What to Do When Laid Off

Why This Career Disruption Might Be Your Greatest Gift

What to do when laid off isn't what your well-meaning friends are telling you right now. They're saying update your LinkedIn, network like crazy, and bounce back fast. But here's what I'm telling you instead: pour yourself a glass of wine, take a deep breath, and consider that maybe—just maybe—the universe just staged an intervention.

If you're reading this while your career feels like it's burning down around you, while you're questioning everything you thought you knew about success and your worth, I need you to hear something that no one else will say: You weren't laid off. You were liberated.

I know that sounds completely insane when you're staring at severance paperwork and wondering how the hell someone with your track record ended up here. But stick with me for a minute, because I've been exactly where you are—brilliant, accomplished, and completely lost because someone else's budget meeting just redefined my entire identity.

And what I discovered changed everything about how I think about careers, success, and what it means to actually build a life worth living.

The Identity Earthquake That Changes Everything

Last month, three different women called me for clarity sessions. A VP of Finance who'd just closed her division's best quarter ever. A Senior Engineering Manager who'd launched three successful products. A Director of Operations who'd streamlined processes that saved her company millions.

All three had been laid off within weeks of their biggest wins.

"I don't know who I am anymore," one told me, crying. "I was always Sarah, VP of Finance at TechCorp. Now I'm just... Sarah. And I have no idea who that is.

This is what I call the identity earthquake—that moment when everything you've built your sense of self around gets stripped away in a single conversation. And while it feels like the end of the world, it's actually the beginning of your real life.

Here's what nobody tells you about losing your job: the role that defined you was also the role that confined you.

Think about it. How long had you been feeling stuck? How many Sunday nights did you spend with that familiar dread settling in your stomach? How often did you catch yourself thinking "There has to be more than this" while sitting in another pointless meeting?

Psychology Today research backs up what I see in my practice—losing your job creates identity threats that can actually be more distressing than the money problems. But here's the plot twist: that identity crisis isn't a bug, it's a feature. Your brain is literally rewiring itself for transformation.

The job you're mourning? It was your golden handcuffs. And the company that "let you go" just handed you the keys to your own life.

Why Women Get Hit Harder (And It's Not What You Think)

If you're a woman in finance or tech, you weren't just fighting for your job—you were fighting a rigged game. The numbers don't lie:

In finance: You face the "double penalty"—seen as both expensive (senior-level salary) and replaceable (fewer connections in male-dominated leadership circles).

In tech: Women made up 45% of layoffs despite being only 39% of the workforce. The cuts targeted "peripheral" roles like HR, marketing, and recruiting—aka the jobs where women actually managed to gain some ground.

Meanwhile, Deloitte's latest research shows that 50% of women say their stress levels are higher than last year, with career uncertainty being the primary driver. Translation: you've been slowly dying in your career for a while now.

But here's what really gets me fired up: most of the women I work with were already checking out emotionally before they got laid off. They were overwhelmed, questioning whether the next promotion was worth sacrificing their sanity, and secretly googling "career change" at 3am.

The layoff didn't create your career crisis. It just made it impossible to ignore.

You've been running on the hamster wheel of external validation for so long that you forgot to ask yourself what you actually want. You've been so busy proving your worth to companies that could eliminate your position with a PowerPoint slide that you lost touch with your own brilliance.

The "Bounce Back" Trap That Keeps You Stuck

The advice you're getting right now is designed to get you back into the same broken system that chewed you up and spit you out.

"Update your LinkedIn!" "Network your way back in!" "Don't take it personally!" "Use this time to upskill!"

This advice treats you like a malfunctioning machine that needs a software update, not a brilliant human being processing a major life transition. It assumes that getting another job just like the one you lost is the goal.

But what if the job you lost wasn't serving you anyway? What if this disruption is exactly what you needed to break free from a career path that was slowly suffocating your soul?

Harvard Business Review research confirms what I see in my practice—career transitions are emotionally fraught processes involving confusion, loss, and struggle. Rushing back into similar roles without reflection usually means repeating the same patterns that got you here in the first place.

The "bounce back quickly" mentality keeps you trapped in reactive mode, scrambling to recreate what you had instead of designing what you actually want. It treats your layoff like a temporary setback rather than the breakthrough it could be.

The Neuroscience of Why This Feels So Devastating

Here's something your career counselor probably didn't tell you: your attachment to your job title isn't just professional pride—it's neurological.

Every time you introduced yourself as "Sarah, VP of Finance," your brain released the same reward chemicals as completing a major goal. Over years, your neural pathways literally wired your sense of self to your professional identity.

So when you lost your job, your brain experienced what neuroscientists call "identity threat"—the same stress response as physical danger. That's why you feel like you're dying inside. Because neurologically, a part of you actually is.

But here's the fascinating part: this neurological disruption also creates what researchers call "cognitive flexibility windows"—periods when your brain is more open to forming new neural pathways and identity structures.

Translation: The identity crisis you're experiencing isn't a bug—it's your brain's way of preparing for an upgrade.

My SoulFire™ Revolution: From Burnout to Breakthrough

Fifteen years ago, I was you. Successful on paper, dying inside, and completely unprepared for my own professional earthquake. When my world imploded, I had two choices: scramble back to safety or step into the unknown.

I chose the unknown. And it eventually led me to develop what I now call the SoulFire™ Aligned Leadership approach—not just getting back to where you were, but rising to where you're meant to be.

This isn't about finding another job. It's about designing a career that can't be taken away from you by budget cuts, restructuring, or some executive's quarterly panic attack.

The women who thrive after being laid off aren't the ones who immediately jumped back into identical roles. They're the ones who used this disruption to completely rewrite their career story from a place of intentional choice rather than desperate reaction.

This requires you to:

Stop grieving the job and start celebrating the jailbreak. You're not "bouncing back"—you're breaking through. The version of you that defined herself by someone else's org chart needed to die for the real you to emerge.

Reclaim your inner authority. For too long, you've outsourced your sense of worth to employers, bosses, and performance reviews. It's time to remember that your value isn't determined by someone else's budget constraints.

Design from desire, not desperation. Instead of asking "Who will hire me?" start asking "What do I actually want to create with my one wild and precious career?" Harvard Business Review research shows that professionals who align career transitions with their core values report significantly higher satisfaction after setbacks.

How to Actually Turn This Around: Three Non-Negotiables

1. The Sacred Pause: Stop Running and Start Feeling

Before you do anything—before you polish your resume, before you start networking, before you even think about your next move—you need to stop running from what just happened.

This isn't about wallowing. It's about creating space to process the magnitude of this transition and reconnect with who you are when you're not performing for corporate overlords.

Take at least two weeks (longer if you can afford it) to simply be with this change. Not to "figure it out" or "make a plan"—just to be human for a minute.

Psychology Today research confirms what I tell my clients: people who allow themselves a transition period show significantly better mental health outcomes and make more strategic career decisions than those who panic-apply to everything on Indeed.

Your Sacred Pause Practice: Write two letters. First, write to your former professional self—thank her for everything she accomplished, acknowledge what she sacrificed, and give her permission to rest. Then write from your future self to where you are now, offering guidance and encouragement. This isn't therapy fluff—it's identity integration work that actually rewires your brain.

2. The Identity Inventory: Remember Who You Were Before the Corporate Conditioning

Make a list of everything you are that has nothing to do with your job: the friend who can read people like books, the woman who can make anyone laugh in a crisis, the person who naturally sees solutions others miss.

Now dig deeper: What lit you up before you got caught up in the corporate climb? What problems do you solve naturally in your daily life? What conversations energize you instead of draining you?

Your Identity Inventory Exercise: Complete this sentence 10 different ways: "I am the kind of person who..." Don't think about qualifications or LinkedIn keywords—focus on your natural instincts and what people always come to you for. This reveals your authentic professional identity beneath all the corporate conditioning.

3. The Strategic Reinvention: Build Something They Can't Take Away

Instead of immediately job hunting, start designing your next career. Not just your next job—your next career.

This might mean developing expertise in something you're passionate about, building a personal brand around your unique insights, creating multiple income streams, or designing a role that aligns with your values instead of just your resume.

Your Strategic Reinvention Exercise: Map out three potential ways to monetize your expertise outside of traditional employment. For each one, identify: What problem does this solve? Who would pay for this solution? What's the smallest version I could test in the next 30 days? This shifts you from victim to opportunity creator.

Building the Un-Layoff-able Career

The most successful reinventions I've witnessed involve creating what I call "portfolio careers"—multiple income streams that reduce your dependence on any single employer:

• Consulting: Leverage your industry expertise to solve problems for multiple companies
• Speaking/Teaching: Share your hard-won knowledge through workshops or keynotes
• Advisory roles: Serve on boards or in advisory positions for startups
• Digital products: Create courses or tools that solve common industry problems

The goal isn't to become unemployable—it's to become un-layoff-able because your value comes from who you are and what you create, not from the company name on your business cards.

The Plot Twist That Changes Everything

Here's the truth that will sound impossible right now: getting laid off might be the best thing that ever happened to your career.

I know that sounds certifiably insane when you're dealing with financial stress and ego bruising. But I've watched it happen over and over again—women who get "forced" out of careers that were slowly killing them end up creating work that lights them up in ways they never imagined.

Take Maya (name changed to protect privacy), a former senior analyst at a major investment firm. Six months after her layoff, she launched a financial consulting practice focused on helping women entrepreneurs. "I thought losing my job was the worst thing that could happen," she told me. "Turns out it was the permission slip I needed to stop living someone else's version of success."

Or Rachel (name changed to protect privacy), who went from laid-off product manager to founder of a company now valued at $2M. "The layoff forced me to bet on myself instead of betting on someone else's company."

The layoff that feels like an ending is actually an invitation. An invitation to stop performing someone else's version of success and start creating your own. An invitation to trust yourself more than you trust the false security of a corporate job.

An invitation to build resilience and hope that no budget meeting can ever touch.

Your career just got handed back to you. What are you going to do with it?

The Questions Nobody's Asking (But Should Be)

How long should I wait before job searching after being laid off?

There's no magic timeline, but rushing back into the job market without processing what happened is like getting into another relationship immediately after a breakup. You'll likely repeat the same patterns. Take at least 2-4 weeks for the sacred pause, then start designing (not just searching for) your next move.

What if I can't afford to take time off after a layoff?

Financial pressure is real, and I'm not suggesting you ignore it. Consider contract or freelance work that pays bills while giving you space to strategically plan. Avoid immediately accepting the first permanent offer unless it truly aligns with your redesigned vision.

How do I explain a layoff gap in interviews?

Be honest and strategic: "I was laid off as part of company restructuring, which gave me an opportunity to step back and get clear on what I want to create next in my career." Then pivot to what you discovered about yourself and why you're excited about this particular opportunity.

What's the difference between career recovery and career reinvention?

Recovery focuses on getting back to where you were. Reinvention focuses on designing where you want to go. Women who pursue reinvention report significantly higher career satisfaction and are less vulnerable to future layoffs.

What Happens Next

If you're reading this in the raw aftermath of being laid off, know this: you're not experiencing a career death—you're witnessing a career birth.

The question isn't whether you'll recover from this. It's whether you'll use this disruption to create something so much better than what you lost that you'll look back on this moment as the day your real life began.

What's one truth you've been avoiding about the career you lost? What's one desire you've been too scared to admit, even to yourself?

I'd love to hear your story—the real one, not the LinkedIn-polished version. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is speak our truth to someone who understands that the end of one chapter is just the beginning of a much better one.

And if this cracked something open in you, if you're ready to stop scrambling back to where you were and start designing where you want to go, let's talk. Book a FREE Clarity Call and discover how to transform this apparent setback into your greatest professional breakthrough. In this focused 30–45 minute session, we’ll uncover what’s actually draining your energy, identify the unconscious patterns running your leadership, and map out a personalized path toward sustainable success. This isn’t a sales pitch—it’s a strategic conversation designed to bring you back to yourself, with clarity, confidence, and next-step momentum.

Because here's what I know for sure: your layoff wasn't a rejection—it was a redirection. And where you're headed is so much better than where you've been.