Don’t Let Your All-Too-Human Thoughts Block You From Finding Work
I don’t mean to brag, but in the past 22 years, I’ve been laid off seven times. That’s right. Six different companies have laid me off seven times. How bad is it that I’ve been laid off twice by the same company? I was at one of those companies for four years, and another for almost ten years, so just how close together have some of those layoffs been? If you ask me, being laid off once in 22 years was one time too many, but for me, it has been: Seven. Bleeping. Times.
And if you, like me, have been laid off, you need to address your emotional and psychological response to this setback so that it doesn’t create a drag on your effort to find new work.
Remember how I said I’ve been laid off seven times? This leads me, and no doubt you as well,, to ask: “Is this more than just bad luck? Is it personal? Is it me? I mean, I can see getting laid off once or twice, but seven times?” Yet each layoff was linked to widely varying circumstances. The first was in the dotcom bust, when the wannabe internet startup where I worked, which had once reached a peak of 75 employees, pared itself down in a final capitulation from 28 to 13 people. The next time was when the startup that had hired me and several others to build a full-blown marketing department, from scratch, later failed to secure the funding they were counting on and ended up ramping down the department they had ramped up only months before. Yet a third time was at a much bigger corporation (think Fortune 500), when the company bought our division’s toughest competitor – and decided to go with the competitor’s management team, wiping me and the rest of the team off the roster.
While I could spend time wondering about such things and never getting any answers – that water has long since passed under the bridge – I can be certain of one thing: I have plenty of experience with layoffs, and have learned so much about the do’s and don’ts of how to deal with them. There are all sorts of good guidance out there on how to look for work, how to craft a resume and a career focus, and how to deal with financial hardships. However, I want to focus on the inevitable psychological struggle that follows being laid off and how to move through that as quickly and painlessly as you can.
40%? Are You Serious? This Can’t Be Right
It is true, that 40% of the U.S. workforce has been laid off or terminated at least once, according to zippia.com https://www.zippia.com/advice/layoff-statistics/ If you ever need more reassurance that it’s not you, it’s them that statistic (of which layoffs form a portion) should be enough to leave you thoroughly convinced. While this fact may be correct, I still can’t help thinking: This can’t be right. I find it hard to imagine that such a disruptive, emotionally damaging, and wealth-destroying approach underpins a healthy economy and the society it supports. But we could argue politics and economics till we’re blue in the face. The fact is if you’ve been laid off you need to focus on overcoming the emotional damage and move forward with finding work and living your life.
Don’t Wait. This Is a Top Priority
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FREE Webinar: From Layoff to Liftoff
Help yourself recover from the psychological
and emotional toll of a layoff
(Click to register)
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The faster you can wade through the psychological and emotional aspects of the layoff, the sooner you can focus on getting a good, new job, and the life you live between layoff and the new job will be that much more pleasant. However, dealing with the emotional fallout of a layoff is neither simple nor easy. This is yet another reason for you to begin tackling this as soon as you can.
The nature of emotions and psychological issues is that, unlike material problems such as financial difficulties or even physical illness, they occur inside the same parts of us (our mind and brain) that are doing our thinking, feeling, and reasoning. We don’t question our thoughts and feelings; because we consider them fact, to a certain extent their distortions are invisible to us. It is important to be aware of the negative feelings stemming from your layoff and to observe them as a more objective outsider, and to treat them and heal them. Do this so that they don’t impede your progress towards a new job, and so they don’t undercut your enjoyment of life during this time.
“Get Over It” Won’t Work
How do you start? For most of us, an unsympathetic “Get over it!” won’t work. You’re experiencing all sorts of negative and distorted thoughts. From thinking you’ve been badly treated (likely true), to thinking it must be all your fault (Why did I have to choose this job?), to worrying that your finances will be a disaster and you’re going to end up on the street. Don’t ignore reality, but don’t build this into a catastrophe either. You have to deal with these thoughts by understanding and analyzing them, and countering the distortions they contain which result in you feeling so much worse than necessary.
This way of dealing with your thoughts is a core aspect of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and it’s worth looking into how you can use cognitive exercises to systematically work through your thoughts and counter the irrational, untrue, damaging ones with a calmer, more proactive, more confident mindset. Working through these exercises, which are entirely personal to you and your situation, can be a highly beneficial, mind-opening experience.
One very important tenet of CBT is that you can’t counter distorted thoughts with untruths and platitudes. You cannot avoid recognizing the real negative aspects of your situation. Don’t try to tell yourself “Actually, it’s good that I was laid off. I’m happy that it has happened, there’s nothing to be upset about, it’s all for the best.” Because let’s face it, that’s not true. This layoff is objectively not a good thing for your finances or your career stability. It’s a lousy thing to go through. And naturally, you feel some combination of scared, hurt, angry, and sad. Start by acknowledging this as fact.
Then stare these facts in the face. The only way out is through.
This Is Not a Straight Line Recovery
Many of us are familiar with the widely held idea that grief has stages (usually five but I’ve also seen descriptions that include six, and just read an approach that proposed three. Go figure). It has been pointed out that this explanation has been widely misunderstood to be a linear progression. In fact you may move through the various stages in a different order and multiple times. Think of it as a journey through a landscape, sometimes flat and open, sometimes hilly and twisted. You may go through some stages repeatedly because you’re not just grieving a single thing but dealing with emotions and reactions to many aspects of being laid off.
All this to say not to expect this to be a simple experience where everything keeps getting better and better. There will be ups and downs, and that’s okay. The good news is that you’re tackling this and that’s going to help you feel better faster.
Really, It’s Not You
This layoff (especially when it’s part of some of the mass tech layoffs we’ve seen in 2022 and 2023) is not about you, truly. Remind yourself of that as often as you need to. You can’t say it too often. There’s no point in taking this personally.
There’s also no point in hiding that you are laid off. Some people even hide this from close family members. This will only lead to feeding a vicious circle of shame, and slow down your progress back to a new job. I look at the statistic about 40% of the workforce having experienced a layoff or termination, and you can be darn sure that a whole lot more people that you’ve met have been laid off than admitted it. This serves nobody.
Bouncing back from a layoff involves more than writing resumes and using the most effective approaches to finding work. Recognize that your psychological recovery is one component of thriving after a layoff. Make use of the wealth of online resources to work through your thoughts and feelings. By tackling the emotional fallout from being laid off, you are setting yourself up to minimize the negativity and pain and move forward faster to where you want to be.
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FREE Webinar: From Layoff to Liftoff
Help yourself recover from the psychological
and emotional toll of a layoff
(Click to register)
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