Imagine going into work and your supervisor tells you that your position has been eliminated and you will be let go immediately.
Sadly, this is a reality for some, and when it happens during the holidays, it makes it a lot harder to deal with. Perhaps you have a game-plan to find a new job but how do you enjoy the holidays with this situation looming over your head.
I hope the following advice helps you keep a positive outlook if you are faced with this dilemma.
First, did you even enjoy your job? Chances are that when we underperform at work, it is because we are in an unfulfilling position. Going into a job that doesn’t satisfy you takes a toll on your mental health and performance. If this was your case, then perhaps this is a blessing in disguise.
Some say that “success is good but failure is better.” Failure can be the best catalyst for success.
Think Progression
How you think of the experience of losing your job plays an important role in your ‘bounce-back’ ability. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, commonly known as CBT proves that obstructive thought patterns and behaviors when ‘reframed’ result in more effective thought and behavior patterns, which will facilitate the attainment of your goals.
Become aware that unique patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are critical factors in our experiences, both good and bad. Since these patterns have such a significant impact on our experiences, it follows that altering these patterns can change our experiences.
If we see failure as an opportunity to rewrite the narrative and propel us, then success is more likely to manifest. However, if our perspective of failure is negative, then success is more likely to not materialize.
Avoid Regression
Cognitive distortions are inaccurate thoughts that reinforce negative thought patterns or emotions (Grohol, 2016). According to studies, there are 15 main cognitive distortions that can afflict even the most well-adjusted intellectual.
Filtering: indicates a person can discount constructive and suitable methods to emphasis only on the negative.
Polarized Thinking / Black-and-White Thinking: is all-or-nothing thinking … seeing yourself as an absolute failure
Overgeneralization: Taking a specific event in time and exhausting it as the solitary piece of confirmation for an all-encompassing end.
Jumping to Conclusions: Involves faulty reasoning in how one makes conclusions. Unlike overgeneralizing one incident, jumping to conclusions refers to the tendency to be sure of something without any evidence at all. Some of those are the following:
Catastrophizing / Magnifying or Minimizing: Involves expecting that the worst will happen or has happened, based on an incident that is nowhere near as catastrophic as it is made out to be.
Personalization: An individual believes that everything they do has an impact on external events or other people, no matter how irrational that may be. A person with this distortion will feel that he or she has an exaggerated role in the bad things that happen around them.
Resiliency
With the experience of failure, resilience is the ability to “bounce back” from difficult times while holding a positive sense of self. Understand that adversity is just another element of life.
Your psychological elasticity will give you the power to move things when the failure arrives and being able to produce and calculate some distinctive choices in order to counter successfully to any situation.
What Can You Do This Holiday To Weather A Job Loss
Written by Ed Sipler in “The Bouncing Back” textbook, he explains that “there are many things we can do to build our resilience. Feeling connected, getting actively involved, looking after ourselves physically and mentally, building our skills and believing we are good at something” helps in the initial process of addressing failure.
Know that you tend to demonstrate resilience more often than you think. When you that the initiative to look failure in the face and address it head-on – that is you being resilient!
Remember that you are what you think.
God Bless You!
