How to Recover from a Career Crisis Part 1
7/11/2024
How to Recover from a Career Crisis
If you have ever experienced any of the following, you have had a career crisis:
• Losing your job
• Being fired
• Burning out
• Not wanting to do your job for one more day
• Redefined job or seismic shift in career.
A career crisis can be caused either by someone else (being laid off) or by your own feelings (burning out).
Common Causes of Career Crises
There are many reasons why people experience career crises. Here are a few:
• Corporate downsizing
• Burnout
• Relocating for your spouse’s career
• Being fired
• Making the wrong career move
• Corporate politics
• Not fitting in
• Lost calling
Why a Career Crisis Is So Devastating
A career crisis is almost always devastating because it can impact your life in so many ways. Here are a few examples:
1. Money: Losing your income with no warning can be financially devastating.
2. Status: If your job gives you status or a professional identity, you may feel devastated without it.
3. Surprise: If the job loss happens without warning, you will probably feel shocked.
4. Self-esteem: You may feel embarrassed by what has happened.
5. Feeling alone: You are likely to lose friends and companions when you no longer work in the same place.
6. Feeling out of synch: Your regular routine may be disrupted.
7. Confusion: If the crisis happens because of burnout or for reasons inside yourself, you may feel confused about what to do next.
8. Effect on others: If people around you depend on your income and need you to be predictable, they may react negatively to your crisis.
9. Loss of Identity: Many times a career will help define who you are as a person especially if you see it as a calling. “ 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.” – Ecclesiastes 3:12 – 13. The loss can create a lack of interest, satisfaction and enjoyment in life.
Career Crisis: Who It Hurts the Most
A career crisis hurts you because it is devastating to your ego. The hurt tends to be greater when one gets a sense of identity and self-esteem from his or her job title, status, and income.
A crisis hurts your family because they must experience the emotional fallout that follows a crisis. Your family may also experience a feeling of lost self-esteem and status, especially if you were fired or laid off.
The Flashback Effect
A major loss like this sometimes can cause you to reach back into the past and reactivate unfinished business from a major loss, or a crisis from an earlier time.
For example, when Sharon was terminated after seven months at her dream job, she became very depressed. While depression is a normal reaction to such a loss, Sharon was reacting to losing her job and the similar feelings she had when she flunked out of a top university 12 years earlier. When she finally saw a therapist after a few weeks of depression following the job loss, she saw that she had never fully resolved her feelings about failing in college.
Here are some other points about recovery:
1. The process of recovering from a career crisis will happen on its own schedule. It can’t be rushed.
2. Every person responds to a career crisis differently. There is no right way to respond or to deal with it.
3. Depending on the circumstances, processing a career crisis can take years.
4. Build and use a support system. People need other people when they are experiencing such a crisis. A group of people who have experienced similar losses is especially helpful.
5. It is a good idea to find support outside of your family and friends. Even the most supportive may grow tired of hearing about your situation, or you may find yourself censoring your behavior to avoid alienating them. However, you still need help and a place to let your feelings out.
