How To Move On After You've Lost Your Job
Losing your job can be devastating because it can impact your life in so many ways. Here are a few examples:
- Money: Losing your income with no warning can be financially devastating.
- Status: If your job gave you status or a professional identity, you might feel devastated without it.
- Surprise: If the job loss happens without warning, you will probably feel shocked.
- Self-esteem: You may feel embarrassed by what has happened.
- Isolation: You are likely to lose friends and companions when you no longer work in the same place.
- Feeling out of synch: Your regular routine may be disrupted.
- Confusion: If the crisis happens because of burnout or for reasons inside yourself, you may feel confused about what to do next.
- Effect on others: If people around you depend on your income and need you to be predictable, they may have a hard time dealing with your situation.
LOSING A JOB HURTS EVERYONE
Losing your job hurts you because it is devastating to your ego. The hurt tends to be greater when one gets a sense of identity and self-esteem from his or her job title, status, and income.
Losing your job hurts your family because they must experience the emotional fallout that follows the crisis. Your family may also experience a loss of self-esteem and status because you were fired or laid off.
THE FLASHBACK EFFECT
A traumatic event such as losing your job sometimes can prompt you to reach back into the past and reactivate unfinished emotional business from an earlier major loss or a crisis.
For example, when Sharon was terminated after seven months at her dream job, she became very depressed. Although depression is a normal response to such a loss, Sharon was reacting to losing her job and to the similar feelings she had when she had flunked out of a top university 12 years earlier. When she finally saw a therapist after a few weeks of depression following the job loss, she saw that she had never fully resolved her feelings about failing in college.
If people around you depend on your income and need you to be predictable, they may have a hard time dealing with your situation.
HOW TO HELP SOMEONE WHO HAS LOST HIS OR HER JOB
Here are a few ideas for being helpful to people who have suffered the loss of a job:
- People need support when they are in an employment crisis, even though they may seem to push you away.
- Ask how you can help.
- Don’t give advice unless asked.
- Check in regularly with the person; let him or her know you’re there.
- Remind the person of what a good person he or she is, even without the identity and status that the job provided.
- Sometimes a career crisis such as losing one’s job sends a person into a serious depression, for which help is needed. If you sense danger, urge the person to seek help.
HOW TO TURN A LOSS INTO A WIN
Here are some suggestions for turning a job loss into a positive experience in the long run.
- Give yourself time to heal. If recovery is rushed or interrupted, you will not fully heal, and a victory is less likely.
- Remind yourself as often as necessary that your pain will end and you will eventually feel happy again.
- Avoid jumping into something new on the rebound; let yourself experience all the stages of grief.
- Accept that many people will not understand the depth of your grief. They will not understand why this is so difficult for you and they will say stupid things.
- Use the opportunity to stop and consider other options.
- Explore the meaning that your feelings have for you. If we pay attention to them, our feelings can lead us places we would otherwise never visit.
- Keep a journal of your experiences. Make it your intention to discover what there is to be learned from this experience.
- Losing something important like your job can be viewed as both a door-closer and a door-opener. Start thinking about what you are learning and gaining from this experience.
- Here are some other points about recovering from the loss of a job:
- The process of recovering from losing your job will happen on its own schedule. It can’t be rushed.
- Every person responds to being terminated differently. There is no right way to respond or to deal with it.
- Build and use a support system. People need other people when they are experiencing a career crisis. Having access to a group of people who have experienced similar losses can be especially helpful.
- It is a good idea to find emotional support outside of your family and circle of friends. Even the most supportive may grow tired of hearing about your situation, or you may find yourself censoring your behavior to avoid alienating them. However, you still need help and a place to let your feelings out.
"The process of recovering from losing your job will happen on its own schedule. It can’t be rushed."
SELF-EXPLORATION EXERCISE
Take the time to explore your answers to the following questions. This self-help exercise can assist you in processing your feelings about what has happened to you.
- Describe what happened when you lost your job.
- Describe the job or career. Where did you work? What was it like? Who did you work with? What do you miss the most? What do you not miss at all?
- Describe your feelings about the loss of the job or career.
- What has been the impact of this crisis on your life? What else have you lost because of it?
- Given what you have written, are your responses to this experience appropriate?
- What barriers stop you from moving on?
- What 10 things can you do starting today to continue the recovery process?
WHERE CAN I GO FOR MORE INFORMATION?
Bridges, William. Job Shift: How to Prosper in a Workplace without Jobs. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1994.
Glassner, Barry. Career Crash: The New Crisis—and Who Survives. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Pines, Ayala, and Aronson, Elliot. Career Burnout: Causes and Cures. New York: The Free Press, 1988.