It's OK to Panic

We are in a white hot IT job market – however – there are companies letting people go even in this crazy job market

And if you’ve had the same job for a lot of years it can be pretty frightening

So please remember – it’s OK to panic

You’ve lost your job

And hit a financial crisis

It's okay to panic

It really is

You're going to get a lot of people handing out advice and many people coming at you with a bunch of platitudes like;

Oh just try and stay calm

Think positive thoughts

Don't call in that negative energy

And my personal favourite - Everything will work out okay…

The fact is you've lost your job - you're going through a financial crisis - you’re going to panic

I’m not talking as someone who was born into money and never had a hard day in my life

I’m an immigrant who came to Australia with a suitcase of clothes and the love and support of parents and siblings who had to start over from scratch

I’ve been down and been broke and had many hard times

Twenty-something years ago I had a major financial crisis when my relationship ended

I was four months pregnant

Lost my home

Lost all my money (he emptied the bank accounts)

Ended up with massive debt

I was about to go on maternity leave and had no idea how I was going to support myself and my daughter

All while in a new country

And one of the things I clearly remember is the people around me giving me advice like;

It'll get better

You’ll come through this

Just breathe

Those preachy clichés irritated the bejesus out of me because when you have no money and you’re worried about how you're going to feed your children, worried about paying rent, paying the bills - the last thing that you want to hear is this out-of-reality crap

I spent a lot of time crying and worrying and trying to figure out what I was going to do

And I panicked

Truth is it's damn hard to breathe when you don’t know where your next dollar is coming from

So please understand it's natural to panic

It’s normal to feel fear

It's normal to not be OK

Pretending otherwise is quite simply denying your feelings and that brings its own stresses

So work through those feelings of panic, work through the fear, acknowledge your feelings – you’re human

Eat chocolate and drink wine for a day or three

And then look for the practical steps, the doing steps, that help you overcome the panic and move on

I'm going to discuss a bunch of them in other posts with practical, real world steps from to help you in whatever way I can to get through this challenging time for you and your family

And for those who don’t yet know me, the references to magic stem from my passion for the Harry Potter series

I’m a fan

I make no apologies for it and admire the heck out of J.K. Rowling who went through her own dire financial struggles but cast her own spell of doing – in other words, sitting down and writing every day for years to end up with the rainbow and gold at the end of her own dark tunnel

It’s about casting the spell, not just wishing for the magic