.

Those 500 LinkedIn connections–when I don’t need a job anymore–feel sort of anticlimactic. These new lessons in self-love could seem that way too. Yet I know, I am going to need to build up my positive connections for when they are all I have. Especially with myself.