How to handle a layoff

Many companies are struggling right now, and layoffs are happening across a variety of industries. As someone who’s been laid off, I know firsthand how unsettling it can be. 

When I was laid off back in 2015, I didn’t have the coaching tools I use now. I experienced a lot of panic, anxiety, and overwhelm during the five months I was unemployed and looking for work.

I did the best I could at the time, but looking back now as a coach and anxiety expert, I can see how I made the whole experience more painful than it needed to be. 

The good news is: just because I struggled doesn’t mean you have to. In fact, the best part of having lived this experience is that I can use it to help others handle their own layoff experiences more effectively. 

Most people think layoffs are really scary and upsetting. I know that was my experience. But here’s what I know now: being laid off doesn’t have to feel that way. 

This may sound like complete insanity, but hear me out. It’s not the layoff itself that is scary and upsetting. In fact, some people with jobs are dreaming of being laid off right now, and some people who have been laid off in the past will say it’s the best thing that ever happened to them.

How can this be true? It’s because our experience of anything - including being laid off - comes down to how we think about that experience. The reason that layoffs feel so stressful for most of us isn’t because of the layoff itself. The reason is actually because of our own thoughts about the layoff. For layoffs, I mainly see those stressful thoughts emerge in three specific patterns. 

• We think getting laid off means something bad about us as employees. Even people who know they’re high achievers struggle with this one (I know I did). There are many reasons why companies lay people off, most of them having little to do with the employees’ performance. Yet, many people take layoffs very personally. They lay awake at night wondering, if I’m as good as I think I am, why did they let me go? Instead of answering that question with a logical, helpful answer like, business went down 50% overnight, they answer the question with self criticism, assuming it must mean something bad about them in particular.

  No matter why you got let go, it’s not helpful to extrapolate that it means something about your value. The more you take being laid off personally, the harder it is to show up to your current job search. 

• We think getting laid off means we won’t have enough money and something terrible will happen as a result. This may seem like a logical fear, but the problem is, when we think this way, we feel really frantic and afraid, and that’s not the best energy for a thoughtful, effective job search (or for managing our money in the interim). On a biological level, when we imagine not having enough money, we’re putting our body into a stress response. Our body can’t tell the difference between us worrying about money and us actually facing a physical threat, like a predator. Once we’re in that fight or flight stress response, we actually can’t do a good job of managing our money or getting our next job lined up. Instead, we play out the fight or flight by alternately being angry at the layoff and trying to run away from it using numbing or avoiding behaviors. 

  So while this response seems to be based in logic, the behavior it creates is highly illogical, and what’s more, it blocks us from accessing the inner creativity and wisdom that will help us get a new job and return to financial security.

• We think layoffs, especially big layoffs across many industries, mean we won’t be able to get a new job. The problem with this thought pattern: if you think you won’t be able to get a new job, it is difficult to show up to your job search with commitment and follow through, because you are always expecting that it won’t work out. If that’s how you show up to your job search, then that is likely what will happen. Not because there aren’t jobs, but because you’re not really trying. Here’s the truth: you don’t need a ton of jobs. You only need on. And even during COVID-19, people are hiring. Not everyone is hiring. But again, you don’t need everyone. You only need to get ONE job. 

  Instead of arguing for why it will be hard to get a new job, argue for why you can do it. Arguing for why it’s hard will MAKE it hard. Arguing for why you CAN do it will feel much better and give you the resilience you need to keep showing up and doing the work for as long as it takes to get that next job. 

So what’s the solution?

In order to feel better and show up effectively as you manage being laid off and looking for a new job, you have to learn to think intentionally. 

Let me be very clear: you don’t have to like being laid off. This isn’t about brightsiding, positive thinking, or lying to yourself. I’m not saying that what you’re facing is easy. I am just saying that you can handle it and learning to think about it intentionally can help you do that. 

Instead of thinking it means something bad about you, you can think it means nothing about you as an employee and that now you have a chance to go do something new. You may even find, like I did, that your next job is an even better fit for you and your skills. When I was laid off, I was devastated, but the next job I got paid $20k more a year and I liked it better. 

Instead of thinking you won’t have enough money, you can decide to think about how you can use the money and other resources you have available to you. Worrying solves nothing. Instead, look at the worst case scenario and decide what you will do. Deciding ahead of time how you’ll handle things allows your brain to stop constantly spinning on the problem. 

Instead of thinking you won’t be able to get another job, you can think about how to be the one person who gets a job no matter the odds and no matter the current situation. When we focus on why it’s impossible, it becomes impossible. When we focus on how to do things no matter what, we make the impossible possible. Before someone ran a 4-minute mile, people thought it was biologically impossible. But then Roger Bannister ran a mile in 4 minutes. Now tons of people have run a mile in 4 minutes or less. Job searches are the same way. Don’t look to everyone else to see what’s possible. Be the Roger Bannister who shows everyone else what can be done. 

Layoffs are part of life sometimes. What we do with them is totally up to us. 

If you need help applying these tools, I’m currently accepting 1:1 clients and corporate speaking engagements. Click here to learn more.