The wake-up call

In early February, my company went through a round of layoffs, but luckily, I was not impacted.

However, I still recall being afraid of being laid off in January. I am not easily stressed, but I felt quite anxious and helpless when I sensed that I could also be laid off.

In this blog, I want to share why I feared being laid off and what I plan to do differently. I hope sharing my transformative experience will encourage people to check in with themselves periodically to determine whether they need to fine-tune their lives.

Why am I scared of being laid off

I feel like I am not adding value to the company

In early January, I had a realignment of my responsibilities within the team. I went from taking on projects from all go-to-market teams to only supporting our sales team.

I vividly remember not saying a single word during my first few meetings with the business stakeholders after the realignment.

I was afraid of saying something stupid in the meeting because I did not know enough details about all our sales metrics. I felt like I did not know the business enough to provide an intelligent point of view.

Not being able to contribute to the meeting made me feel useless. I wanted to contribute but did not know what to say during discussions with our business stakeholders.

Since I could not provide any value during my meetings, I was afraid I might be on the chopping block during a potential layoff.

I lack the confidence to solve any future problems

After more reflection, I realized the root cause of my fear was not being laid off. I am really afraid that I won't be able to find new job opportunities that would offer what I am being offered in my current job.

I don't think I would find another good job opportunity because I lack the confidence to solve problems and provide value to any other company.

Digging deeper into why I lack the confidence to solve problems, I realized I wasn't learning that much from my job last year. I was in a bit of a cruising mode at my job.

I didn't go out of my way to take on challenging projects, so I gradually became complacent about working on a smaller scale or simpler projects. Since I didn't challenge myself last year, I fear that I will not be able to solve any complex problems in the future.

What am I going to do differently in the future

Identifying the root cause of my layoff scare is just the first step. I am planning to do two things differently moving forward:

Shift from the order-taker to the owner mindset

In 2022, I simply took orders from my manager or other stakeholders. I was working on projects that others told me to do.

Since I relied on others to tell me what needed to be done, I wasn't thinking critically about why I was doing my projects. As a result, I did a few projects that weren't very impactful and provided me with limited learning.

However, I want to change my attitude from being an order taker to an owner. I need to start by thinking about what outcome we want to achieve and work backward to determine what projects we need to do. Focusing on the end goal will give me more clarity in prioritizing projects and tasks.

As an aspiring entrepreneur, I think being proactive and taking ownership of my work are crucial skills to develop. No one will tell me what to do when I start my business, so I need to sharpen my mind to spot unmet business needs.

Learn insatiably

My lack of confidence in solving problems stemmed from my lack of learning last year. Therefore, I want to learn as much as possible this year.

At work, I want to focus my learning on the experience that could prepare me to start my own business one day. In my current role, I think the best learning that would propel my entrepreneurial journey is management and leadership skills.

Most of the projects I am working on are cross-functional and often involve a lot of stakeholders working on various work streams. Although I don't directly manage anyone, I can still learn how to lead the project team to achieve our desired outcome. I need to lay out a concrete vision and get the proper alignment from all stakeholders to march in the same direction.

Once everyone is clear on the work needed to solve a problem, I must also learn how to hold people accountable to achieve our end goal. I will also need to leverage stakeholders who are a lot more senior than me to get the right level of accountability to execute the project.

Outside of work, I want to focus on learning as fast as possible. I think one of the best ways for me to learn is to read. To read more, I need first to develop a habit of reading.

I wasn't that excited about reading because I had only read non-fiction books in the past. Many non-fiction books are quite dry and boring, so I often had difficulty reading for an extended period. Therefore, I want to start reading fiction books to make reading more exciting.

By mixing various fiction and non-fiction books in my reading list, I hope to build a consistent reading routine. I want to challenge myself to read as many books as possible this year.

Conclusion

Experiencing a layoff scare is extremely painful, but I am glad that the layoff scare forced me to re-examine my life.

I realized that my fear of layoff came from my lack of confidence to deliver value and solve problems.

To deliver more value, I need to shift from a reactive to a proactive mindset at work. Instead of waiting on others to tell me what to do, I need to start with the desired outcome to propose what needs to be done. Most importantly, I am going to take ownership to drive quantifiable impact.

One of the easiest ways to boost my confidence in solving problems is to learn faster and more intentionally. While at work, I will focus on learning how to lead a team to tackle complex initiatives to drive the outcome. Outside work, I will read as many books as possible to accelerate my learning.

By delivering quantifiable impact and learning as much as possible, I know I will start building the confidence to cope with any potential layoffs in the future.

Feel free to share your reflections, thoughts, or feedback with me @themagichen on Instagram or reach me at themagichen@gmail.com