Monday, June 13, 2005
Don't Take It Personally
The size of the employer you worked for makes little difference: no company wants to downsize. Cutting back staff is an acknowledgement of failure in that every business wants to expand and hire. Contraction is always painful.
The most pain, of course, is yours: you are the one without an income, without a routine, without the comfort of knowing what you'll be doing tomorrow or next week.
Try to look at your layoff as a logical business decision that had little to do with you as an individual.
If you take it personally, you may paint yourself into a corner bubbling with resentment and anger ("How dare they do that ... I was a much better worker than a lot of people who are still there!") Alternatively, you'll consume the energy you desperately need for a job search campaign in endlessly rehashing your performance and trying to identify what you did wrong.
It's not you, it's the economy, it's the world, it's life -- so lick your wounds and move on.
Eventually, you will learn to see the whole process as a growth spurt that brought you wonderful opportunities you might never had encountered without going through the pain.
The most pain, of course, is yours: you are the one without an income, without a routine, without the comfort of knowing what you'll be doing tomorrow or next week.
Try to look at your layoff as a logical business decision that had little to do with you as an individual.
If you take it personally, you may paint yourself into a corner bubbling with resentment and anger ("How dare they do that ... I was a much better worker than a lot of people who are still there!") Alternatively, you'll consume the energy you desperately need for a job search campaign in endlessly rehashing your performance and trying to identify what you did wrong.
It's not you, it's the economy, it's the world, it's life -- so lick your wounds and move on.
Eventually, you will learn to see the whole process as a growth spurt that brought you wonderful opportunities you might never had encountered without going through the pain.
