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Transcript:
Hi, my name is Wan. I am a coach based in Singapore. In this video, I’m going to share with you my experience in losing a job. So far, in 20-plus years of my career, I have lost my job twice. The first time was more than 15 years ago when I was in New York City, United States. I was working for a consulting firm. The second time was a couple of years ago in Singapore. I was working for a software company. So what do I learn from this experience? And what are the lessons? Let’s get started.
So, I am going to share my experience in a few areas. The first one is about acknowledging my emotion and my lesson. Permission to move on. Third is possible career strategies. Forth is what are the factors in making a decision on the career strategy. Before we move on, it’s important to acknowledge my emotion, like accepting what I feel. Some of the common emotions are fear of uncertainties, fear of being rejected again, or another way of feeling, maybe lack of something, confidence, or courage to try it again. The second common emotion is angry. Angry at myself, at things, and circumstances, and also blame others or the circumstances. The third common emotion I had was guilt, more of self-sabotage, negative emotion towards myself, regretting what I have done, what I have not done, or what I see as a failure. So it’s important, before I move on, to accept my emotion and what it is and learn from the experience. Of course, it is important to discover the lessons from experience. What do I learn so far?
Secondly is the permission to move on. What I mean is I no longer stay in the negative emotions, and I’m ready to move forward. Time usually is a healing factor. As time pass, I might feel less negative emotion. The second factor is acceptance of myself. Who I am, who I am not, my strengths, and my weaknesses. And with this acceptance, what is the new possibility from the lessons in this experience?
With my permission to move on, what are my career strategies? Generally, there are two categories. The first one is reboot. The second is pivot. What does reboot mean? It means I will stay in the same job in the future, but maybe in a different company or different industry. Usually, I will do some skill upgrades, like broaden the skills I have or deepen the knowledge that I have. The second way of rebooting maybe deliver values in different manners. For example, if I used to work in the back end, I may come to the front end to serve my client. The second strategy is pivot. It means I will have a different role, maybe in the same industry or different. Obviously, I need to pay attention to the gaps.
And what are the factors in deciding which strategy to use? The first one is I must be really clear with my career direction. Where do I wish to head towards in the future? And besides knowing the direction, I also have to be aware of the gap. How wide is the gap? Because it will influence how long the transition to the new direction. And I also have to be aware of if there’s a new direction, how urgent I would like to make it a reality? So most of the time, it is a compromise between the width of the gap and the urgency of the new direction. And I hope you learn a few tips from my experience. If you have any questions or feedback about this video, please send it to coach at askone.sg Thank you.