Think you might lose your job? Then get prepared now for life afterwards.

My good blog friend Peggy wrote this post about surviving the economic downturn in the US. I read a lot of HR blogs many of which are written from the American perspective. I am in no way an expert in UK employment law but I have realised that the rules on firing employees in the US must be quite different than here. I don’t thing it would be helpful to compare them here – just suffice to say that no matter where you are situated in the world , if you think you might lose your job sometime soon it will not feel good.

I suspect that most of that bad feeling is linked to losing control – mainly of your income. Or it might be about losing contact with your colleagues who also make up part of your social network. And disruption to your routine. There are other aspects that are bound to have an impact and one of the biggest  – in my own experience – was the feeling of rejection.

About 5 years ago I was made redundant. To be really clear in the UK the job becomes redundant – the person holding that job then has to go ( after some time is spent to see if they can be redeployed elsewhere in the organisation.)In my case my set of skills could have been used in a larger office elsewhere in the UK but I was not willing to move to another city  and my employer and I agreed that my employment should terminate. It was all done very caringly – and it was a good decision for both my employer and me. But I still felt rejected.

My husband let me have a little cry when I got home then asked me what I was going to do about my future.I mentioned the book Who Moved My Cheese  in recent post. It is about dealing with change and the message is that those who sense change coming can make plans for it so that when the “writing is on the wall” they know what to do.  I had known for some time that my job was unsustainable and had started to look at my options. The result was the birth of Cameron Consulting – and I have never been happier.

Working with clients over the past 5 years as a coach I realise that uncertainty at work is very common. Sometimes it is about changing roles or new colleagues that has the impact. Other times of course it is because of potential redundancies. At all times it is about change. How we respond to change has the potential to make us happy – or sadly, on the flipside, unhappy and maybe even ill.

So I am urging you to starting thinking now about how you will deal with – notice I did not say “cope with” – change.

• Tackle it head on
• Focus on  you in the middle of this
• Don’t wait for it to happen and then do something – prepare now.

How? Well if you want a quick fix then click away now. It will need some work on your part but I urge you to think about who you are and what you want for your future.

• What are you good at?
• What do you love doing? What gives you the biggest buzz – think about the last time you had that buzz. What was going on ?
• What kind of employer do you want to work for and what do you know about them at the moment – find out more!
• What kind of change to your current lifestyle would you be willing to make to try something out – lower salary, change of location?

I truly believe that when you have a clear idea about yourself then the journey into the next job  – which might be a stepping stone to the next  – will feel better.

Take at this post on the Positivity Blog which I guarantee will help you on your way!