[gdulli]

> 1. You must reframe the situation as quick as possible. Don't think, 'shit, why me, what happened, am I not good enough?' Such thoughts bring you a vicious cycle. You must treat this situation as the best thing ever happened, you must be happy about it. And I promise you, heck I bet $10,000 that you'll tell us in one year that this lay-off was the best thing ever happened and led you to x, y and z.

Positivity that isn't based on logic is wrong, just like negativity that isn't based on logic is wrong.

It's better to be honest with yourself about any given situation. Accept what you could have done better at without feeling inadequate. Recognize what you did well at without feeling complacent. You grow in response to your failures, not your successes.

Recognize what was good about the job and what you'll miss, so you can factor it into your next search. And obviously avoid the bad parts. If making yourself believe the job was only bad in an effort to save face and stay positive leads you to seek out the opposite, that's likely counter-productive.

These situations are rarely black and white. Everyone has a combination of failures/micro-failures, successes/micro-successes at every job whether they get fired/laid off or not. So there's plenty of logic to refraining from beating yourself up. Seeing a situation clearly and learning lessons from it happens more easily in hindsight than when you're stuck in it. So there's a lot of value in thinking about the past, if it's for the right reasons.

Staying dispassionate is more important than staying positive.

[greenspot]

Your message is basically 'learn from your mistakes' which would be usually a good advice. But in this special situation he just shouldn't.

Why:

- You don't have the time and the energy to do so; the risk of getting depressed or apathetic in such situations is quite high (once you are depressed you have another problem you don't want and can deal with); so discipline is the most important thing; to stay disciplined you MUST stay positive, 100%; thinking about 'micro-failures' doesn't help your mood; and btw, every situation can be seen positive or negative, you remember when people say the glass is half-full?

- Maybe the OP didn't do anything wrong, how do you want to know? Maybe it was the financial situation of the company, or they changed the product strategy over night or, or, or...; he might never find out the real reason, so any time spent on such thoughts is wasted time he could use for new endeavors

- Maybe in a year he can think back and learn from failures; but you know what, he doesn't have to sit down, think and learn from potential failures now: I am pretty sure that when he faces similar situations in future where he did mistakes in the past, he will remember and will act accordingly and automatically without the need to prepare himself

[gdulli]

The glass half full metaphor doesn't apply, it's about deciding the overall balance of a situation. This is different, it's about recognizing both the good and bad aspects of a situation. They're equally important and it's not about deciding between them. Being honest about both, right now, not a year from now, tells me what I need to adjust in my life so I make the best decision about what to do next.

When things are difficult is the most important time to be starting to build and have access to robust coping skills. Otherwise, when would you?

It's rare in life to get honest and blunt feedback about mistakes and you can either take the opportunity or ignore it. Building up criticism or rejection as such scary things that they have to be faced with denial is just another way of giving them too much weight and letting them control you.

If clinical depression is involved, by all means get professional help and don't get it through HN.