How to cope with losing your job

How to cope with losing your job

Losing your job is no doubt one of the most stressful, overwhelming, and challenging times in your life. The thought of being unable to support your family, fulfilling your own needs and wants, watching your savings depleting by the day can adversely affect your mood, your motivation, and put a strain on your relationships. All these combined can become a severe cause of anxiety and depression. 

According to research, people who have recently lost a job, downsized, or they are in-between jobs, are more prone to mental health issues than those having a relatively stable life due to job security. The reason for this is losing a job is almost similar to losing your identity. It is as if you are no longer able to perceive yourself the way you used to and also the people around you stop associating you with a certain persona. By virtue of this, losing a job brings the kind of uncertainty in life that your future seems all dull, and falling into a dark abyss becomes inevitable. You really cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel! 

For times like these, when your self-esteem and self-confidence are beyond shattered, you are advised to take certain measures in order to get back on your feet, search for hope, and start pushing yourself again to find your purpose and identity.  The right coping techniques and developing some new, healthy habits can help you overcome these setbacks and assist you in focusing on what truly matters; You!

Here are some healthy mechanisms to cope with stress, anxiety, and depression that your unemployment has brought you:

  • Seek therapy: Talking about your feelings and what goes through your mind every day to a professional in the field of psychology/psychiatry is not only a way of catharsis but also makes you realize that it is okay to not be okay. You do not have to carry the burden of the entire world on your shoulders. Unemployment depression is real and must not be ignored at any cost. Also, there are so many platforms now offering online and in-person therapy sessions. Get help, get better!
  • Start meditating: As you may have heard before, meditating brings a myriad of eminent benefits in your life. One of them is increased focus. Meditation is proven to help you achieve peace of mind and in turn, enhance your focus on the tasks that you are set out to do. For instance, you are able to set new goals for yourself, the ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, time-bound, and realistic. Perhaps you are planning to write down a new cover letter. If you have started your day with meditation, your flow of ideas when you sit on your desk to work will be smoother and you will feel more productive. 
  • Learn new skills: While losing a job is the kind of adversity that triggers a lot of negative emotions, at the same time there is some silver lining as well; a lot of free time at your hands. You can use it to hone your existing skills and learn new ones. The job market is ever-changing and demand for people who are experts in a certain field is increasing by the day. So do not rely on the skills and capabilities you needed in your last job, rather equip yourself with those highly sought after by employers. 
  • Reach out to friends and family members for help: You must realize how important this is! Albeit being moody is a natural outcome of job loss and you may not help getting frustrated from time to time, however, it is crucial to speak to your friends and family members who have stood by you during the toughest of days when you felt lonely and desolated. Leaning onto your close ones is a great way to blow off some steam and lighten up your mood. 
  • Find who you are outside your work identity: As mentioned earlier, losing your job pretty much feels as if you have lost your identity as well. While that may be true in many cases, you must affirm yourself that you are more than your career. One of the ways can be to spend more time with your family, which can be truly wholesome. You may be able to identify yourself through the eyes of our children who see you as a loving father, or your spouse seeing you as a caring husband/wife, etc. Besides that, finding new hobbies like learning to play guitar or getting connected with your interests from the past will help you see things from a wider lens and make you realize that your career identity is only a small piece of the puzzle in your life. 

 

References:

4 science-backed ways to cope with depression if you've lost a job and feel like you also lost your sense of purpose. 
Business Insider. (2021). 
Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-deal-with-unemployment-depression-depressed-psychologist.

How to Deal With the Stress of Being Jobless During Coronavirus. Verywell Mind. (2021). 
Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/coronavirus-job-loss-4802632.

How to Deal With Job-Search Depression (Published 2019). Nytimes.com. (2021). 
Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/smarter-living/how-to-deal-with-job-search-depression.html.
Optimism Might Kill You

Optimism Might Kill You

I was watching this Spanish television drama series ‘Lacasa de Papel’, ‘Money Heist’ in English, that I came across a beautiful, very appealing line. Tokyo, a character in the drama, as she narrates the story, at one point says:

“A thief is, by definition, an inveterate optimist”.

This gave me a somewhat different insight into one of the most emphasized terms in our daily lives, ‘optimism’. We think we should always be optimistic, hoping for the best. But here is the thing. You know why does a thief get caught? Because a thief is a habitual optimist. He always thinks that his plans will work out, everything will be alright even in desperate situations of potential peril. But that’s not how life works. The only certain thing about life is that it is uncertain. In life plans always do not succeed, things always do not go in the straight direction. Life can go off the rails at any moment. Life can be a bitch at times, trust me on this (and pardon my French). So, right at the moment when the thief is optimistically thinking that it’ll be alright and that he’ll get away with the heist, guess what happens, life turns ugly and the thief gets caught. His optimism kills him.

Instead of being ‘optimistic’ what we should really be is ‘realistic’. Optimism, in my opinion, is nothing more than just convincing yourself that “although it is raining heavily, maybe if you go outside you won’t get wet”. Admitting that ‘it’s over’ is a thousand times better than hoping ‘maybe it’ll get OK’.

The fantastic thing about being realistic is that you won’t be needing hope or optimism anymore. You’ll know exactly how things are and how life works, and you’ll cope with them.

By:

Sahal Yawar
BS Psychology
University Of Peshawar

 

 

Build your Self-Confidence

Build your Self-Confidence

Make your life successful and happier ….

Before we step on to the ladder of confidence building, it is very important to know what self-confidence actually means and how important is it in the way to success? to get this right path, it is very important to differentiate between how a self-confident person looks like compared to a person who lacks confidence. You can observe this from a person’s thoughts and behaviors. Such as,
A self-confident person:

  • Believes in self.
  • Follows his dreams.
  • Feels proud of his achievements.
  • Thinks positive in all circumstances.
  • Appears happy
  • Knows his strengths and powers
  • Has faith in the positive outcomes of whatever he does
  • Loves his work
  • Shows interest in whatever he does
  • Keeps himself busy
  • Works hard
  • Focuses on his goal attainment despite others’ discouragement
  • Others want to be like him

Without confidence a person is:

  • Easily stressed out
  • Easily withdraws
  • Has lots of incomplete assignments at hand all the time
  • Thinks that situations are hectic
  • Can’t ignore distractions
  • Focuses on small parts of success
  • Has negative self-talk
  • Doesn’t believe in his abilities

Above mentioned perspectives give you the idea of what behaviors you need to adopt and what to leave behind if you want to look confident. Here are some tips and techniques to help you become self-confident and successful.
Remember:

  • When you follow your interests, you would be able to put more efforts, therefore, choose tasks you feel more interested in and when you don’t have any choice over tasks then intentionally develop an interest in whatever you do.
  • Nobody knows your inner will power even most of the time you don’t know about your own abilities. Therefore, always be explorative about your strengths. To know your abilities, you have to focus on both your strengths and weaknesses. The next step would be to highlight your strengths and torn the paper of your weakness. Never underestimate your abilities.
  • Find out your achievements you have in your whole life, even good marks at your school at least in one subject is an achievement. When you are bargaining at the shop and you get your desired suit. Yes, it is your achievement. Congratulations! you got a convincing power. Oh, my God you are a very good buyer or seller, so why do not you join a marketing career?
  • Find out what you want to achieve in life. Whether it is money, fame, or acceptance among your family members. Keep yourself busy to achieve goals whatever comes your way. Enhance your skills related to your goals like how to enhance performance at a job or business and effective communication skills with family etc. Make new friends and build a social circle. Focus on your targets and when you achieve a smaller chunk of the goal, celebrate your success and share it with people around you.
  • Think positive and focus on the brighter side of the picture. Use positive self-talk and affirmations like Yes, I can, I can do it, it’s easy for me, I choose to do it, I decide upon what I do not others, I’m strong, I’m proud of myself, I believe in my will power, etc.
  • Engage yourself in activities you like most. It can be some music, yoga, mindfulness activities or anything you enjoy to do. Eat healthily, sleep well, enjoy romance, go into nature, and do whatever makes you happy.

Yes, it is you confident to know that you are able to do whatever life throws at you.

Just be yourself, you are wonderful!

 

Written by:

Mehwish Latif
Masters in Educational Psychology,
University of Karachi,
Trainee at Consult A Psychologist

Edited By: 

Mehwish Mursaleen

How to Develop Optimism?

How to Develop Optimism?

A way to boost your self-esteem

Optimism is a term which means being positive about the outcomes going to happen in our future. Many theorists in psychology consider optimism as a personality trait. Research in psychology relates optimism with positive mental and physical health outcomes. Researchers show that optimistic people are less likely to have depression and other mental health problems. They have low chances of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and other medical diseases. They use effective coping strategies to deal with stressful life circumstances. They have better adaptability and high quality of life. They adopt a healthy lifestyle and protect themselves from engaging in harmful behaviours such as smoking and other risky outcomes (Conversano et. al. 2010).

If optimism is supposed to be such a useful factor in life, then the question arises here is: How to develop optimism in your personality. Here I’m giving you some tips which you will use and enjoy the positive outcomes in life.

  1. Think Positive: This is something easy to say than do it. How can you make it easy to do? You just need to get over your past (particularly those negative memories which could have been hurtful for you). Focus on your present life circumstances and you will find a way to make your future better than today.
  2. Every day, take some time for yourself when you do something creative or helpful. It can be listening to music, doing a relaxation exercise, helping someone, enjoying cycling/exercise or anything which you consider pleasurable.
  3. Keep eye on what’s going on in your life. There might be stressful times in your life but the effective tool here is, you understand your life stressors and find ways to come out of them. Don’t make you stuck on one point. Always push yourself to move ahead and work out problems.
  4. Take some time to show gratitude. Think of the blessings you have in life, the positive qualities you possess, and achievements you got in career/family/professional/social/community life.
  5. Take care of your self-talk: We all communicate to ourselves in the form of thoughts, images, or words. If your thoughts are positive, you will experience positive emotions, and then your behaviours and life outcomes will be positive because there is a link between thoughts-emotions-behaviours. An easy way to do this is: write down positive affirmations for yourself and refer them every day.
  6. Keep yourself in a company of positive people because you are a reflection of the people with whom you spend most of the time. You always have a choice to include and exclude people in your life. Positive people will leave a positive impact and the negative ones will affect you adversely. Therefore, plan ahead of the time what consequences do you want in your life. Make friends who are likeable, easy to get along, and match with your positive self.
  7. Develop problem-solving skills: problems and stress is a part of everyone’s life. What optimistic people do is plan ahead of the time before the problems take over them. There are always ups and downs in life. If you understand this fact, you will be able to take responsibility for your life and hence own your problems. You will find yourself in a better position to deal with problems and find solutions.
  8. Set your goals and priorities in life: this is the secret of how optimistic people get more success in life. How they look positively towards their future is through goal planning. They have a very clear idea where they want to go in life. They give themselves easy steps toward success. Such as, they make to-do-list of every day so, every day they spend becomes useful in some way. They also have long-term planning for their career, family, social, and professional life and “to-do-list” helps them every day to cover one step of stairs to success.

If you start developing above mentioned skills and practice each in real life circumstances, definitely you are making your way easy to optimism. And, now you know how optimism is going to make your life outcomes so positive and healthy just as you want.

Reference:

Conversano, C., Rotondo, A., Lensi, E., Vista, O.D., Arpone, F., & Reda, M.A. (2010). Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being. Clin Pract Epidemiol Ment Health, 6, pp: 25–29.

Doi:  10.2174/1745017901006010025

 

Written By:

Mehwish Mursaleen (PhD, Clinical Psychology)

How to Develop Optimism (A way to boost your self-esteem)

How to Develop Optimism (A way to boost your self-esteem)

Optimism is a term which means being positive about the outcomes going to be happening in our future. Many theorists in psychology consider optimism as a personality trait. Research in psychology relates optimism with positive mental and physical health outcomes. Researchers show that optimistic people are less likely to have depression and other mental health problems. They have low chances of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and other medical diseases. They use effective coping strategies to deal with stressful life circumstances. They have better adaptability and high quality of life. They adopt the healthy lifestyle and protect themselves from engaging in harmful behaviors such as smoking and other risky outcomes (Conversano et. al. 2010).
If optimism is supposed to be such a useful factor in life, then the question arises here is: How to develop optimism in your personality. Here I’m giving you some tips which you will use and enjoy the positive outcomes in life.
Think Positive: This is something easy to say then do it. How can you make it easy to do? You just need to get over your past (particularly those negative memories which could have been hurtful to you). Focus on your present life circumstances and you will find a way to make your future better than today.
Every day takes some time for yourself in which you do something creative or helpful. It can be a listening music, doing the relaxation exercise, helping someone, enjoying cycling/exercise or anything which you consider pleasurable.
Keep eye on what’s going on in your life. There might be stressful times in your life but the effective tool here is, you understand your life stressors and find ways to come out of them. Don’t make you stuck on one point. Always push yourself to move ahead and work out problems.
Take some time to show gratitude. Think of the blessings you have in life, positive qualities you possess, and achievements you got in career/family/professional/social/community life.
Take care of your self-talk: We all communicate to ourselves in form of thoughts, images, or words. If your thoughts are positive, you will experience positive emotions, and then your behaviors and life outcomes will be positive because there is a link between thoughts-emotions-behaviors. An easy way to do this is: write down positive affirmations for yourself and refer them every day.
Keep yourself in a company of positive people because you are a reflection of the people with whom you spend most of the time. You always have a choice to include and exclude people in your life. Positive people will leave a positive impact and the negative ones will affect you adversely. Therefore, plan ahead of the time what consequences do you want in your life. Make friends who are likable, easy to get along, and match with your positive self.
Develop problem-solving skills: Problems and stress is a part of everyone’s life. What optimistic people do is plan ahead of the time before the problems take over them. There are always ups and downs in life. If you understand this fact, you will be able to take responsibility for your life and hence own your problems. You will find yourself in a better position to deal with problems and find solutions.
Set your goals and priorities in life: this is the secret how optimistic people get more success in life. How they look positively towards their future is through goal planning. They have a very clear idea where they want to go in life. They give themselves easy steps towards success. Such as, they make to-do-list of every day so, every day they spend becomes useful in some way. They also have long-term planning for their career, family, social, and professional life and “to-do-list” helps them every day to cover one step of stairs to success.
If you start developing above mentioned skills and practice each in real life circumstances, definitely you are making your way easy to optimism. And, now you know how optimism is going to make your life outcomes so positive and healthy just as you want.

Reference:
Conversano, C., Rotondo, A., Lensi, E., Vista, O.D., Arpone, F., & Reda, M.A. (2010). Optimism and Its Impact on Mental and Physical Well-Being. Clin Pract Epidemiol Ment Health, 6, pp: 25–29.
Doi: 10.2174/1745017901006010025

Written By:
Mehwish Mursaleen (Ph.D., Clinical Psychology)
Clinical Psychologist & Online Psychotherapist
(Consult-a-psychologist.com & iCliniq.com)

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