I Lost My Job, Now What?

When someone loses their job people immediately try to console them, make them feel better, or tell them that their company was crazy for letting them go!

It’s normal, but it’s not what I’m going to be doing in this blog post.

This post is for people who may have just lost their job. In this post I’m going to be talking about things you can do to help you get back to making money, but also get to a point where you’re actually in a better position than you were before!

The first thing I want you to try to do, has nothing to do with applying for a new job…

Take Some Time to Reflect

Most of the time, when people lose their job, they get emotional or angry. Nobody likes being unemployed and people usually get pretty anxious the longer they go without a job. So, naturally as soon as people lose their job they start applying for the next one.

It’s a normal feeling, and probably a good sign that you’ve got your head in the right place! We all need to make a living to support our families!

But I encourage you to take some time to reflect. It’s an important thing to do in these situations. Assess yourself, your previous company, and your ideal game plan moving forward. Many of us skip this step and just jump back into a career similar to the one we just had. The problem with this is it doesn’t give us an opportunity to figure out if that was the right choice in the first place.

Find a Side Hustle if You Need More Time

If you feel you need a little extra time to decompress, reflect, and plan your next steps, don’t be afraid to pick up a side hustle or part-time job to help you pay the bills while you figure things out.

Freelancing is an option that I’m a pretty big fan of (site’s like fiverr, Upwork, freelancer are a few big ones). Delivering for Uber Eats is also a really reliable way to make some fast cash. You could even pick up a part-time job as a server at a local restaurant or cafe. All great options for earning cash to pay the bills while you explore yourself and properly plan your next steps!

Assess Yourself

Assessing yourself is important and often one of the hardest things to do when reflecting on our careers. It‘s easy to have rose-coloured glasses on when it comes to being honest about ourselves. It’s hard for people to point out their own flaws, reasons why they may have been fired, or things they could have done differently to create a different outcome. Especially after you’ve just been let go.

But it’s important to try.

Look yourself in the mirror and be open to the possibility that you might discover something that you can improve on, or reasons why you might have been the reason for your termination.

Even if this is the first time you’ve given self reflection an honest try, it’s a big part of being able to grow as a person. Very helpful for yourself personally and when it comes to finding your next role.

Reflect On Your Happiness

The next thing you should try to do is to reflect on your happiness. Specifically, were you happy doing what you were doing in your last job?

If you were, you can stop reading right here, start applying to the same type of job that you just left.

But if you weren’t happy doing what you were doing it’s time to figure out why you weren’t happy, and what might make you happy in the next one.

Try listing the 3 things you hated most in your last job:

• Did you hate the job itself?

• Did you hate your coworkers?

• Did you hate the number of days you needed to be in the office?

Next, list the 3 things you loved most in your last job:

• Did you love your coworkers?

• Did you love the office culture?

• Did you love the free snacks?

Write these things down and take them seriously. Most of us never give ourself the time to reflect on these things before bouncing from one job to the next. But it’s important and putting in the time to do this between jobs can save you a lot of disappointment down the road.

Conclusion

I’m no rocket scientist, but I know that taking the time to reflect on yourself, your past job, and your next job will help you find something that’s a better fit and more fulfilling for you. I’ve had my share of bad jobs, or jobs that were just a poor fit for me.

I hope this post helped encourage you to take the time to reflect, think about what makes you happy, and what you actually want to do.

We only have so much time on this beautiful planet, here’s to making the most out of it!

---

Who am I?

Mike Nardi is a freelance copywriter, YouTube content creator, and blogger. I make videos about fiverr, freelancing, and making money online. Visit me at: YouTube, Twitter, Newsletter, VERO