Change – From the Beginning

You’ve lost your job. Maybe you knew it was going to happen. Maybe you didn’t. In any event you have lost something. It was an activity to which you gave a third of your time week after week. It got you out of bed five days a week.


In our culture we expect that if you lose your job you just shake yourself off and go find another. Don’t look back. Just forge ahead.

But that’s not really true is it? It was a significant part of our life, so love it or hate it we have a lot of emotion wrapped up in it. You may get angry. “How could they do this to me after the loyalty I gave them; all the hard work; all the extra hours?” You may not feel like being around people as you “sort things out.” Or you feel friends and colleagues pulling away from you as if you had some kind of contagious disease. You may feel unfocused and unable to concentrate as you wander through the house trying to decide how to proceed. Denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, these are the five stages of grief and you are experiencing them. In order to successfully move on grief must be acknowledged.

How? Journalize your feelings. Take walks and meditate on what the job meant to you. Hold an Irish wake. Acknowledge the loss in some way that has meaning to you. As you mourn your loss, become aware that you have survived it. You are a hero. You have the courage and heart to move on and at the risk of sounding melodramatic you are the Phoenix who will rise from the ashes. Okay. That’s a little over the top. Nevertheless, the thought, as silly as it may seem may be just the catalyst to help you move on.

As you deal with your loss, start to evaluate its qualities. How did you really feel. Were you secretly glad because you really did not like the work, the company’s culture, your colleagues? Maybe you truly loved your job and would love to do the same thing again. Whatever those thoughts and feelings acknowledge them, they will be the premise on which you formulate the plans for the new home you are building. That is part of the process, too.

To begin, make two lists. The first one is a list of all the things that you liked about your job. Beside each one write why you liked it. The second list is what you disliked about your job and why you disliked it.

What are you going to do with this information? Ahhh….more on that next time.