One of the readers of the blog noticed that I was a coach and sent me this message through my contact page.
“I have made such a mess of my life. I made a mistake which has cost me my job. I have let my family down and made a fool of myself. How do I ever begin to start over again?”
I am going to use this post to give the reader my coaching approach to starting over.
Assess where you are at the moment
I don’t know whether you have just lost your job or whether some time has passed. So I don’t know just how raw your emotions feel at the moment. If this is all fairly recent I would ask you to be kind to yourself and allow yourself time to grieve for what you have lost.
If some time has passed and you are at the stage of looking back with regret, but at the same time realising that you need to move on, then I have some thoughts for you.
Forgive
You have told me that you have made a mistake so it sounds as if you are taking responsibility for your part in whatever has happened. Responsibility is different from blame. We make mistakes and behave in ways that can hurt others and the consequences can have a profound effect on our lives.
However to move on we need to forgive ourselves. At the moment you might not be feeling very forgiving of yourself but I would ask you to consider this:-
In general people do not go out of their way to mess things up. Whatever you did or didn’t do, I am guessing that you didn’t start out with the conscious intention of losing your job. My guess is that you made a decision or decisions based on how you saw the situation at the time.
That is all we can ever do. We can only make decisions based on how we see the situation at the time with the information available to us and the experience and skill we have.
The harsh thing about life is the hindsight factor. We get to look back with new information or time to consider and we see our mistakes. Then we say “if only” and we regret the decision that we made and we berate ourselves for ever having made it. I call it beating yourself up with the hindsight stick.
At times like this you need to be your own best friend. Would you kick a friend when he or she is down? Why do it to yourself?
How do you move on?
Is there something that you feel you need to do to help draw a line under the situation?
Do you want to apologise to anyone or to share how you are feeling?
I sense from the words that you used “made a fool of myself” what has happened may also be causing you some embarrassment or dented pride. Forgiving yourself will make it easier to accept what has happened and when you can do that you will feel less like a fool.
People often consider a physical move when things go wrong. They imagine starting over will be easier somewhere else. I like to ask people what they see as the benefit of doing that. If you were considering this I would ask you if you genuinely wanted to live somewhere else, would the job market be better somewhere else or are you just running away.
The truth is you can never run away from yourself.
Re-asses your situation in a softer light
Your note suggests that you have lost your job. I don’t know the circumstances of your exit from this employment and if you believe it will affect your career progression etc. However I am going to put some general questions to you to allow you to get some perspective and help you think.
What employment options are open to you at the moment?
Do you want to seek the same type of role again?
How financially secure are you? Do you need to seek out temporary financial support?
What have you learned about yourself from this event?
Who can you share your feelings with and get some emotional support and encouragement from?
I am going to open this up to anyone who is reading this post who has some thoughts or ideas that they can share to help this person. Please leave your comments below.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Marion, my thoughts are similar to yours, especially when it comes to forgiveness.
To the person who wrote you, I’d say . . . When possible, apologize to others who have been hurt by your behavior, but recognize you hurt yourself through your actions too. And then forgive yourself. After that, try to see the ‘open door.’ Sometimes when we muck things up and learn the lessons from that, a new pathway opens up that leads somewhere we never would have thought of going before. So stay open. And be well
Hi Jean
You make a great point when you say “but recognize you hurt yourself through your actions too”.
If we make a mistake and realize that we were out of integrity – breaking our own personal code – we do really feel the pain of our actions.
Thank you for leaving a great message for the reader.
Marion
Very happy to have found your blog Marion. I agree with everything you say. Most of all, I would just underline your great point that we can never run away from ourselves.
And isn’t that a good thing? Because when we dare to be still and face the truth of who we are we see it’s very good news — there is so much more to us than we ever dreamed of…
With every good wish.
Welcome Christopher
Your comment is wonderful
“when we dare to be still and face the truth of who we are we see it’s very good news — there is so much more to us than we ever dreamed of…”
It reminded me of something I read “Be yourself, you are a totally unique individual and no one is better at being you than you are.”
Thank you for sharing this and please come and visit again
Marion
Hi Marion,
How my heart goes out to your reader. From time to time we all ‘**ck up’, then we beat ourselves up about it, making life so hard and miserable for not only ourselves but those around us… which in turn only goes to prove to ourselves how truly useless we are! We’ve all done that, got the T shirt and the movie has probably been made ( but we can’t bring ourselves to watch it). All of this we know and yet it doesn’t make us feel better initially.
I love your caring response, Marion. This is certainly the time to be kind to yourself.
If we can realise that one day, what we now see as a ‘**ck up’, will put us on a path that we may not otherwise have found. Opportunities will come our way that we wouldn’t have seen and LIFE WILL GET BETTER.
I love the speech Steve Jobs from Apple and Pixar gave about looking back and joining up the dots (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA). If your reader can see this incident as a dot… he/she may find the energy and enthusiasm to move on and let the possibilities life holds unfold.
Good luck to you!
Sarah,
What a lovely message for the reader and what a great resource in the video.
I like what you say about having made mistakes “we have the T shirt and the movie but can’t bring ourselves to watch it.” I know that feeling only to well myself.
Marion
Forgiveness is a platform on which you can stand very firmly and reach Heaven.
Welcome Ramakrishna
Your words are simple and beautiful. Thank you for sharing them.
Marion
These are some wonderful ways of starting over Marion. I love how separate blame and responsibility. Most people struggle to see the difference but by accepting responsibility a person is a much better position to take immediate action to change the situation.
I believe its really important to see things how they really are when something bad happens. Most people go into the default of “everythings awful” when a lot of the times that is just emotion clouding the experience. By seeing things as they truly are, rather than how we think they are allows us to see both the positive and negative in what’s happened and can help us move forward with purpose
Hi Ben
I think I would put “blame” in my useless word category. Blame gets us no where and can actually keep us stuck. Everything and everybody are also not helpful words. When I catch myself uttering “everything is awful” or “everybody thinks I am…” I like to play the …… what or who specifically game. What specifically is awful or who specifically thinks …… Sometimes it can be really hard to see things as they truly are but the game helps me to see where emotion is clouding my thinking and lets me move on.
Thanks for bringing some good points into the discussion.
Marion
Marion: What a great post and great advice. I totally agree with all you shared and forgiveness of yourself is definitely a great starting point. I know that when challenges come my way, it is so easy to get caught up in them and automatically respond without really thinking about what is in front of us and choosing to respond. I think sometimes the best thing to do is to just take some time to yourself and think about how this challenge is teaching you something. Within it there is something to be learned and even though the challenge is one you may not have desired, there is always a very good reason why it arose. It is the ultimate test of your confidence in the truism, that everything happens for a reason. However, once you shift your perspective and really open yourself up to learning from what has come your way and accepting it, the situation always transforms. That has been a part of the process that I have noticed and understanding it has always made working through challenges a little easier for me.
Hi Sibyl
I like your idea of taking some time to think about what your situation is teaching you. Some one once told me that life teaches you amazing things by giving you lessons. When you learn the lesson you move on however if you don’t learn the lesson life gives you another opportunity to learn by giving you another similar challenge. Each time you don’t learn the lesson the challenge gets harder and harder until finally you learn.
I don’t know how true this is but I often work with people who have a recurring pattern that goes on in their lives – perhaps issues with a boss or co workers which leads them to changing jobs frequently. When we stop and examine what has been going on we often find a theme and once that theme is challenged the person moves on.
Great point. Thank you for sharing it and allowing the conversation to expand.
Marion