Why are people losing their jobs? Beside the layoffs due to a bad economy, the number one reason people lose their job is due to a bad relationship with someone, a boss or a colleague. Ask yourself whether or not you contributed to the demise of the relationship. Ask yourself if you did everything you could to repair the challenging relationship. If you can drop your pride, look at yourself honestly and feel that you did everything you could, simply move on. If, on the other hand, you were a contributing factor to the bad relationship, learn from your mistakes and don’t repeat the behavior.

Learning from an unpleasant experience can actually assist you in obtaining a more fulfilling career. As you are going through this transition, be good to yourself…sleep, eat healthy and be with supportive people.

There is a grieving cycle when one goes through a loss. Depending upon the significance of the loss, the length of time to mourn will be shorter or longer. At first, people are often angry and they ask questions like, “Why me?” They will sometimes make a pact with God. They will bargain with a higher power saying that they will do anything if they can retrieve their past. This is a very unsettling time. Finally, a person will progress into acceptance and understanding and a new chapter will begin. If more than 12 months have elapsed with little or no healing, it is time to seek help.

Give yourself time to overcome your grief. People will pick up on your sadness if you begin to look for a new job too soon. You want to appear as though you have it all together when you begin looking for your new opportunity. People can smell success and they want to be around it. When someone is depressed, people run.

Network, network, network! Talk to everyone you know. Tell them what your dream job is and don’t allow any rock to go unturned. You just never know where your next opportunity is.

I remember my veterinarian telling me how much she hated her job. She worked for a very difficult boss. Because of her analytical personality, she had a hard time making the decision to leave her job. The difficult boss eventually fired her. Today she is very grateful because she has a job she really loves and works for people who truly appreciate her.

At the beginning of my career, I was working in an educational setting for a man who did not appreciate or like educators. Half of the staff quit or was fired that year. One of the best decisions I ever made was quitting that job. It was the beginning of a very exciting consulting career. Since then I’ve appeared in Forbes Magazine, worked for every conceivable client from Toyota to Prudential of Europe and met incredible people all over the world. My lemons definitely turned into very sweet lemonade!