While everyone grieves differently, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to mourn the loss of your job. It can be easy to turn to habits such as drinking too much or bingeing on junk food for comfort. But these will only provide fleeting relief and in the long-term will make you feel even worse. Acknowledging your feelings and challenging your negative thoughts, on the other hand, will help you deal with the loss and move on.
- Give yourself time to adjust. Grieving the loss of your job and adjusting to unemployment can take time. Go easy on yourself and don’t attempt to bottle up your feelings. If you allow yourself to feel what you feel, even the most unpleasant, negative feelings will pass.
- Write about your feelings. Express everything you feel about being laid off or unemployed, including things you wish you had (or hadn’t) said to your former boss. This is especially cathartic if your termination was handled in an insensitive way.
- Accept reality. While it’s important to acknowledge how difficult job loss and unemployment can be, it’s equally important to avoid wallowing. Rather than dwelling on your job loss—the unfairness, how poorly it was handled, the ways you could have prevented it, or how much better life would be if it hadn’t happened—try to accept the situation. The sooner you do so, the sooner you can get on with the next phase in your life.
- Avoid beating yourself up. It’s easy to start criticizing or blaming yourself when you’re unemployed. But it’s important to avoid putting yourself down. You’ll need your self-confidence to remain intact as you’re looking for a new job. Challenge every negative thought that goes through your head. If you start to think, “I’m a loser,” write down evidence to the contrary: “I lost my job because of the lockdown, not because I was bad at my job.”
- Think of your job loss as a temporary setback. Most successful people have experienced major setbacks in their careers but have turned things around by picking themselves up, learning from the experience, and trying again. You can do the same.
- Look for any silver lining. The feelings generated by losing a job are easier to accept if you can find the lesson in your loss. That can be very difficult at such a low point in your life but ask yourself if there’s anything you can learn from this experience. Maybe your unemployment has given you a chance to reflect on what you want out of life and rethink your career priorities. Perhaps it’s made you stronger. If you look, you may be able to find something of value.
