The following five tips have been excerpted from: In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in The New World of Work by Kerry Hannon.

Ramp-up your mojo

No matter where you are in life, it’s important to find ways to build your confidence. Pay attention and remember positive things about yourself and bright moments in your life. For me, it can be as simple as some positive feedback from an editor, or watching Elly, my dog, charge across an open field, which always makes me smile. And of course, never forget that healthy living and fitness imbue us with a can-do inner energy.

That translates into a buoyant self-awareness of who you are. Believing in yourself is the underpinning of confidence. And that, in turn, creates oomph to power your job search and muscle through the unavoidable unsettling emotions that can surface when you’re met with rejections or dead-end pathways.

After you’ve been out of work for a while, you can forget your worth. You take for granted your accomplishments and contributions, and, as a result, you dismiss what makes you spark and stand out in a field of applicants. Extract the words to authentically sell yourself. Ask people close to you professionally and personally, whose judgments you value.

I was talking to my 91-year-old mom, Marguerite “Mugs” Hannon, before her death about this book and how I wanted to give people advice on landing a great job, and how hard it is for older workers to cope with the rejection that they often face. She quickly blurted out emphatically that her number one tip was: “Don’t reject yourself!” And her number two tip was: “Just try!”

Mom’s advice never gets old. She always did know best. And she’s right, you’ve got to want to hire yourself. That’s an opinion that you can absolutely control.

Stamp out the negative self-talk

Lurking pessimism is that negative nelly in you that creeps out in those pesky mental conversations you have with yourself. We all stress about those myths about older workers that we’ve reviewed— and maybe even believe some of them. Stop the tape.

The remedy to cynical self-talk is to act. Do something. A tiny step or a weightier undertaking can make a difference. Send a résumé. Attend a webinar. Tweak your LinkedIn profile. Rehearse potential interview questions and your responses with someone. That’s where the shift, the change, the forward motion begins.

Summon your inner moxie

You’re the bee’s knees. You’re not too old for the job. Your experience makes you perfect for it. Tell yourself you are a rock star and believe it! Say it. Write it. Sing it. Here’s one of my favorite exercises to reframe your mindset for the job hunt at hand. This is for your eyes only, but utterly commit yourself to the process. 

Write your professional story and don’t pull any punches

Does that story dwell on the adverse things like losing out on a promotion or being fired or laid off? Let’s change that language to focus on your wins, your successes. Keep your victory story in a place where you can read it regularly. You might include some of the feedback from your colleagues and past performance reviews as well. Pull out short snatches of those affirmations and print them out or handwrite and tape them where you will see them every day. The words we tell ourselves become our reality, our experience, our future.

Stay present

When you are moving to a potential position and job, remember it’s today and tomorrow, so you need to leave yesterday where it belongs. This is harder than you think it is. It’s instinctual to answer questions with “back in the day” kind of responses from decades ago and not what you’ve done recently. I have found myself doing this. Honestly, it does seem like just yesterday sometimes even though it was decades back. Ahh . . . “the collapse of time,” as my dad always referred to the time warp of aging.

Kerry Hannon is a workplace futurist and strategist on career transitions, entrepreneurship, personal finance and retirement. She is a frequent TV, radio and podcast commentator and is a sought-after keynote speaker.

Kerry is currently a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance  and an on-air expert.