Trust Is the Hardest Part

The hardest part of looking for a job isn’t the rejection.

It’s the waiting.

It’s that strange, suspended space where you’ve done everything you can — sent the application, had the conversation, shown up as your best self — and now… nothing is happening.

We don’t talk about this part enough.

Last week, I got a call from a company about a role I instinctively knew I would be a good fit for. I applied, and then, like so many applications before it, I let it go. Not because I didn’t care but because you almost have to. You can’t hold onto every possibility. It would exhaust you.

So when they called me, I wasn’t even entirely sure which role it was for. I had previously interviewed for this company and they asked me what my salary expectation was for this new role.

At the time, I took that as a good sign. I told a few people close to me. I allowed myself, cautiously, to believe that something might finally be shifting.

And then came the waiting.

Now, it’s the last day of the month.

And I am standing on tenterhooks.

If they want me to start tomorrow, surely they would need to make me an offer today.

Surely.

But that’s not happening.

And what I didn’t expect was how much space that waiting would take up.

Because when something feels close — when it feels almost within reach — it doesn’t just sit quietly in the background. It expands. It fills your thoughts. It begins to carry your hope.

And hope, I’ve realised, requires energy.

Energy I don’t always have to spare.

At the same time, I found myself reading more and more motivational content. The kind designed to lift you, to remind you of what’s possible.

One line, in particular, stayed with me:

You are meant to have an amazing life. You were meant to have everything that you want and deserve. Your work is meant to be exciting, and you are meant to accomplish everything you would love to accomplish.

It’s a beautiful idea.

Comforting, even.

But sitting there, in that moment - waiting - I found myself asking a quieter, more uncomfortable question:

What happens when you believe that… and nothing is happening?

Because there is something deeply unsettling about being in a space where you have done everything right, and the outcome is still completely out of your hands.

It forces you into something that doesn’t come naturally.

Trust.

And not the easy kind.

Not the kind where things are already working out, where you can point to progress and say, “There it is. It’s happening.”

I mean the kind of trust that exists in the absence of evidence.

Where the email hasn’t come.

Where the call hasn’t happened.

Where nothing has moved — except your thoughts.

That, I think, is the part we underestimate.

Not the rejection.

Not even the uncertainty.

But the waiting.

Because waiting demands something far more difficult than effort.

It demands belief without proof.

And maybe that’s the real work.