As we travel through life doing our thing and minding our own business, we often think we’re headed in one direction but find ourselves unexpectedly turned around! This can happen when we experience challenges facing illness, injuries or addiction, or with failed or toxic relationships. We can also experience serious setbacks in our careers and finances, and whether we saw the trouble coming or not, it can be tough to recover from such blows. As we continue to explore how to bounce back from adversity, let’s take a closer look at how to pull through those difficult times in our work life or when dealing with financial misfortune.
Career & financial woes
If you’re currently out of work, or in a dead-end, low-paying job with an agonizing commute, or perhaps you’ve been laid off or fired, it may feel like things will never get better. Have hope! It’s all temporary. Even Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Seinfeld and Thomas Edison were once fired, but as we all know, they ended up forging a new, more successful path for themselves.
In Western society, we attach so much of our self-worth to our careers, but there’s so much more to us than just our jobs! It’s common to experience professional setbacks or struggles; at some point, most of us have been turned down for a job, flubbed an interview, got passed over for a promotion, or couldn’t find any inspiration in our work. As someone who left a secure, well-paying engineering job to embark on a totally new career path, I faced a fair amount of push-back, uncertainty, and challenges along the way to get where I am now.
Financial setbacks are also tough. They can be directly related to career troubles and a reduction or loss of income, or they can be the result of high debt load, money mismanagement, poor investments, or just plain bad luck. No one wants to spend sleepless nights worrying how to put food on the table or keep a roof over their head. These career and financial hardships can take their toll on us physically and emotionally as well in the form of stress and anxiety – in addition to wreaking total havoc on our lives.
For this reason, it’s important to learn how to bounce back from these types of setbacks so that we don’t lose hope, confidence, momentum, or our gritty, go-getter attitude!
The road to success
Whether or not our misfortunes were our own doing or not, we can’t dwell on the negatives, but instead focus on how to get through it and move forward. These tips are vital for doing just that:
- Learn from what went wrong so you’re better equipped for the future,
- Always keep your eye out for new growth opportunities,
- Leverage setbacks to create an improved life plan and set new goals,
- Keep your skills and competencies polished and ready for the next opportunity,
- Forge a new path based on your setbacks – it may have been the catalyst for change you were needing,
- Turn to your support network – they have likely experienced something similar,
- Talk to the professionals – such as career or financial consultants,
- Focus on other areas of your life that are going well and strive for a balanced, well-rounded, enriched life outside of work,
- Remember, focus on moving forward – the past is the past and we can’t change it.
Once you’ve come to terms with your career or financial setback, reflect on your goals and make sure they are right for you. This will help you bounce back that much faster. When we’re passionate about something, there’s really no stopping us! Go find your passion and success will follow.
“Win or lose, I always learn something.”. – Bianca Andreescu