For many people, losing a job is not simply about losing employment.
It can mean losing a piece of yourself.
This is particularly true for people who have spent many years building successful careers. Over time, our work can become intertwined with our identity. We don't simply do the job anymore. The job becomes part of the answer to the question: Who am I?
I am an executive.
I am successful.
I am respected.
I am someone people depend upon.
I am good at what I do.
And then one day, sometimes with very little warning, the organization tells you that your position is no longer required.
The employment relationship ends, but the psychological consequences are only beginning.
"This Wasn't Supposed to Happen"
One of the most difficult aspects of unexpected job loss is the disruption of a fundamental assumption many successful people carry through life:
If I work hard, perform well, treat people properly and make good decisions, things will generally work out.
For many years, experience may have reinforced this belief.
Promotions happened.
Responsibilities increased.
Compensation improved.
People sought your advice.
Your career trajectory seemed to confirm that competence and effort produced predictable results.
Then something happens that doesn't fit the equation.
A restructuring.
A merger.
A new leadership team.
A cost reduction.
A political decision.
Your position disappears.
One of the most painful thoughts can become:
But I did everything right.
There is something strangely easier about losing a job because of an identifiable mistake. At least there is an explanation. You can examine what happened, learn from it and promise yourself that you will behave differently next time.
It can be much harder when there is nothing obvious to fix.
You are confronted instead with one of adulthood's more uncomfortable realities:
We have considerably less control over our lives than we sometimes imagine.
When a Company Becomes a Family
Long careers also create attachment.
Spend ten, fifteen or twenty years inside an organization and it becomes more than a workplace.
There are friendships, mentors, rituals, shared experiences, difficult years, celebrations and countless ordinary conversations. You may have hired people, developed them, promoted them and watched their families grow.
Without realizing it, the organization can begin to feel like a community — sometimes even a family.
Then you leave unexpectedly.
People you assumed would call don't.
People you considered close become strangely quiet.
Some former colleagues remain deeply supportive while others appear to disappear.
That silence can hurt almost as much as losing the job itself.
It can lead to painful questions:
Were those relationships real?
Did these people actually care about me?
Did they know something I didn't?
Why haven't they reached out?
There may be many explanations. People still inside the organization may feel uncomfortable, guilty or frightened. They may not know what to say. They may simply be absorbed in their own lives.
But understanding those explanations intellectually doesn't necessarily remove the hurt.
Job loss can therefore involve something very similar to grief.
You aren't simply grieving a position.
You may be grieving belonging.
The Emotional Roller Coaster of Looking for Work
Then the job search begins.
For someone who has experienced success for many years, this can introduce another unfamiliar experience: repeated rejection.
You have a great conversation with a recruiter and feel hopeful.
You get an interview and confidence returns.
You make the final round and start imagining yourself in the position.
Then nothing happens.
Or someone else gets the job.
Your confidence collapses.
A few days later another opportunity appears and suddenly everything feels possible again.
The emotional swings can be surprisingly intense.
And they can reveal something important:
How much of my self-esteem depends upon other people telling me that I am valuable?
There is nothing inherently unhealthy about external validation. Human beings need recognition, encouragement and belonging.
The question is one of degree.
If my internal sense of worth rises and falls entirely according to whether someone hires me, promotes me, praises me or wants me, then my psychological wellbeing is largely being managed by other people.
That becomes a precarious way to live.
Who Am I Without the Title?
This may be the deeper question underneath career loss.
When someone has spent decades achieving, solving problems and carrying responsibility, doing nothing can feel almost intolerable.
There is suddenly nowhere to go in the morning.
No urgent meeting.
No presentation.
No team waiting for a decision.
No organizational problem requiring your expertise.
Even financially secure people can experience enormous anxiety during this period.
That tells us something important.
The problem isn't necessarily money.
Sometimes the problem is identity.
Without the familiar professional structure, a person may be confronted with a question they haven't needed to ask for many years:
Who am I when I am not achieving something?
That can be an unsettling question.
But it can also be an important one.
The Difference Between Your Role and Yourself
A career is part of a life.
It should not have to carry the entire weight of a life.
We are also spouses, parents, friends, siblings, mentors, neighbours and members of communities.
We have values, interests, relationships, creativity and inner lives that existed before our latest job title and will continue after it disappears.
Intellectually, most of us know this.
Emotionally, it can be much harder to believe.
Particularly for people who have spent decades receiving reinforcement for achievement.
The work therefore isn't simply finding another job.
It may involve slowly separating two things that have become fused:
What I accomplish
and
what I am worth.
What Job Loss Can Teach Us About Organizations
Unexpected career disruption can also make us more realistic about organizational life.
Companies frequently talk about loyalty, culture, values and family.
Some of those relationships are genuine.
But organizations are ultimately organizations.
Economic circumstances change.
Leaders change.
Strategies change.
Priorities change.
People who once seemed indispensable suddenly aren't.
Recognizing this doesn't require becoming cynical.
It may simply mean becoming more psychologically realistic.
We can care deeply about our work without assuming the organization will always care for us in the same way.
We can develop meaningful relationships while understanding that employment relationships remain conditional.
And we can learn that doing excellent work is important, but relationships, visibility and organizational influence matter as well.
The challenge is learning how to navigate those realities without abandoning our integrity.
The Temptation to Solve the Problem Immediately
For successful people, the instinct after job loss is often predictable:
Fix it.
Update LinkedIn.
Call recruiters.
Network.
Apply.
Interview.
Get another position.
There is nothing wrong with any of this.
But sometimes frantic activity is also a way of avoiding grief.
If another impressive title arrives quickly enough, perhaps we won't have to confront what the loss stirred up inside us.
Sometimes the most productive question isn't:
What job should I get next?
It is:
What is happening to me?
That may require doing things that feel surprisingly unproductive.
Walking.
Writing.
Talking.
Spending time with family.
Sitting with uncertainty.
Paying attention to anger, sadness and fear rather than immediately trying to eliminate them.
The objective isn't to stop moving forward.
It is to understand ourselves before automatically recreating the life we just lost.
The Second Half of Life
Carl Jung believed that the psychological tasks of the second half of life are different from those of the first.
The first half naturally involves building.
Career.
Family.
Competence.
Security.
Identity.
Reputation.
These are legitimate achievements.
But eventually life begins asking different questions.
Not simply:
What can I accomplish?
But:
What actually matters to me?
What kind of person have I become?
What parts of myself have I neglected while becoming successful?
What do I want the next chapter of my life to be about?
Career disruption can force these questions upon us earlier or more dramatically than we would have chosen.
Nobody needs to pretend that makes losing a job a gift.
Loss is loss.
But sometimes the collapse of one identity creates enough space to discover another.
A Different Definition of Success
The ultimate goal may not be becoming less ambitious.
It may be becoming less dependent upon ambition to tell us who we are.
You can still want meaningful work.
You can still lead.
You can still build organizations, earn money, achieve difficult things and enjoy professional recognition.
But perhaps those things no longer need to carry your entire sense of worth.
There is an important difference between:
I am worthwhile because I am successful
and
I am worthwhile, and success is one of the things I enjoy pursuing.
That distinction can take years to understand.
Sometimes it takes an unexpected loss before we are willing to examine it.
And perhaps that is one of the deeper questions hidden inside a career transition:
If my old definition of success no longer tells me who I am, who might I become next?
James Leitch
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