Being laid off doesn’t just mess with your paycheck. It messes with your identity.
Over the last ten years, I’ve been laid off twice.
And I won’t sugarcoat it: each time was humiliating and it made me seriously question my worth.
But those experiences taught me several life-changing lessons on how to survive a layoff and thrive mentally, financially, from a deep place internally so that so that no company ever again gets to decide how powerful or confident I feel.
If you’ve just been laid off, or you’re living with the fear that you might be, stay with me.
In this episode, we’ll talk about surviving and rebuilding after a layoff in a way so you cannot be broken or shaken by a company’s decision ever again.
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First of all, let’s talk about mentally dealing with a layoff.
Your value did not decrease just because you’ve experienced a layoff.
I know that the layoff has happened to YOU, but it is crucial to separate the event from your identity.
For many of us, especially if you tend to be a high achiever, our work isn’t just what we do. It is who we are. So when that identity disappears overnight, it feels like a threat to the person you have been building up to your whole life.
But a layoff is an organizational decision, not a character assessment. In a book i was reading recently called All the Cool Girls Get Fired, there are stories upon stories of women who busted their behinds to work hard, who turned whole business units around, and just when they thought, I have worked too hard to be let go, they were let go. And it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the fact that it was a business decision.
So yes, I know your brain will insist on make it personal. But if you’re going to turn this setback into a comeback, it’s important that you avoid this. Here’s what helped me and what I recommend to others now:
Step 1: Avoid asking “What’s wrong with me?”
That question feels logical, but it’s actually hurts more than it helps.
Instead, it’s important to realize that business is about budgets, timing and spreadsheets and when push comes to shove, no matter how a company tries to say “we are family” when the decision comes to cut you, it is not personal, it is business.
Step 2: Create a decompression window
If you can, give yourself 24–72 hours where your only job is to stabilize.
Not hustle. No rebrand. Not update LinkedIn.
Just stabilize.
Your nervous system needs to calm down so you can think clearly.
Step 3: Name and feel the loss
Say it out loud or write it down: I lost my job today. That means my routine will change. It means I cannot say I work at ABC company any more. That hurts.
If the company still allows you to have health insurance for the first few weeks of that layoff, I highly recommend that you use some of those benefits to chat with a mental health professional. From my experience, talking with someone about this loss is helpful and gives you perspective you didn’t consider before.
How to Survive a Layoff Financially
Now let’s talk money. It’s normal to panic about this because we live in a financial world.
So if you need to de-compress for a few days before coming back to this, it’s understandable. But it will be important to get back to this at some point.
When you do, here are some suggestions to consider immediately:
- Do a runway audit. Are you getting some sort of severance package? If you are that’s great news. It means you have a financial runway. But even severance packages end. So whether you are getting a severance package or not.
- Evaluate your other income sources. I’ve had side businesses since 2017. It started with ghostwriting while I was still a postdoctoral researcher at a university – but now that has grown to include things like having this YouTube channel, writing books and speaking. And so, it was helpful to consider those sources, see how they could contribute to my household income and bills and plan around that.
- Go through your bank account. What are standard monthly payments you cannot do away with? And what are you flexible on? Are there subscriptions you could do without for the time being? Get rid of them ASAP.
- If you have payments coming up on car, house, credit cards etc, it may be helpful to call them to give you some relief. Some of these companies will.
- If you like going to Marshalls and TJ Maxx like me, it’s time to take a break. I know. It’s painful. But you’ll get through this.
- I never did this just because I don’t like any paperwork that involves the state government (just my own personal problems, don’t mind me) filing for unemployment also helps and can be a source of money for a while. So look into that.
The Internal Rebuild
Now let’s talk about your internal rebuild.
Your value doesn’t decrease just because you have experienced a layoff. It’s important to re-affirm this to yourself consistently.
Whatever you do, don’t outsource your identity or confidence.
For a long time, I didn’t realize how much of my self-worth was being propped up by the fact that I have a PhD, or was affiliated with a particular company or institution. External validation is nice and it is the lens through which many of us are proud to be perceived.
Getting a PhD. Attending an Ivy League institution. Working for a Fortune 500 company.
Those things are nice. But if you allow your identity and confidence to be held up by them, when something like a layoff enters the chat, it can really mess with your mind. So it is important to build opportunities for yourself that have nothing to do with those pillars.
The first way you do this:
1. Reclaim your career capital narrative.
Your skills and knowledge are your own. You don’t lose them with a layoff. You know a lot. You’ve solved a lot of problems. You’ve developed skills. And you’ve created value for the companies you worked at for years. This is your career capital and it allows you to make the career moves you want.
In 2018 and 2019, during the period when I had gone through a layoff and a firing, leveraging my career capital is what helped me build a freelance business that ultimately launched my current career in scientific communications. During this period, I asked myself for the first time in my life, “Okay, G, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want your career to really look like? ” I’d always enjoyed writing. And wrote a lot during my PhD. Plus as a former research scientist, I had the research skills to be able to learn anything I set my mind to. A lot of people may not think about this about career capital but it is! By recognizing these about myself, I started writing content for businesses in the healthcare, biotech and health technology spaces and that helped me create an entirely new career path.
Those skills have continued to grow over the years as I have worked in science writer and science communicator roles.
The skills of writing, communication, the scientific knowledge I have, even running a business of my own on the side are skills nobody can take away from you. And even with a year of two of experience you have done the same and nobody can take those skills away from you even if they lay you off.
And this is how you’re going to frame your comeback.
2. Build a project.
During that post-layoff period use your skills to build a project. From experience and reading the stories of other people who have gone through a layoff, that project can become your next thing or it could become the launchpad for your next role. I talked about building a freelance writing business and how that helped me with my science writing career. Also, cultivating my personal brand via LinkedIn and YouTube have helped me land things like paid speaking engagements and even more recently, get a book contract with an academic press.
Building a project during this time does a few things:
- You are busy and using your skills. I found this to bring me a sense of purpose and plus it gave me something to look forward to each day beyond spending my whole day looking for jobs.
- Building a project can really be an opportunity engine that keeps giving and giving.
- It can be a source of income for you.
This last bit of how to survive a layoff happens before a layoff ever happens.
While you’re employed full-time, take advantage of every financial opportunity that comes your way.
- Max out your 401k
- If all you can do is put $10 in an emergency fund each month, do that.
- As much as possible, take care of your high-interest consumer debt – credit cards, car notes, etc. Take care of them.
- Learn about money by reading books about how money works.
A layoff is not a moral failure. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. The biggest lesson that layoffs have taught me is that every day when I wake up, I am in the business of ME. You are also in the business of YOU. So let’s wake up every day and optimize for US.