Anxiety about Losing Job

Wor­ry­ing about your job secu­ri­ty can creep in qui­et­ly. Or it can strike all at once–One day, it feels sta­ble. The next day, the news tell you about wide­spread lay­offs in your indus­try, in both big and small name com­pa­nies. Soon you start read­ing between the lines of emails. You watch notice your lead­ers or boss being more tense and maybe you expe­ri­ence that stress as well, as var­i­ous work­loads and tasks arrive. Whether your job is based in a For­tune 500 com­pa­ny, a start-up, or any­where in-between, feel­ing anx­i­ety about los­ing your job is not dra­mat­ic or over­re­act­ing. Anx­i­ety about los­ing your job is a nat­ur­al response to uncer­tain­ty. For many of us, work is tied to secu­ri­ty, to rou­tine, and to iden­ti­ty. When work feels shaky, the feel­ing is hard to ignore. And when this anx­i­ety sets in, your sleep, focus, mood, emo­tions, reac­tions to oth­ers, and con­fi­dence can all be affected–even if noth­ing has hap­pened yet. 

Anx­i­ety about los­ing a job does not start out of the blue. We work in places where change is always there. Restruc­tur­ing, bud­get cuts, new lead­er­ship, and chang­ing pri­or­i­ties all make one feel that noth­ing’s cer­tain. The unsta­ble sit­u­a­tion with­in the indus­try, or in the gen­er­al job mar­ket, can only wors­en your anx­i­ety. Ris­ing liv­ing costs and few­er safe­ty nets make job secu­ri­ty feel frag­ile. Even top work­ers feel burnt out and uneasy when the expec­ta­tions are unclear or when com­mu­ni­ca­tion is lim­it­ed. This kind of wor­ry is not a sign that some­thing’s wrong with you. This wor­ry is a response to the uncer­tain­ty and the pres­sure that have become nor­mal in many work­places.

It is impor­tant to say this out loud: anx­i­ety about los­ing your job makes sense. The work you have sup­ports the life you lead in mul­ti­ple ways. The rent, the mort­gage, the bills, the fam­i­ly respon­si­bil­i­ties, the future plans, all of those things are only pos­si­ble because of your work. More­over, the work you have also gives you the struc­ture, the pur­pose, and the sense of belong­ing. When the work you have feels threat­ened, the anx­i­ety can bring feel­ings of fear and shame.

For many peo­ple, los­ing employ­ment can be dev­as­tat­ing, not just finan­cial­ly but emo­tion­al­ly as well. It can be hard to put into words, hard to accept oth­er people’s advice to cope and rebuild. These emo­tion­al reac­tions are com­mon and valid, and can help when every­thing feels over­whelm­ing. Only when we notice the weight of the anx­i­ety can we deal with it in a calm way.

Tips to Lower My Anxiety

Here are some action­able tips to low­er your anx­i­ety. 

1 Separate What You Know From What You Fear

Anx­i­ety often grows in the gap between facts and assump­tions. Some­times, when you don’t know some­thing, your mind fills in the worst-case sce­nario. You start cat­a­stro­phiz­ing and spi­ral­ing. So, a help­ful step to man­age your anx­i­ety is to slow down and ask: what do I actu­al­ly know?

Make a sim­ple men­tal dis­tinc­tion:

• Do I know what is con­firmed? These are the com­pa­ny announce­ments, the direct feed­back, and the struc­tur­al changes.
• What is it that I assumed? Notic­ing tone shifts, lack of meet­ings, and silence on the oth­er side.

This kind of approach does not mean ignor­ing risks. Instead, it’s based around stay­ing in real­i­ty with­out let­ting fear con­trol every­thing.

 

 

2 Focus on What You Can Control

Job secu­ri­ty is not always in our hands. That lack of con­trol over job secu­ri­ty makes peo­ple feel stressed. In the US, about half of the nation’s work­ers report­ed stress due to job inse­cu­ri­ty. How­ev­er, you can still con­trol some things. Shift­ing your focus to those things you actu­al­ly can con­trol can help you get some sense of sta­bil­i­ty back. Here’s what you can do:

• Keep your CV updat­ed
• Track your achieve­ments at work
• Strength­en the skills that the mar­ket demands.
• Stay informed about your indus­try

None of this means you are giv­ing up on your job. The idea just means you are pro­tect­ing your­self. In our expe­ri­ence, prepa­ra­tion often reduces anx­i­ety because it replaces help­less­ness with action.

 

3 Talk About It With the Right People

Keep­ing the anx­i­ety to your­self makes the anx­i­ety feel heav­ier. So, talk to some­one you trust. That some­one can be a part­ner, a friend, a men­tor, or even a ther­a­pist. What mat­ters is choos­ing some­one who lis­tens and does not dis­miss your feel­ings. That some­one will like­ly not jump to the worst-case sce­nario. The goal is to feel more sup­port­ed and ground­ed after the con­ver­sa­tion, and not to spi­ral fur­ther.  Some­times just say­ing, “I am wor­ried about my job, and it’s stress­ing me out” to some­one you trust is enough. It can some of the pres­sure that may be build­ing inside of you. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many peo­ple in Amer­i­can soci­ety will jump to solv­ing a prob­lem for you or pro­vid­ing you with solu­tions. I have noticed that peo­ple with these types of respons­es may feel their own feel­ings of anx­i­ety in not know­ing how to hold space for you and your emo­tions and want to make the con­ver­sa­tion go away. I have also noticed well-mean­ing peo­ple who love and sup­port you also fall into this trap. After all, pro­vid­ing a solu­tion or ideas to solve the prob­lem is often the more log­i­cal approach, rather than the emo­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion you are invit­ing them into.

In these sit­u­a­tions, you may feel dis­cour­aged in these moments, and even avoid shar­ing more about the sit­u­a­tion. If you get this type of response, it is okay — many peo­ple expe­ri­ence these respons­es.

When these respons­es occur, some peo­ple dis­miss the orig­i­nal­ly shared top­ic (i.e., “Ah don’t wor­ry about it, I’ll fig­ure it out”) or decide to dis­en­gage from the con­ver­sa­tion. Oth­er peo­ple may expe­ri­ence intru­sive thoughts such as “No one under­stands me” or “I was stu­pid to ask for help” or “Oh no, I’m bur­den­ing them with my prob­lems now.” If you expe­ri­ence either or even both of these sit­u­a­tions, pause, then take anoth­er chance and advo­cate for your­self once more. You’ve already tak­en a step of courage by shar­ing what is both­er­ing you. Take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to redi­rect this per­son to what you need — some­one to lis­ten to you, rather than some­one to solve the prob­lem. 

 

4 Build a Backup Plan

It has been said: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Hav­ing a plan, any kind of plan, can be reas­sur­ing. How­ev­er, you shouldn’t be obsess­ing over it. Being pre­pared is not the same as liv­ing in the future that has not hap­pened. A good back­up plan can include:

• Know­ing your month­ly expens­es
• Hav­ing an emer­gency sav­ings goal
• Under­stand­ing what ben­e­fits or sup­port you’d be eli­gi­ble for
• Know­ing where to start when you begin a job search.

 

 

5 Remind Yourself That a Job Is Not Your Worth

The idea is eas­i­er said than done. The chal­lenge feels even hard­er in cul­tures that tie iden­ti­ty close­ly to career suc­cess. How­ev­er, the point is still impor­tant. A job can end for numer­ous rea­sons that have noth­ing to do with your per­for­mance. They don’t have to do any­thing with your tal­ent, or even your effort. You can and have to learn to love your­self even if you get fired or if you fail in any way.

Anxiety Therapist Austin TX

Many peo­ple will try one of the strate­gies above and it may work for some time, and then they may feel stuck again. Oth­er peo­ple may try or may have already tried these strate­gies and then read some self-help books to try and find answers to reduc­ing their anx­i­ety. These are com­mon and valid ways to address your con­cerns. After all, if you can solve it on your own, why not?

How­ev­er, some­times anx­i­ety can become too much. Signs of this hap­pen­ing is when anx­i­ety about los­ing your job can rip­ple into oth­er wor­ries, there­by inter­fer­ing with oth­er areas of your life. You may notice increased symp­toms such as pan­ic, trou­ble sleep­ing, pain in your chest or a rac­ing heart. This is when pro­fes­sion­al sup­port becomes nec­es­sary. You can still read the self-help books for anx­i­ety; how­ev­er, if you’ve reached this point, hav­ing a pro­fes­sion­al to help you through the anx­i­ety is cru­cial.

If you feel stuck in your anx­i­ety, reach out below and we can dis­cuss both the sit­u­a­tion and strate­gies to reduce the anx­i­ety, or pay less atten­tion to it. Our con­ver­sa­tions can also include pro­cess­ing uncom­fort­able emo­tions, iden­ti­fy­ing and shift­ing beliefs, and learn­ing cop­ing strate­gies that have helped oth­ers.

You do not have to wait until some­thing bad hap­pens. You can ask for help now. 

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