Being part of company layoffs can be tough to process.
In this article, I answer the question, how to process being laid off?
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Here’s the specific question I got for reference:
Hey Arnav, I lost my job 4 months ago. The first 2 months I think I did a good job of being mentally strong, however, the last 2 months, I’ve been feeling mentally off and low. Any thoughts on continuing to stay strong?
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- First thing I would reflect on is did I properly process the grief?
Your wording in this message is quite interesting, saying you did a good job of being mentally strong in the first couple months after getting laid off, maybe it indicates to me, you really never allowed yourself to process the anger with your company or the sadness of being laid off.
I think, as a defense mechanism, you said, you know, it is what it is, can’t grieve, let me move forward with life.
You have to understand, we’re humans. We’re not robots. We have emotions, we have feelings.
That’s my feeling. Obviously, you know better how you approached the situation.
If I am somewhat correct, I would tell you to give yourself time to process, be sad, be angry.
If you need to use your friends, family, therapy as a support network, use them.
By effectively allowing yourself to feeling your emotions and giving yourself time to just feel those, you’ll better properly move on.
2) Second, I would say is, I would encourage you to not associate your self esteem with this.
This is obviously much easier said than done, but what I would say is, it’s important to have perspective on being laid off, right?
The company didn’t do a good job of predicting/managing hiring, the leadership didn’t do a good enough job with business development to bring enough revenue, like when an individual is laid off, it rarely has anything to do with the individual, the problem resides with the leadership team.
I think a lot of people think I’m not as a good of an employee or characterize themselves as not enough, that’s not the case in being laid off. Firing, obviously, can be a different case, where it could be your fault, however, getting laid off, usually has more to do with the organization’s leadership than it does with you.
3)
I think, obviously, 4 months can feel like a lifetime and I have empathy for that.
Two things on this.
a) Realize most companies take time for hiring, especially bigger ones. Because of the HR processes in place, hiring can take 1 month.
b) I think you have to control what you control, and that’s your effort and your strategy.
Are you networking with people in the industry? Are you reaching out to existing connections in the industry? For every job posting, they’re may be a 100 other people applying. And so, how do you separate yourself — getting a reference to refer you or networking with others could help the process in getting your resume reviewed?
Are you making people aware you got laid off — maybe post on your social media and ask for help for anyone that knows of jobs that you’re looking for.