The Career Refresh with Jill Griffin

Hitting Rock Bottom: Rising Up After Setbacks

• Jill Griffin • Season 9 • Episode 196

Share episode

Jobs interviews, rejections, loss, and disappointments. What to do when you hit rock bottom? Setbacks, whether personal or professional, can be overwhelming, but they also serve as the start of a new chapter. This episode explores the concept of hitting rock bottom in our careers and how to move through it. 

Key Takeaways:

  • The power of self-compassion and resilience 
  • Six actionable steps to rebuild after professional or personal setbacks
  • Practical guidance for moving through it

Mentioned on the show: 
Breathing Underwater, poem by Carol Bialock, RSCJ

Support the show

Jill Griffin , host of The Career Refresh, delivers expert guidance on workplace challenges and career transitions. Jill leverages her experience working for the world's top brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Hilton Hotels, and Martha Stewart to address leadership, burnout, team dynamics, and the 4Ps (perfectionism, people-pleasing, procrastination, and personalities).

Visit JillGriffinCoaching.com for more details on:

  • Book a 1:1 Career Strategy and Executive Coaching HERE
  • Gallup CliftonStrengths Corporate Workshops to build a strengths-based culture
  • Team Dynamics training to increase retention, communication, goal setting, and effective decision-making
  • Keynote Speaking
  • Grab a personal Resume Refresh with Jill Griffin HERE

Follow @JillGriffinOffical on Instagram for daily inspiration
Connect with and follow Jill on LinkedIn

Speaker 1:

Hey, this is Jill Griffin. I'm the host of the Career Refresh. Welcome. Today we are talking about something deeply personal, yet universally human. We're talking about hitting rock bottom. You know that place. The rejections pile up and your career kind of feels like it's imploding and everything around you feels like it's falling apart at once. But here's the thing rock bottom, as painful as it is, can be a gift. I know you hate me right now, but really it's a shitty gift, but it is a gift nonetheless. Let's jump into it.

Speaker 1:

When you're laid off, fired or caught in the middle of a restructuring or post-acquisition which will lead to the restructuring I've been in a few of those. They're fun it feels like everything that you know is now uncertain. Your emotions are raw and you may be triggered by everything. Anything that happens in your life circumstantially after that may even feel more amplified. You may find yourself not responding to a situation. That you're reacting to a situation and you may even be doing without thinking right, it's primal and that you're being driven by that fight or flight, that purely driven emotion, evolutionary biology. I need to survive.

Speaker 1:

I want to share a poem that I found captures this moment beautifully. When my brother suddenly and tragically passed away in August of 2023, I mean, oh my Lord, I just did not. It was surreal. And then it was like six months of WTF, what just happened? And I found this poem by Carol Bylock I believe that's how you pronounce her name and it's called Breathing Underwater and she wrote it about hitting rock bottom and how you learn to deal with something that feels completely unfathomable. So I want to read it to you.

Speaker 1:

I built my house by the sea, not on the sands, mind you, not on sifting sand. I built it of rock, a strong house by a strong sea, a strong house by a strong sea. And we got well acquainted, the sea and I, good neighbors, not that we spoke much. We met in silences, respectful, keeping our distance, but looking our thoughts across the fence of the sand, always the fence of sand, our barrier, always the fence of sand, our barrier, always the sand between. And then, one day, and I still don't know how it happened, the sea came without warning, without welcome, even Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine, less like the flow of water than the flow of blood, slow but coming, slow but flowing like an open wound. And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death and while I thought the sea kept creeping higher until it reached my door and then I knew then that there was neither flight nor death nor drowning, that when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbors, well-acquainted, friendly, at a distance neighbors, and you give your house for a coral castle and you learn to breathe underwater. Friends, that hits. What that poem signifies to me is you can make the best, made laid plans, and you can build your strategies and you can prepare and I'm telling you you should prepare. But even in that preparedness, even building your house on rock, when that sea comes a calling, you stop being distant neighbors and you all of a sudden figure out how you're living in this and you learn to breathe underwater.

Speaker 1:

When I first read that I probably did the ugly cry. I remember it being like so profound. But I find that there's no stack ranking in suffering, right. A loss of some point is still a loss and whether it's a job or a person or the life that you thought, when you are shocked and caught by surprise and then suddenly hitting rock bottom, you have to find your way out. So what I have put together for us today to talk about is what I call the six steps to rising and, like all of the work that I put out in the world, not everything's going to work for you. Some of them you might be like it's totally BS, that's not going to work for you. Great, don't do it. But if any one of these offer you some solace or a path forward, then I want to hear from you. You can respond to me on any of the socials. You can hit reply to an email that I send if you're on my email list and, of course, my contact information is in the show notes. So, the path forward, the six steps to rising I want to talk about how we climb out of this place, this place of rock bottom, and these are the things that have worked for me and also for countless others that I work with.

Speaker 1:

The first is about acceptance. You have to stop fighting where you are Rock bottom is your current address, but it's not your permanent home and the sooner you accept this, the sooner you can start building. And it's kind of meta and it's kind of like a philosophical way of thinking but if I don't accept where I am, how can I know where I'm going If I don't accept that I'm sitting in New York City right now? How can I know where I'm going? If I don't accept that I'm sitting in New York City right now, how can I drive or fly elsewhere? I have to accept where I am so I can build a strategy. I didn't say you had to like it. I said you have to accept it. Stop arguing with the weather.

Speaker 1:

The next is search for glimmers. These are the teeny pockets of hope. They're there, I promise you, and maybe it's a kind message from a friend. It might be something that hits you as you're scrolling social media. It could be a moment of clarity during your morning coffee, where the light is hitting things the right way and you hear birds singing. It's finding those small things that give you a little bit of a smile inside and eventually maybe actually spreading to your face. But it's that simplicity of those little, small glimmers that start to add up. When I was in the space and again, like I said four times, laid off from restructuring I just found those everyday synchronicities or everyday glimmers. I would think of someone and then they would show up in my inbox or I would desire a certain type of food, and then later that day someone was like hey, do you want to go get that food? And I just look at that as little teeny pockets of hope. That's what worked for me.

Speaker 1:

The next is self-compassion. There's a study by BetterUp that says that professionals who practice self-compassion experience 26% less stress, 33% more resilience and I believe it's 23% less burnout. This isn't just feel-good advice. It's scientifically proven to help you navigate tough times without burnout. Practicing self-compassion is going to look different for everyone because everyone's going to respond differently, but this is anything from like treating yourself the way you would treat a small child or an aging person or a pet in your life, right, being so, so kind and loving to them and really finding using yourself like self-soothing language.

Speaker 1:

It could be practicing those glimmers, finding those gratitudes, really paying attention when you feel a sensation or a trigger come up in your body. If it's appropriate, maybe you put your hand on that spot, right. If you feel it in your throat, maybe you put your hand on your throat and you just give it a little bit of attention for a second. While it may sound woo-woo, what is happening is you're having a thought that's shooting neurochemicals into your body and your body is feeling that sensation near your throat and pausing and giving that area of your body a little bit of attention usually about 90 seconds gives your body a chance to dissipate those neurochemicals and the sensation tends to dissipate also and fade away. You're going to have the thought again, the sensation is going to come back, but you constantly are practicing some of that mindfulness and, on top of like, being kind to yourself, it's also using positive self-taught.

Speaker 1:

No one is meaner to me than I can be it to myself sometimes, and over the years I've learned how to really curb that so that I don't talk to myself that way and therefore other people are not allowed to talk to me that way. So if I find myself in a space where I'm just like what is going on, I can't believe you did that I might need to process that for a second and realize that I'm saying that. But then come back to that self-compassion. It can also look at releasing the guilt around something, really exploring if you have guilt or you should have done something, you start shooting on yourself. That's what we mean by practicing self-compassion really looking at that, separating story from fact and then looking at it like is this really true?

Speaker 1:

Next, I want you to reconnect with your values. Strip away the titles, the initials on the door, the corner office, the name, the prestige. What really matters to you, what drives you at your core? Building your support system. You can't do this alone. Building your support system. You can't do this alone. Reaching out, accepting help and, when you can, helping others.

Speaker 1:

One of the biggest things that people in the 12-step community learn in order to help them with the struggles that they're experiencing is they need to get out of their own way, and one of the ways to do that and to build self-esteem back and to build your own support system is focusing on others. To build self-esteem back and to build your own support system is focusing on others. So, if you have the energy, when you can catch your breath, getting yourself to support a volunteer organization or even a volunteer day, that type of community building, it's like creating a community garden, right? You want it diverse, you want it resilient, you want it nourishing. That is going to help you build that support system.

Speaker 1:

I want you to set small and achievable goals, really small, right? What's the one teeny thing that you can do today? And if you're looking at things in, you know quarters of a percent. Those start to add up after a while After my own head injury. The hero isn't coming, and that's okay. That's not a defeatist attitude. In fact, for me, that is extremely empowering.

Speaker 1:

In order for you to rise up after hitting rock bottom, you need to realize that you are now going to become the hero of your own journey, and there's no better person for the job. This is why rock bottom is a gift, because it is going to force you to look at the things you value building community, finding self-compassion. These are things that often fall to the wayside, things that we often don't do until we're in that crisis moment and I don't care if it's the loss of a job, a person or an election Finding this pause, giving yourself a chance to breathe and knowing that this is a growth period for you and a time for reflection. And yes, it feels forced and you didn't necessarily want it, but you got it and it was supposed to happen. How do I know? Because it's here and it happened. This is how you bounce back from rock bottom.

Speaker 1:

I want you to remember that seeds don't produce fruit overnight and different seasons require different care, so don't contort yourself into shapes that don't fit you. The world's outline is always shifting and what success looks like is going to change by the time you think you're going to catch it. So instead you need to come into yourself, trust your own timing, find the mentors, find the elders, find the people who you align to be in attentional communities right now and find ways that you are able to connect yourself with community people who share similar values. Because if you're always around people whose values you aspire to, that's great, but if you're around people whose values you're like what I don't agree with. That I'm going to tell you right now.

Speaker 1:

You can decide what to do later, but right now, when you're at rock bottom, you need to get away from those kinds of people, often going to come in waves, but remembering these things, breathing deeply, really resets the central nervous system. You want to find a breathing method that works for you. It could be counting in, counting out, like breathe in one, breathe out two. Box breathing is really helpful. Breathe in for the count of four, hold for two, exhale for the count of four, nourishing your body.

Speaker 1:

This is not the time to hit the Doritos. Doritos have their time and place. Folks, I am not anti-Dorito. This is the time to make sure that you are getting what you know your body needs. This is also, when possible, move a little more. I don't mean you need to do excessive extreme workouts, but you know what? If you have the time now and you have the ability in your body, go walking just outside. One of the things you could also do, in tying the two, is tap into your local animal shelter. Those dogs are going to be so excited to see you and they need walks. Those are things that you can do if you have time on your hands that you were not expecting.

Speaker 1:

And then I want you to really, as I said before, guard your mindset like the precious resource it is. My brain has created multi, multi-million dollars for the world's most known brands right, microsoft, samsung, coca-cola, hilton. I could go on. It has done that and has also done that for myself and many of the startups that I have worked for. I have to guard my brain like a resource. I have to watch what I put into it from social media. I'm going to tell you again delete those apps off your phone. If nothing else, at least put them on the last screen so when you swipe they're not as obvious. Watch what you're watching on TV. Do not sit in that 24 hour news cycle of mainstream media spewing whatever they need to spew at you today and this is coming from a former media executive Really, really guard that brain.

Speaker 1:

And, as it may sound cliche, what you want also wants you. So if you, I refuse to believe in a universe and a higher being that puts something in your heart and you want something that you cannot go after and achieve. So creating space for what you want, but not overlooking what's currently beautiful right around you. I know this can suck I do, I've been there but I'm promising you that this rock bottom is not the end of your story. It's just the beginning of the next chapter. I appreciate you so much and, if I can help you reach out, all right until next time, keep breathing, practice that self-compassion and keep rising. I'll see you soon.