What to Do After Losing a Job so As Not to Go Crazy

If you have been fired or fired, you may feel like your world has come to an end. Of course, a lot of your life has just come to an end, and it’s terrible. You may struggle with worries about your finances, which then spill over into problems with housing, food, health care, education, and leisure, as well as worries about your personality.

But before you do anything else, start here:

Remember who you are other than an employee

As soon as you get fired from your job, you disconnect from a part of your personality, so to ground yourself, remember that there are many other aspects of who you are, in addition to being an employee of some company, Inc.

Refocus yourself and spin yourself up by opening a note app (or pulling out a real pen and paper) and listing everything you still are. You can be a parent, a brother, a sister, a best friend, a woodworker, an amateur sommelier, a connoisseur of romance novels, a quick-witted, compassionate listener, a morning runner… and the best parts of each of you will help you break out of your post-work apathy.

Go back to your list. What of what you wrote down will be of immediate help to you? Let them become your mantras. If you wrote that you are resourceful, repeat this to yourself as you start looking for networking opportunities. If you write down that you are determined, repeat this over and over as you fill out job applications. Did you say that you are pragmatic? Keep this in mind if you don’t land an interview right away because you know you’re far from the only person looking for a job.

Review your budget

No matter how many positive affirmations you repeat throughout the day, you won’t be able to completely get rid of the stress associated not only with losing a significant part of your schedule, but also with your financial stability. Even if you’ve had other small jobs or side jobs outside of work, the simple fact is that temporarily you just don’t earn what you used to earn.

Login to your online banking platform and look at your current account, then open a spreadsheet program on your computer. Start by listing all the expenses that have been deducted from your total for the last month: rent, haircut, streaming subscription, coffee, dog toys, new clothes, art supplies for your child’s science fair project. In the column next to each expense, mark its cost. Now start reorganizing the spreadsheet into multiple columns. In the first, list the things that are absolutely necessary. Next, list the things you don’t need but that bring you joy. In the final add unnecessary expenses. In other words, put aside all the things you can really do without, at least for now.

Take some time and evaluate your speakers honestly. You will probably move a few things the more you think about them. Calculate how much the deductions cost for each column. The total of the first section is what you need to survive. The amount of this second section is what you can consider as a bonus, hope to earn and can spend if the first column is met. In the meantime, reduce all expenses in the last column.

Plan for savings, especially if you receive some kind of severance pay. Your company should have told you if you were receiving severance pay or any other payment when you were fired, but if not, write to your HR representative.

Be sure to review your rights , apply for unemployment benefits if you qualify , and review your health insurance options . All of this can be done within the first few days of losing your job, and you’ll feel better just getting started.

Consider new career options

For some reason, your old job didn’t work out. Even if you enjoyed it, someone with decision making power made the choice to take you out of it, which can hurt, but can also be a reminder that everyone has different skills, needs, and ambitions. You can use this opportunity to hone what you have, even if you’re in a hurry to just get back to some payroll.

For the first few days, you might want to wallow in sadness and apply for all sorts of jobs to see if anything sticks. This is completely normal. Income security and health insurance will take away a lot of your stress. However, you should also use this time to connect with what you really want. Think about how you felt at the job that let you go. Have you been in your dream company, working in your dream industry? This answer can change from day to day as you sink deeper into unemployment and go through stages of grief—one day you may miss your job, the next day you are filled with anger at the mere thought of it.

Take the online aptitude test. There are plenty of free quizzes out there , and while no online quiz can magically or definitively tell you what you should be doing with your life, even answering the questions can help you figure out what you’d like to do in the future. . Also find a mentor – seek advice from people in your industry whom you admire.

And don’t lose sight of the fact that things will get better .