Fight a Job Loss Successfully in 6 Steps

Written by Siddhartha Bhattacha Jun 07, 2009 www.jobsarticle.com

100,000 jobs have been lost around the world in this year alone. Some are struggling to save a job while others are going through emotional turmoil, financial distress, breaking relationships and staring at a bleak future. The dreaded “Pink Slip” is happening faster than we can imagine. Many will not make it to live a happier life, but some will weather the storm and come out stronger and evolved.

Accept, don’t procrastinate

When recession hits employees get hit harder. Most entrepreneurs are accountable for increasing shareholders wealth and hence social objectives may take a back seat. Businesses globally view; employees are a resource that can be dispensed with in times of crisis. Moving from a platform of disbelief to one of acceptance can help to reconcile with present. This is step one of handling drastic change. Accept as you would at the loss of a near and dear one without any guilt. During a calamity, disaster strikes one and all, few escape unscathed while others are scarred. Reality spares none.

Slide into discomfort zone to move into a new zone of comfort

People resist change because of a perceived discomfort. A baby is reluctant to stand upright for the pain, sacrifice and effort involved. However, due to compulsions and limited options there comes a point when the baby stretches to stand up right. With every successive effort the confidence grows, leading to independence. The key to dealing with fear of failure is placing one small step into zone of discomfort and gradually building your new comfort zone.

Course correction

A seasoned mid-career professional lost his job in a down turn environment. He applied for new opportunities with little or no response. The ones in offer were not commensurate with his experience. Continuous research and net surfing helped him to look at his old interest in the area of training and development. A chance discussion with a friend led to eventual engagement as a consultant mentor commencing the start of a new found career. Be prepared to introspect, and take risks.

Engage for success

Our animal instinct is predatory; hence it is important to have a sense of accomplishment. Engage in activities that drain you out emotionally and physically. Accomplishment, big or small helps to restore the lost pride and hence bedroom games provide the best booster. Waking up to a new morning and looking at a new day is invigorating. Small milestones need to be established for the day so that one can get a sense of achievement even it is apparently trivial. If you like photography shoot pictures. Do what you like.

People alone can help people

Connect with people close to you friends, relatives, office network, and social network. People help people, and self help is the best help, are two sides of the same coin. Losing a job does not necessarily mean losing an acquaintance. While, normal human tendency is to shun failures, these are unpredictable times and hence some sane mind and kind heart would reach out to help. Like all good salespeople know, business gets closed into an order by asking for it and not assuming it would happen. So reaching out and asking for help is the best option to find a new job, or get a good reference.

Dare to dream

Re cast your dream. You may have taken up a career you did not want, so do some soul searching and dream afresh. This may be the time for you to look at life and career afresh. Introspection may help find answers to the gaps that lie between what you aspired to do, vis-à-vis capabilities needed to succeed. The important thing is to translate that dream into reality and hence setting a goal to make it happen is an essential first step. Capability can be scaled up with little investment and high commitment. Steve Jobs came back to Apple and his wandering mind led to a disruptive innovation like IPOD which is a runaway success in personal entertainment system. Express the compelling, yet unstated and unfulfilled needs of others and soon you have a business proposition.

Like heart beats which appear as a series of spikes in an ECG report, some of us will have ailments and hence the spikes will vary but spikes will be there till the day it becomes a straight line indicating death. Similarly our careers will be subject to waves due to external and internal factors, and hence a set of achievable actions blending short term needs and long term goals can help mitigate our problems.

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