8 Lessons to Learn After Being Fired

Updated May 8, 2023

After Being Fired

Our view of the world or life events shapes us to be great or settle for mediocrity. Losing a job is one such event that will either stall your career or make you aim for the height you always know in your heart you can reach.

Now, you’re fired. It’s a done deal. No matter whatever reasons your company has to fire you, it happened. You can’t do anything about it but can do a lot despite it.

People don’t realize what they’re middle of because they’re in the middle. But let us tell you that being fired is a great opportunity, even in an economy where getting a job is tough. Why? The rest of the article will answer why. The lessons we will share will shake you, make you think and if you still are willing to make your mark in this short stint called ‘life,’ you’ll get back up and say – “I’m more than what bothers me. I’m more than what affects me.”

Do you want to jump off your bed and would like to begin a new life?

Read on.

Lessons After Being Fired

1. Who Said it’s an End? What if it’s Beginning?

Society sells us stories that are easier for the community to deal with. And we buy them believing those stories will help us too because most of the crowd feels the stories to be true. But what if the stories aren’t true? What would you do then?

• “Being fired is a terrible thing,” they said, and you nodded and then kept busy looking for ways to complain and get bitter about your life. But is it a terrible thing?
• When you worked, you needed help even if you wanted to do something independently. Now you can.
• When you worked, you couldn’t spend more than an hour a day with your son/daughter/wife. Now you can.
• When you worked, you couldn’t pursue things that frightened you. Now what worse can happen? So now you can.
• When you worked, you were a slave of your company, reporting on time and punching extra hours for no extra buck. Now you’re free; you have time and autonomy both.
• Now that I’m not working, I can indulge in contemplating life and its boundless possibilities. I can sit, be lazy, and jot down all the things I’ve always wanted to do but couldn’t do before.
• When you worked, you couldn’t imagine your life without a schedule; now, you have a spotless future.
• So, why do you think being fired is a bad thing? Let us rephrase it for you – “It’s a temporary feeling of anxiety.” It will go away, and you will soon begin to shape your life exactly how you always wanted.

2. Life is Inevitable

You can’t control some things in life, even if you want to. Dr. Stephen Covey called it an “area of concern” in his bestselling book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. With your effort, you can learn to reduce your “area of concern” and increase your “area of influence.” Still, a significant part would be out of your reach.

Being fired lies in your “area of concern.” During this time, it’s tough to accept what happened, especially when you have a family to feed, bills to pay, and things to do. But it’s freeing as well. It’s like a reset button where you’re jobless suddenly and have a blank slate to begin your new life.

Accept the inevitable and do your part. That will make your life easy. In Zen teaching, Zen masters teach a phrase – “What is, is!” The moment you accept it, your life will begin to shift in a positive direction.

3. I am Responsible

You may not be responsible for what happened to you. But how you feel about it is your responsibility.

Famous management consultant and author of several books gave us this magic phrase – “I’m responsible.”

No matter wherever you’re, whatever you do, and in whatever situation you find yourself, if you can do just one thing, it is this –

Take Radical Responsibility of Whatever Situation you’re in

And it changes everything.

When you’re jobless, taking responsibility is challenging, but dealing with any irresponsible behaviors you allow yourself to pursue is more complicated.

The best way to take responsibility is to do one small thing when you feel overwhelmed. You can easily send your resume for a vacant position, outline the book you’ve always wanted to write, or discuss with your friend the new venture you’re considering starting. Now that you have the time and freedom, you can take proactive steps toward fulfilling your aspirations and making your dreams a reality.

4. You can Handle Anything

The most crucial realization never comes when we’re happy, joyous, or prosperous. Instead, when we’re sick, in the middle of terrible despair and disappointment. The realization is no matter what happens; you have the ability and capacity to handle it.

For example, you couldn’t have imagined ever that you’ll be out of your company even after serving so many years with all your heart, time, and effort. But now it happened. You’re still alive. Your mind is still working. You’ve all the skills and knowledge that you had before getting fired. That means what? You’ve successfully handled your demise from the company.

When you realize this, you also realize that you can handle anything you want, yes, anything that happens to you. And you can step over it, move on and do something meaningful.

So what’s stopping you now?

Please take this as a learning, step over it, and make your life count.

5. Don’t Make the Same Mistakes

It’s time to review what happened and why it happened. You’re jobless – that’s a result. The question is why.

• Why you’re unemployed?
• What did you do wrong?
• Did you misunderstand?
• What couldn’t you grasp before you were unemployed?
• What mistakes did you make?

Take your journal (if you have one) or a crisp blank sheet of paper and write down the answers to these questions and one action step for each to take within 30 days to change.

The definition of insanity is doing the same things repeatedly and expecting a different outcome.

If you think you need to stick to your new job and avoid getting fired like the previous one, you may need to make some tweaks that will help you build your career consciously.

You don’t need to go through this phase repeatedly, only if you remember to learn from your mistakes and take one step at a time without giving up.

6. Find the Right Fit

It’s important to know what works and what doesn’t. Once you lose your job, you know something didn’t work, so you must do something to make it right.

Maybe your former boss could have offered more encouragement for your work, or perhaps they didn’t adequately compensate your efforts, or the industry wasn’t a suitable fit for you.

No matter what it is, getting fired is an opportunity to find the right fit, which will let you dream, think ahead of your competition, and be world-class.

To find the right fit, all you need to do is keep looking.

Business philosopher Jim Rohn said it best – “Rarely any good opportunity comes your way. It would help if you kept searching. Opportunity is for the searchers.”

Be a searcher for a good opportunity.

When you find one, don’t just listen to your gut feeling. Your gut feeling signals that you may go ahead and do it, but you need to look for the details as well. Find out who will report to you, find out the company’s background, and learn about the company’s work culture and attrition rate.

Once you’re comfortable, go ahead and accept the job.

7. Prepare Hard

There is no substitute for preparation. The person who prepares the most wins. And that can be.

You can learn an important lesson when you lose something. In this case, it’s your job. When something is lost, the surface is lost, but deep within, you remain the same person you were before losing your job.

Business philosopher Jim Rohn became a millionaire at the age of 31. Then within two years, he lost everything by signing a guarantee letter to one of his known companies. When he lost his millions, he became depressed, found himself on the street, and realized he needed to start over. But he admitted that even if he lost everything, he still has the skills he has taken the time to develop, which will help him make millions and more. And he did it again within a few years.

Lesson for you – you have the skills even when you lose a job. If you hone those skills, prepare for the opportunities, and remain positive, you will build better things, get a more extraordinary career, and make a better life.

Motivational speaker Les Brown said –

“It’s better to be prepared and have no opportunity than to have the opportunity and not prepared.”

So, get ready. Find out what makes you tick. Learn a new language. Harness the skills you already have. And keep looking for the opportunity. One day when you get up from sleep, you will see opportunity knocking on your door, and you’re ready to jump off the bed and embrace that opportunity.

8. Don’t Attach Your Worth to Your Work

It’s a belief that – you are what you do. But is it? If it’s true, when you don’t, you aren’t. Right?

Wrong.

You aren’t what you do.

You realize this when you lose your job and sit alone, idle in your room, trying to figure out what happened and why it happened.

Let us remind you that you’re not a human doing; you are a human being. Your worth is not what you can accomplish but what you become while achieving them. So when you lose your job, you still are there, alive, even without the job you had.

After getting fired from the job, it’s time to renew yourself, gets to know yourself deeply, make love with yourself, and discover your strengths, weaknesses, and true identity.

During these moments of rumination, you will realize that you are in a perfect place to start anew, be bolder and more courageous, and pursue something you have always desired in your heart. And that’s it. The moment you realize that your worth is not defined by what you did or lost, you will begin to value yourself more and regain the ability to make your life count, even after feeling terrible for being fired.

Being fired is never a good feeling. And for most of us, it’s tough to accept. But like any other event of our lives, it’s just one of the events which have happened, and like any other event, it too will pass. When you feel overwhelmed and cannot find any solutions, the first thing you should do is take a deep breath. Breathe in and breathe out. Realize you’re still alive, meaning you can make your life count. It’s not the words of hope, but it’s a matter of shifting your perspective from being glum chum to being a possibility thinker.

What most people feel at this time is tremendous fear – fear of not having a job, fear of not feeling capable enough, fear of not being able to provide your family with the means that you would like to provide, fear of failure, and fear of not being able to get back up again.

But it’s just a bunch of fears. Fears are nothing but false evidence appearing real. Your imagination is there to warn you about potential dangers you may face after being fired. What you need to do when you’re very much fearful is to take action, even if it’s the smallest one. Just go ahead and do something super-easy. And then take another one and then another. Sooner than you realize, you will begin to get hold of yourself and return to search for opportunities.

Being fired is not the end of the story. Believe it’s a beginning of a new episode of your life.