By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive

There are few events as devastating as the loss of employment. The damage done to a persons self-esteem, especially if the length of time without a job is extended, can be crippling. Try to remember that your future isn’t in a job; your future is within you. 

I think that self-honesty is of critical importance. Once we’re able to divorce ourselves from the various illusions and obsessions that affect our decision making, we’re free to make choices that are based in reality. Until then we’re held hostage. 

I’ll give you an example, when I was a young actor in New York I had to make a living between jobs. Actors in New York become waiters, right? That’s the archetype. Waiting on tables gives an actor an income, and scheduling flexibility. I decided I would get a job waiting on tables. Within a few days I found a job at a prestigious restaurant in Gramercy Park. By my third evening shift I was fired. I couldn’t believe it.

So I went out and found another job as a waiter. The same result. I was fired. I was a terrible waiter primarily because I didn’t really enjoy it. However I couldn’t accept that. I became obsessed with proving to myself that I could excel in the restaurant industry. I found another job, and again, the same result; I was fired.

I was fired from twenty restaurant jobs in ninety days before I was finally bludgeoned into accepting that I just wasn’t a good fit for the restaurant industry and that the restaurant industry would never be a good fit for a klutz like me. 

Sometimes rejection is God’s protection. I found a career in acting which was not only a way of life but a way to life. In additon, the skills I learned as an actor prepared me for a career in sales. Do a self-inventory including asking yourself what you really want from life. I’ve found most people can tell me what they don’t want but fare able to define  what they want.

We’re all inundated by messages from our family, friends, peers, and the media. It can get to be a little confusing.

Here are a few thoughts offered by Brian Tracy that may help to guide you towards clarity of mind and purpose. The journey begins with acceptance, and in particular, self-acceptance.  

Remember, dire circumstances have the potential to reveal who you really are. The bad times in my life forced me to discover capacities, talents, and resources I didn’t know I had. 

How Are You Treated By Others?
Self-acceptance begins in infancy, with the influence of your parents and siblings and other important people.

Your own level of self-acceptance is determined largely by how well you feel you are accepted by the important people in your life.

Your attitude toward yourself is determined largely by the attitudes that you think other people have toward you. When you believe that other people think highly of you, your level of self-acceptance and self-esteem goes straight up.

The best way to build a healthy personality involves understanding yourself and your feelings.

Let the Light Shine In
This is achieved through the simple exercise of self-disclosure. For you to truly understand yourself, or to stop being troubled by things that may have happened in your past, you must be able to disclose yourself to at least one person. You have to be able to get those things off your chest. You must rid yourself of those thoughts and feelings by revealing them to someone who won’t make you feel guilty or ashamed for what has happened.

Understand What Makes You Tick
The second part of personality development follows from self-disclosure, and its called self-awareness. Only when you can disclose what you’re truly thinking and feeling to someone else can you become aware of those thoughts and emotions If the other person simply listens to you without commenting or criticizing, you have the opportunity to become more aware of the person you are and why you do the things you do. You begin to develop perspective, or what the Buddhists call “detachment.”

Be Honest With Yourself
Now we come to the good part. After you’ve gone through self-disclosure to self-awareness, you arrive at self-acceptance. You accept yourself for the person you are, with good points and bad points, with strengths and weaknesses, and with the normal frailties of a human being. When you develop the ability to stand back and look at yourself honestly, and to candidly admit to others that you may not be perfect but you’re all you’ve got, you start to enjoy a heightened sense of self-acceptance.

Do an Inventory of Your Accomplishments
A valuable exercise for developing higher levels of self-acceptance involves doing an inventory of yourself. In doing this inventory, your job is to accentuate the positive and minimize the negative.

Think of your unique talents and abilities. Think of your core skills, the things that you do exceptionally well that account for your success in your profession and in your personal life right now.

Think About Your Future
Think about your future possibilities and the fact that your potential is virtually unlimited. You can do what you want to do and go where you want to go. You can be the person you want to be. You can set large and small goals and make plans and move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization. There are no obstacles to what you can accomplish except the obstacles that you create in your mind.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, sit down with your spouse, or a good friend, and tell him or her about something that is troubling you and is still causing you unhappiness.

Second, develop perspective on your problem by standing back from it and imagining that it was happening to someone else. What advice would you give to that person?

Third, think continually about the good experiences and accomplishments you have enjoyed in the past. Remind yourself regularly that you are a pretty good person and you’ve done a lot of good things in your life.