By Dr. Billy Kueek

The Cycle of Grief
We experience a cycle of grief when we lose our jobs. Michael Farr, author of "The Quick Job Search", proposes that we go through the grief in stages, namely shock, denial, anger or shame, depression and finally acceptance.

Shock occurs when we are surprised by the bad news and when the dreadful happens to us. Denial comes next when we cannot come to terms with the loss. Anger and shame then crop up resulting in us justifying, blaming and finger pointing.

Unfortunately, our society is a judgmental one that is quite unforgiving and that intensifies the feelings of anger and shame.

After some time, depression sets in and finally, we accept the reality and then summon the energy and motivation to move ahead.

Understandably, different people have different timeframes to reach the desired state of acceptance where we begin anew and seek a new job or a new area of interest to pursue our career.

The most important thing at this juncture is to understand the stages that we go through inevitably and get out of it fast. The sooner we deal with it, the faster we accept reality and the earlier we move on. Remember, there is a difference between failing and being a failure.

Let's move on
The pain-pleasure principle of motivation states that those motivated by pain will move faster in these tough times but those motivated by pleasure can take time off to visualise a positive future state and create the urge to surge ahead.

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