Being made redundant can bring many difficult feelings and emotions to the surface – fear, anger, frustration, to name a few. Furthermore, its extremely common for individuals to experience lower self-confidence and general lack of self-esteem even after finding another job.
What triggers these feelings?
Redundancy can be a major life change creating much uncertainty as you naturally want to remain financially stable and secure. When we experience a lack of security it is quite natural to feel vulnerable.
Furthermore, as the average person spends more waking hours at work than in their own homes, it’s not surprising that we form close ties to our work environment. For many, our colleagues become as close as family members.
That said, as individuals, the experience of losing your job is deeply personal and how you respond will be based on your own unique situation, relationships, values and beliefs. If you believe it’s just a job and you can easily find another one, then you’ll be less likely to experience as many negative emotions. However, if you really loved your job or you’re uncertain about your skills and abilities, you will be more susceptible to finding this process more challenging.
Neither reaction is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, it just is what it is.
Positive reframe
For those of you finding yourself lost in difficult emotions and battling to remain positive, you may benefit from thinking about the situation in a new light. Which of course may or may not be easy right away.
However, with some perseverance, before long, you may just find yourself better off in the long term.
What if…this is a wonderful opportunity to completely transform your life?
What if…this was not an ending but a beginning, a new chapter?
After all, you will receive a lump some of money which could provide options that you may not have considered before.
If you were feeling bored or stuck in your role, industry or company and perhaps you settled for that career out of necessity. Might this be the push you really needed to prove to yourself that you’ve got more to give?
What if you believed you were worthy of so much more? How would that feel?
What next?
So, now you’re on the hunt for a new job and you may have certain criteria’s you are looking to fulfil – similar salary, to be in a specific industry and perhaps you’re one of the 45% of people who want their home to be close to their place of work.
Whilst these practicalities are important, what if you could change things up? Think right outside of the box?
What would you be doing in an ideal world? What if you could get paid for some your passionate about?
What might that look like? What options are available to you?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the thought of it, now might be the time to consider seeking support for the next step of your career transition.
Better together
Sometimes when we spend time trying to figure something out on our own, it can send us around in circles with seemingly no direction whatsoever!
A great way to make it through these presenting challenges can be to seek out sources of support and guidance. After all, two (or more) heads are better than one, right?
What kind of support you will benefit from, will largely depend on where you are right now. The type of support might be as simple as some online research or joining an online support group. However, if you’re open to investing in support, you can open up many more options such as hiring a career or life coach or enrolling on a particular skills or personal development course.
Think practically about what might be most useful to get you from where you are now to where you need to be. The best way to do this is to work out if it is emotionally based obstacles such as low self-confidence or if it is more of a practical limitation such as a lack of knowledge or training. Once you establish this, you can take the most appropriate action to overcoming what’s holding you back.
There are so many resources available to help guide your decisions going forward. Remember, you’re not alone on this journey and you really can use this situation as opportunity to broaden your world. Will you choose to see it as an ending or a beginning?
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