Rebuilding Your Confidence

When you lose your job for any reason, what suffers the most? Certainly, you have lost income. And, you may lose some prestige. But, the biggest hit comes to your confidence. Before the job loss, everything was pretty good. You had a job, or a career. You had an income. You had somewhere to go everyday and contribute - it made you feel good and you had confidence.

But, now, after losing a job, your confidence might be shattered. If it's been more than two days since you lost your job, you have to begin to put your confidence back together - NOW. How do you re-gain you confidence?

First, know that you have something to contribute to the success of any organization. You have a special and unique gift to give it, When you lost your job, you did not lose the knowledge you gained or the experience you have. You have lost nothing but a job. You still have your knowledge, skills, abilities, experience and interests. There are 100's of companies and organizations that can benefit from what you have to offer.

Take a moment, or several to examine what you have. If you could program a computer before you lost your job, you still have the knowledge and skill. If you were a car mechanic, you are still a car mechanic - you still have the knowledge and skills. If you were a landscape architect, you still have the knowledge of plants and what kind of plant is best used in an application. Do you begin to understand? I know I have mentioned it before, but it's worth reminding you.

So, confidence begins to re-emerge as you really understand that you still have important knowledge to offer a company.

Confidence also comes from accomplishment. I am not referring to world changing accomplishment. I am referring to little things, because that is where most people start re-building and re-gaining what could be missing - by taking small steps.

A few posts back I wrote about the importance of establishing a schedule. Having a schedule has a number of benefits and one of them is looking back at the end of the day to see what you have done; to see what you have accomplished. Even if the accomplishments are small, you have done something! When you establish a schedule, you are setting small goals. When you reach your goals - even the small ones - take a moment to celebrate the victory.

Sure, your victories and triumphs might be small, but regardless of the size, they are still victories. What do I mean? Maybe just getting out of bed might be an accomplishment the first day. Or maybe sending out ten resumes before noon might be the goal you achieve. It could be establishing a schedule and following it. Any and all of these are accomplishments - it means you have done something! It means you can look back at the end of the day and celebrate.

You string together a few days of being able to celebrate doing little things and you begin to re-gain and build your confidence. It's not all going to come at once. Confidence might only return one step at a time, but it does return when you celebrate your victories and the act of doing.

Establish a schedule and set goals. Your confidence will return.