The 7 Laws of Being Laid Off

Wouldn’t you know it? Just when I start a blog about prosperity, I receive a very last minute call that a lucrative freelance gig I was to start this monday was canceled. I found this out on friday…at 4pm. 

Am I angry? Yeah. Am I frustrated? Yeah. Am I lost? Nope.

“Why?” you may ask. Because after 10 years as a freelancer, (the most faith based career that practically anyone can have), I have had this sort of thing happen on several occasions. Now I’ve learned from experience, defined as “experience is what you get when what you wanted to happen didn’t”. So here are my personal rules for the times when I am unemployed. My 7 Laws of Being Laid Off.

1. Feel your feelings. Right after a lost opportunity, when someone says to me ‘When one door closes, another one opens”, I want to punch them heavily in the solar plexus. Now I know that it’s okay for me to pout for a couple of days. Plus it’s hard to book another gig when you’re resentful about the last one.
2. Dress nicely. This may seem like an odd suggestion but this is so important.  When you are feeling your worst, dress your best. If it’s been a particularly long time since I’ve had my last gig, I start dressing nicely every day. This lifts my mood and it’s easy to do. 
3. Don’t take it personally. This is huge. Entire industries change and there’s not a thing you can do about it. Management changes all the time and it has nothing to do with you. In fact, unless you’re told that it does have something to do with you, assume it doesn’t and move on.
4. God is making room for something better. Now you can punch me in my solar plexus:) But seriously, when a job opportunity is taken away, something better comes along. Sometimes it take a long while, but it does indeed show up. That’s the faith part of being a free lancer.
5. Call people! If your work is anything like mine, when you’re working it’s all consuming. Time to call your friends. Do coffee. Updating your Facebook page is not truly connecting. Get out of the house and make face to face contact with someone. Isolation is a scary, dark place that you should never go to alone.  
6. Stop self obsessing. Even if your finances are a total wreck and this lay off couldn’t have come at a worse time, keep in mind that your situation is not the best or the worst. There are people who have it better than you, but there are also people who have it a lot worse than you. You are somewhere in the middle no matter what your debt is. Help someone else who is suffering.
7. GOD IS YOUR EMPLOYER. This is the most important one of all. You may think that your money comes from your company or your boss or your sales, but it really comes from God. God uses people as channels. Remember he is your divine employer who puts you right where you need to be.