Are you experiencing professional grief?

Our relationship with our work is deeply connected to our sense of who we are. Like our other significant relationships, it has the potential to enhance or diminish our whole lives.

When our relationship with work is fundamentally changed or ended, the impact can be as devastating as a romantic breakup. For a while we don’t know who we are anymore.

Our relationship with work is governed by a legal contract, and also what psychologists call a psychological contract: the set of unwritten expectations on both sides, based on assumptions of what is reasonable and fair. If the employer changes the goalposts then the relationship can be badly damaged.

When our relationship with work doesn’t just change, but ends unexpectedly, the feelings are stronger. It’s now widely accepted that the model of 5 stages of grief* that relates to experiences of death and dying also relates to the experience of job loss. The speed at which you move through the stages will be different, but the stages seem to be part of a universal human response.

I see this with my clients, some of who I’ve met through the Grounded Idealist collective of volunteer coaches responding to US federal cuts.

Many are experiencing multiple simultaneous losses, including work, home, schools, community, team, health insurance, residency, routine, trust, sense of safety and comfort, confidence. One client lost her home office furniture. She's also having to take international calls for job possibilities in the middle of the night two or three times a week.

There’s also fear and survivor guilt from those who have kept their jobs but lost their colleagues. Many don’t know when, or if, they’ll be next.

How coaching can help:

A coach is a professional thinking partner, ally and accountability buddy. Our sessions together bring structure and focus. They create a separate space for brainstorming, strategising, auditing, imagining and emotion.

It’s often the first opportunity to just talk, without interruption.

We focus on the future, exploring opportunities and mapping the landscape of possibilities. In the process we often come across inner critics and saboteurs. We work on confidence and self-esteem, using evidence, data and simple techniques to turn down the volume of negative voices and feelings.

The sessions bring momentum and perspective. We agree goals and strategies for both the long and short-term: because it's ok for the next job to be a stepping stone, not the final destination.

If you’d like to chat more about any of this, please book a free call on the contact page or via LinkedIn below.

* Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.