Reclaiming Your Worth After Redundancy: Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs

When speaking with my clients who have been made redundant, I can see them struggling with the idea that it wasn’t their fault. Intellectually, they know it wasn’t, but it’s another thing entirely to really believe it. These negative thoughts about their layoff permeate how they feel about themselves and their value and directly impacts the actions they take or don’t take – be it in their time away from work or in their efforts to secure their next role.

Why is that?

It’s because they’re all connected. Our thoughts drive our feelings, which drive our actions. So if you’re thinking that your role being made redundant is somehow your fault – in any way, shape or form – you are carrying around the emotions that match that thought. These emotions vary from person to person, but are generally negative and can include shame, embarrassment, or disappointment. As a result, you may resist applying for roles, procrastinate endlessly, talk yourself out of networking, etc. creating a negative cycle that reinforces your negative thoughts.

So what do you do?

Get curious about your thoughts and then work toward a different one.

When negative thoughts like ‘my redundancy was my fault’ appear – get curious. What’s driving this thought? Where’s it from? How is it impacting you? Do you believe it?

Once you understand this negative thought, then you can lessen the hold of it and begin to shift toward a new thought.

Your new thought can come in any shape or size you want, but in working with clients who have been made redundant, including the following two elements can be helpful:

1. Identify your key strengths

• What is true about you at work? What are you awesome at? Maybe you’re an empathetic leader who rocks at helping people discover their potential or a tenacious product owner who doesn’t settle for subpar customer experiences.

• By focusing on your strengths, you are leaning into something you control. When something external has created a significant change in our life, it can leave us feeling uprooted – shifting the focus to something in our control helps us feel grounded and can remind us to be proud of our accomplishments.

• Identify 2-3 strengths that evoke positive emotions, like pride, joy, etc. just by thinking about them. You may find it helpful to write these down and put them somewhere you can see them.
  

2. Depersonalize your redundancy

• Did you work on a big bet that didn’t pay out? Did you support a project that had seen significant funding reductions? Was your role part of an expansion that isn’t happening anymore?

• Land on a depersonalized reason for your redundancy that you can believe. You’ll know if you believe it based on your emotional response – if your brain screams BS, it’s not the right one. We’re aiming for a thought that is neutral to positive in your body.

• It can be helpful to add this to your list of strengths as a reminder.

Once you’ve landed on the reframed thought – use it. When the old thought pops up, remind yourself of the new one. When someone asks you about your redundancy, draw on the new thought to tell the story.

It’s okay if it takes time, practice or if the new thought evolves as you use it. That’s all totally normal. The idea here is that you don’t have to carry around thoughts that don’t serve you, that make you feel poorly and get in the way. Coaching can help with letting go of limiting beliefs, if you’re interested in learning more, reach out.