No one enjoys being unemployed.  However, there is a way to make this unpleasant circumstance work best for you.

Most articles on this subject focus on the tasks you need to perform to get back on track.  While there is a place for understanding appropriate action steps, these steps do very little good in the wrong hands.  There is a much more important problem to address first:  What’s going on between your ears will influence the outcome of everything you do!  

Research shows that 35% of unemployed persons will come out of their ordeal stronger and more physically healthy.  Do you see yourself as naturally part of that percentage?  If so, great!  You’re a resilient survivor.  If not, the good news is you can learn to be resilient too.  As a result, you will be highly effective in any current or future challenge.

The first thing you need to understand is that how we view adversity affects our potential for success, both during a challenge and in future employment.  It also impacts our health, longevity, and our risk for depression.

One researcher sums it up this way:

“It is the thinking style that determines resilience – more than genetics, more than intelligence, more than any other single factor” (Shatté)

To learn this yourself, you need to know how resilient people think…how you can adopt this mindset…and why it works.

Over the course of our lives, we have all developed methods of explaining to ourselves how the world works and how we fit into that schematic.  This is called your “explanatory style”.  The more flexible it is, the better off you’ll be.  Here is what I mean:

Your explanatory style can be viewed along three dimensions:  (1) Personalization, (2) Permanence and (3) Pervasiveness.  (Martin Seligman)

More specifically:

• Who is to blame?  ME / NOT ME (Personalization)

• How long will this last?  ALWAYS / NOT ALWAYS (Permanence)

• How much of my life does this affect?  EVERYTHING / NOT EVERYTHING (Pervasiveness)

People who have a ME / ALWAYS / EVERYTHING style tend to blame themselves and give up easily because they see situations as unchanging and all-encompassing.  These characteristics are found in people who engage in habitual pessimistic and helpless thinking.  Ultimately they tend to view circumstances as hopeless and become easily depressed.

Those with a NOT ME / ALWAYS / EVERYTHING style tend to blame others and take little responsibility for their role in the adversity.  They tend to respond to stresses by becoming angry and pointing fingers.  These people fixate on viewing everything that doesn’t go their way as a violation of their rights.  Because they see events as permanent and affecting numerous areas of their lives, a sense of futility often results for these folks.  These individuals waste precious time blaming the economy, their employer, or the person who took their job, and believe that they will never recover.

While a NOT ME / NOT ALWAYS / NOT EVERYTHING style is often viewed as the most “optimistic” explanatory style, it still is not necessarily an accurate or realistic view of a given situation.

For example, perhaps you do have some responsibility in your company’s decision to let you go.  (They didn’t lay-off everyone!)  The “not me” people won’t consider the possibility that, perhaps, they weren’t in a position where they could maximize their strengths, and had simply stayed with the status quo because it was comfortable and secure…until their lay off.

Ideally, you do not want to fall on either end of the spectrum, rather learn to view events as a continuum along these three dimensions.  The goal is to maintain a sense of “Realistic Optimism” by thinking as accurately and flexibly as possible about each situation you face – Learn to challenge your previous, more rigid way of thinking.

Reivich and Shatté describe Realistic Optimism as:

“The ability to maintain a positive outlook without denying reality; actively appreciating the positive aspects of a situation without ignoring the negative aspects.”

Realistic Optimism also involves working toward positive outcomes with the knowledge that successful outcomes don’t happen automatically, but are achieved through effort, problem solving and planning.

If you review my entries regarding the Science of Survival, you will draw many parallels to our current discussion.  As you may recall, Anxiety can be reduced by executing a plan and finding satisfaction in the small, yet significant steps toward success.

In the next blog, I’ll tell you why it works to adopt a thinking style that embraces Realistic Optimism, and eventually will boil it down to some concrete advice.  Sign up to get Workpuzzle delivered so you don’t miss it!