The short answer
Job-search paralysis is usually exhaustion in disguise. You haven't lost your ability to find a new job — you've lost your energy. The fix isn't a better strategy. It's narrowing your focus to one small thing, right now, and doing only that.
When a job drains more than it gives — your time, your attention, your sense of purpose — research on burnout tells us the mind starts to shut down its bigger planning functions. You stop being able to see forward. 'I don't know where to start' isn't a skills gap. It's what depletion looks like from the inside. The overwhelm is real, and it makes sense.
Marcus Aurelius wrote that every trade works best when a person minds only what they're doing right now, with the tool they have in front of them. That's the reframe: you don't need a full job-search plan today. You need one move. The whole search — the resume, the networking, the interviews — that's not your job this moment. Your job this moment is just the next small thing.
This week, pick one thing only: open a single job board, or message one person you trust, or write three bullet points about what you actually want in your next role. Just one. Do it, close the tab, and stop there. Momentum starts small. Give yourself permission to let it.