Layoffs can royally suck.

For many going through them, it's a rollercoaster of emotions ranging from anger, sadness, hopefulness, and embarrassment. It's full of emotions that we spend our lives trying to avoid, but instead are forced upon us (often by surprise), and visible for the world to see.

And for some, they can do even worse damage. They can rob people of the joy of finding fulfilling work again or playing big; because of a fear that they'll be laid off again, or harbor a pernicious belief that they weren't (or aren't) good enough to keep on in the first place.

But, these don't have to be true for you.

I’ve coached clients through work transitions of all kinds including layoffs to being fired. And if you’re anything like them, it’s likely that the questions filling your mind right now are unhelpful.

Maybe you’re asking yourself one or more of these kinds of questions:

“Why me?” “Why didn’t I see this coming?” “What’s wrong with me, why am I so angry/sad/etc.?” “What will I tell people?”

The list goes on.

And if there is anything I’ve learned about coaching people through hard times, it’s this:

1. You need better questions. 

When you get laid off, you're more likely to be drawn into the negative downward spiral that disempowering questions have.

The questions you ask yourself now (and every day!) have a significant on what you do and the way you experience life.l

The reason being, questions you ask point your brain in a specific direction.

So if you ask disempowered questions, you’ll get disempowered answers.

2. You’re at an inflection point in your life. 

We’ve all heard the saying, “It’s not what happens to us that matters, it’s how we deal with it.”

How you respond to this moment will define the rest of your working life and how authentically you show up, and it's up to you to decide if you want to rise above this better than before.

This 23-page workbook is full of questions, exercises, and journal prompts that I do with clients who have been laid off (& signed on for 6-month engagements) so they can use the forced pause to intentionally design their next step and bounce back better than ever.