Are You Trapped in Your Own Feelings of Insecurity?
Curt Skene’s In2Win! Career Coaching Supplement.
Being in career transition sucks! There, it’s been said… now move on. Just know that the voices inside your head are louder and uglier than those on the outside. Everyone who involuntarily experiences career transition feels a huge loss of identity and self-worth, anger and shame.
Remind yourself these are natural feelings because you have just faced one of the most humbling moments of your life. It is important to keep your emotions in check by telling yourself that you are not alone. The best way to flush your insecurities away is to get back up with your head held high and move forward. If you don’t you may find yourself withdrawing and watching your social network implode at the very time you need to get yourself out.
Pay close attention to the quality of questions you ask yourself as your subconscious mind will feel obligated to answer each one. Instead of asking negative questions like, “Why did this happen?” and “What if no one wants me?” focus on more positive ones such as, “How can I land an even better opportunity?”
and “What would really WOW my next employer?” Remember that your sense of security is a product of what you pay attention to, so keep focused on your accomplishments and surround yourself with the positive influence of good people and good reading material.
Transition feels difficult now, but it can become the path to work that fits you better.
Why I Wrote This Page
Because your brain is wired to weight the negative far more heavily than the positive. That’s not a character flaw, it’s an old survival mechanism, and it means the story you’re telling yourself right now is almost certainly harsher than the facts actually justify.
This is why the internal voice during a career transition is so loud and so cruel. It’s not that you’ve suddenly become less capable. It’s that a threat, and job loss registers as a real one, triggers the part of your brain built to scan for danger, and that part doesn’t do nuance. It amplifies, generalizes, and catastrophizes, because for most of human history that kept people alive. It’s not useful for judging your own career.
Knowing this doesn’t make the feelings disappear. But it does let you treat them as what they are, a biased alarm system, not an accurate report on your worth.
Action Steps
- When a harsh self-judgment shows up, ask whether you’d say it to a friend in your exact situation. If not, it’s the alarm system talking, not the truth.
- Keep a written list of your actual accomplishments and reread it when the negative voice gets loud. Facts are a better argument than feelings.
- Notice the pattern, not just the moment. If the same insecurity keeps resurfacing, it’s worth naming directly rather than fighting it fresh every time.
In2Win! Afterthought
Curt’s current observations and updated guidance will be added here.
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