So you've been let go... (Part 2/2)

7 actionable steps to help you move past your redundancy from someone who’s been there.

If you haven't already read Part 1 of this series, I would suggest you start here. Part 1 provides the initial steps to help one come to terms with being let go and start rebuilding your confidence.

In Part 2 I will be focused on taking advantage of your new reality. Being unemployed gives way to a sudden and at times, overwhelming expanse of free time. These are the steps I'd recommend to help build a healthy and positive frame of mind for your unemployed days as well as steps to best position yourself for your next career step.

4. Plan your days / weeks

Though I don’t advocate for keeping busy for busy’s sake in today's productivity-obsessed era, I have found it helpful to plan my days into 30min — 1hour increments. To clarify, I am someone who responds well to structure; it calms me.

Prior to the week ahead, I'll organise what I’ll be eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner and allow myself to look forward to cooking and eating these meals. I set aside 30 minutes to journal every morning and an hour to prepare and eat lunch. 

An example of my best self on my best day, without any coffee catch-ups or meetings, may look like this:

• 8–9am: Personal Training
• 9–9:30am: Cycle back from the gym, make breakfast
• 9:30–10am: Breakfast + Podcast
• 10–10:30am: Journal + Plan the day
• 10:30–11am: Admin
• 11–12pm: Draft/edit blog
• 12–1pm: Lunch
• 1–1:30pm: Edit blog
• 1:30–2:30pm: Start applying for Job 1
• 2:30–3:30pm: Start applying for Job 2
• 3:30–4:30pm: Online courses + Afternoon snack
• 4:30–5pm: Look for jobs

It’s the rare day in the week when I’ll actually commit to and complete 100% of these best-laid plans. Most days, I’ll complete ~60% of my intentions. In saying this, history has shown me that without this structure, I’d complete ~10% of these intentions on a good day. Focusing on the 50% net improvement keeps me motivated to improve rather than focusing on the incomplete 40%. 

I would also recommend becoming curious as to what gives you energy and what drains your energy. I'll optimise to have coffee catch-ups with people 2-3 days/wk. Given my extroversion I've found that despite any consistency in daily productivity, if I spend too many days/weeks with too little interaction with others, I'll tend to lose energy. Experimenting with different balances of exercise, cooking, coffee catch-ups, job applications and other priorities can help guide your future weeks.

Lastly, keep in mind that nobody is perfect and there have been many days where I've spent more hours on Netflix than I'd like to admit. Try to be kind to yourself on these indulgence days and begin again the next day.

5. Give yourself options

One of the fundamental cornerstones of negotiation is leverage. Options create leverage. 

It’s exceptionally hard to measure your self worth in isolation. Although it’s helpful to compare salary packages if you have kind friends who are willing to share such details with you but in their absence I’ve always found the best proxy is to gain a minimum of two job offers at the same time.

Starting with this end in mind, I see the job search as being analogous to a sales funnel. At the top of the funnel, you need leads / prospects i.e. job opportunities / interviews that need to be qualified, progressed and converted into a closed sale i.e. job contract. Ultimately, this comes down to: 

1. Creating a pipeline of quality companies and opportunities that you could genuinely see yourself fitting into culturally, and
2. Volume. 

I’ve certainly not mastered the balance of both and perhaps this economic environment will require more of both, but it’s easy to undermine one for the other. To clarify, volume doesn’t mean that you should send the same resume to every job opportunity — if you’re doing this, it’s likely you’re not specialising each resume & application enough— but it does mean keeping a finger to the pulse of the number of applications you’re completing per week/month.

Though negotiation doesn’t come easily to most people, there is no faster way to gain the confidence to do so than if you receive multiple, competing salary packages at the same time. This does not imply that one should always choose the opportunity with the highest monetary value — I certainly haven’t. But once it’s clear that there are obvious salary gaps between packages, it’s easier to see the variables you have available to you to negotiate. 

Further, if amongst the competing options, you ultimately choose the job opportunity with the lower salary package; you do so intentionally. Though it takes some extra work upfront, I believe there is nothing more empowering than providing yourself with options and reminding yourself that you hold the decision to choose your next step. 

6. Set goals that are outside your job-search

Though much of your time will be focused on your job search, there will likely be ebbs and flows in the overall interview process in the months that follow. Oftentimes the number of responses you receive from employers will be difficult to predict and it can be particularly disheartening if you’ve had a highly productive week but for all your efforts, see nothing but an empty inbox (or one full of rejections). FYI This is completely normal and par for the course. However as a result, it is important to subsidise your job search with other separate self-affirming, creative and self-empowering pursuits within your control.

One of the interesting pivots that have occurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is the plethora of digital content that’s been made available online for zero cost. Many digital learning sites include free trials, free downloads or free courses; including courses from prestigious Ivy League universities (e.g. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford). Personally, I’ve been spending time completing digital courses on Coursera, Udemy and Masterclass. Separately, I’m also completing a nutrition and strength-based training program. I’ve found it highly satisfying to keep myself accountable to specific goals outside of my job search where I’m able to measure and improve on the facets of my life that are 100% within my axis of control.

These external goals serve as a daily reminder to cultivate the complex mix of identities that exist within you by helping to rebuild your confidence and your conception of who you are and your ability to complete difficult things outside of the workplace.

If you’re unsure of what to do with your time, a useful prompt may be “What did you want to do when you were 7 y.o?” or “What would you be proud of yourself for having learnt/completed?” You don’t need to change your entire career to be able to cultivate and explore your inherent passions. When working full time, you would’ve spent app. 8hrs / day working, what if you were to spend 30 minutes or 1hr /day pursuing something for the pure joy of it?

7. Practice daily gratitude

Gratitude is a well known practice and yet it’s only been relatively recently that I’ve adopted this as part of my daily routine. Since I have, it’s had a profound impact on how I personally engage with the world. So much of our perceptions and experiences exist in relatively unexamined mental habits and though I don’t go so far as to prescribe to the magic of “The Secret” or the law of attraction, I do believe there’s a higher correlation to one’s own happiness if you can train your mind to practice appreciation.

Gratitude comes in many different shapes and sizes and doesn’t need to come in glamorous un-boxings or significant life-changing events. The reality is that our lives aren’t filled with extravagant, Facebook-worthy (or Linked-In-worthy) posts 365 days a year. During these last 9 months, I’ve been surprised by what I’ve been grateful for; ranging from my health to the amount of natural light in my bedroom. I’ve had sullen days where it was difficult to scrape three things together and other days where the most innocuous things made it great i.e. making a perfect egg omelette or getting 7 hours of deep sleep.

Learning to be perceptive and grateful for the small things that make up our days can be meaningful in providing perspective. An interesting gratitude prompt I’ve used is “What 3 problems are you thankful for today?” 

For my daily practice, I currently use the Five Minute Journal. In the morning, it prompts you with the following: 

1. To be grateful for 3 things. 
2. Asks “What will I do to make today great?” 
3. Prompts you with a daily affirmation, “I am…”. 

In the evening, it prompts you to 

1. Identify “3 Amazing things that happened today”, and 
2. Asks “How could I have made today even better?”

Though I’m conscious I write from a place of privilege where I have the flexibility to pursue the job hunt with relatively reduced financial stress, I truly believe in and value making the most of our time. 

Time is our most valuable asset and though it’s hard to always stomach, particularly in our unemployment, it’s during these times we have more of it than we know what to do with. I would encourage you to pursue the things that you’ve been afraid of pursuing and be willing to experiment! Sometimes the worst things that happen to us can become the best things to have happened to us, if we take the time to make it so.

Though I don’t pretend to be thriving in my post-redundancy unemployment every single day, these seven steps have genuinely helped me to make the most of this opportunity. If you’ve read til the end, I hope this has helped and wish you luck and love on your journey. And if you have any feedback on any steps that resonated particularly with you, please let me know - I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Love,

Juri