Hi. After 35yrs of full time work and the confidence and purpose that subconsciously comes from being busy, busy, busy, my role was made redundant. It's only been 6 weeks but soon the payout will run out and the mortage needs to be paid. I was the lion's share of the household income. So now to find a source of income!! I find I'm just not motivated to do anything. I fear if I apply for a job, while I don't think my resume is good enough (I don't have tertitary quals, only experience) I might just get an interview. I'm fearing rejection, having to re-prove my worth - and then why do I measure my value by the job I have and money I earn. Wow, even this post is confusing. Does anyone get my situation? And hints on breaking free appreciated. Thank you.

Hi there, I totally understand the feeling of valuing yourself based on your job/income it’s like your identity in a way. It’s something that I too am dealing with. For me getting out to exercise helps but often doing that is difficult. I think it comes down to self esteem and getting that back, outside of your job title. If you can get that self esteem back the fear of rejection may not be so great. Best of luck with your journey, it’s not easy but please know there are many of us out there experiencing similar issues you are not alone.

G’day,

I know exactly how you feel. I’ve had two redundancies. The first one was extremely difficult. It takes some getting used to, but you CAN reinvent yourself and experience is a bit like gold out there. It is a competitive job market, however you need to keep applying. You will get knock backs and you will get to interview and then a no thanks. I lost my job late March and am still in the hunt. I use Seek and am currently with two job agencies.

Like you am worried about the money, but you can’t get a job without putting yourself out there.

Companies want people with experience. Degrees are great, but don’t reflect experience and true skills gained over time. I haven’t any either.

Get your resume professionally written. Upload to Seek.com with your profile. Take a nice selfie looking professional.

My last interview came from my profile. They called me. No result yet though.

Look for both temporary contract as well as permanent as the contract can lead to permanence.

You will break through. Your work does not define who you are. Go get em! 🤗

Hi jlr, first off this isn't an unusual thing to be feeling and you certainly are not on your own. For myself when faced in a similar position i had to think about putting in as much effort as i use to in my old position back into myself. treat your personal growth and self esteem as a job and work as hard towards it as you use to do in your previous position. How did you manage your time during a busy work day? set daily and hourly goals to work towards like you might of with meetings and goals at work. for example instead of where i use to spend the first hour of the monday catching up with what needs to be done this week at work, i turned that into exercising and doing some reading or youtube watching on personal growth and self awareness training type of thing. where you might of once had an overall work related goal to work towards make the goal your resume or reaching out to make new contacts to get a feel for new job opportunities. just a thought.

Fear of rejections is common and happens in small and large parts of our lives, i really liked on youtube the brendom . com video on the rejection myth, also Jia Jiang 100 days of rejection. Haven't had the guts to overcome this myself like what is mentioned in the videos but want to work towards it.

hope you find some inspiration here on the BB website and don't beat yourself up too much about the redundancy, take what you learnt from it and its an important time to look at how you are dealing with the rejection and how you can use this knowledge to grow within yourself.

I can completely relate to this, retrenched at 34, 2 months looking for work, In Sydney which is basically a dead town, multiple interviews - they say they are impressed, come back for a second interview - but no result. Tired of being poor, single and depressed