Redundancy - Disaster or Opportunity?

When your job is made redundant, it’s all to easy to see it as a disaster - as though you’re unwanted, unloved and you’ve been assigned to the scrap heap. Even if you’re quite happy to leave the job you’re in, and move on, you may go through a period of ‘mourning’, of feeling rejected and wondering whether it was somehow your fault.

However, redundancy can also be an ideal opportunity to do something you’ve always dreamed of, especially with a handy cash injection to get you started.

So how can you avoid the post-redundancy blues and turn redundancy to your advantage?

Stay Positive

First and foremost, it’s important to recognise that it’s your job that’s been made redundant, not you. It’s nothing personal. You’re still a valuable and useful member of society. Your employers are simply reacting to the current economic climate in the best way they know. If the economy recovered next week, they would no doubt want you back - but you might not want to go. Their loss, not yours!

Despite the picture of doom and gloom painted by the media, there are still jobs that need to be done, and people who are looking for specifically what you have to offer. It might just take a little longer than before, to connect with the right people.

Stay Confident

If you’ve been working in the same job or industry for a long time, you may be feeling like you’ve lost part of your identity, as our identity and feelings of self-worth are often firmly linked to the job we do. You may be uncertain about what to do next, especially if there have been a lot of redundancies in your industry, or if you’ve been in the same industry for most of your working life.

Be kind to yourself. Go for walks in the park, by the sea or in the countryside, visit friends, go to an art gallery or a matinee performance… This isn’t just being idle, or burying your head in the sand. It’s giving your creative side an opportunity to express itself. The chances are, it didn’t get much of a look-in when you were at work - so allow yourself to play for a while, and see what ideas come up about what you want to do next.

Stay Motivated

When you’re considering your options, ask yourself “why would I apply for this job?” or “why would I set up this business?”. If the answer to that question is nothing more than “to pay the bills”, you might want to choose something else, or adopt a different attitude. If your heart isn’t in what you’re applying yourself to, your prospective clients and employers will notice it in your words and your body language. It’s a bit like asking someone out on a date, not because you fancy them, but because you’re just desperate to go out with anyone!!

Motivation is only a problem when you’re trying to make yourself do something you don’t really want to do. If you can find something that inspires you, you won’t be able to wait until the alarm goes off before leaping out of bed in the morning, to get stuck into it!

Be Persistent

Once you’re clear about what you want to do, keep doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal, bearing in mind that it might take longer than you anticipated, and you might need to do something else to keep paying the bills in the meantime. If it’s truly what you want, then no amount of waiting, or obstacles will prevent you from getting where you want to be.

What Next?

If you’re unsure about what to do next, and you’d like some help working out who you really want to be when you grow up, feel free to contact me through my website.