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Search - "path to unemployment"
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Out of curiosity, is there anyone else who feels a bit late to the game in terms of their programming skills and training?
I got my start at about 10 with a slightly obscure BASIC dialect for classic MacOS, and while I got the logical bits down strong, I never really branched out too much at the time because I had difficulty understanding some of the more advanced examples I had available on my own.
Skip ahead to college and I tried CompSci my first semester, and did fairly well on paper, but could not get the compiler to work, even copying out known examples character for character and verifying them repeatedly. So after my first semester (and the hardest-earned D I’ve ever gotten) I ended up switching my major.
Skip another 10 years and I’m talking to some people about setting up a website, but the programmer flaked out on us, so I decided to start experimenting in PHP, and while that project never went anywhere I got good at developing resources for helping me keep my Japanese skills up (lots of logic/DB work, minimal interface).
Finally, after 10 more years of tinkering and during a bout of unemployment, I had a friend lament that he needed another programmer for his shop, but didn’t know anyone reliable. I apprenticed under him, learning WordPress along the way, and these days he’s moved on while I run the shop on my own, picking up new skills as needed.
There are times I feel absolutely confident in what I’m doing, but there are several areas where I feel like I’ve got a lot of fundamental gaps I can’t figure out how to address due to my near complete lack of formal training (like when I’ve tried to do non-web programming).
Anyone else have a similar path to where they are now? Ideas on how to break out of this limiting feeling?1 -
With the current economy in its rocky state, it is no surprise that firing levels have reached new highs in the world. According to a recent study conducted in the UK, former managers and workers who lost their lifelong jobs were able to get past their problems simply by keeping a positive attitude in mind. The theory of “mind over matter” is more applicable here than it is in many other situations as workers strive to get back a life they once had. If you have recently lost your job, you may want to focus on getting your spirits up, for instance, you can ask for help with resume writing services such as this one https://resumebros.com/, rather than spiraling into depression. By separating yourself from your former life, you may be able to see better success.
This study was published in “Organization Studies,” a journal that circulates in the UK. Researchers found that people who were able to see their job loss as a new start in life were much more capable of moving on and seeing success again. These patients viewed the change as a way to become self-employed or an excuse to volunteer and better their lives. Taking on a positive step led them to a reduced amount of trauma when compared to those that dwelled on the job loss.
The study consisted of men and women between the ages of 49 and 62 who were once senior workers in their industries with highly successful careers before them. I realize that most of the people reading this will be younger than that, but the theories from the study can resonate in any age group. The men and women in the study all suffered devastation after being laid off, and they coped with that devastation in different ways. Those that were able to separate themselves from their old jobs found it much easier to separate themselves from the pain of the loss.
All of these participants were enrolled in a program for older managers that recently encountered unemployment. The program was government funded and designed to allow out of work individuals to pick up with their lives and start again. The participants that were least successful with the program were the ones that saw their job loss as the end of their working time altogether, as if it was going to be the sole destruction of their lives. They did not handle emergency management well. Their negative attitudes forced them to cope worse than the positive attitudes of other participants.
As a whole, the study aimed to show that coaching, over the course of time, can help unemployed men and women find ways to get past their financial stumbles and get back into the work force again. Those who are willing to embrace the coaching can find themselves back into a state of financial success much faster than those who wallow in their situation. As long as these individuals can see themselves as capable, driven, and intelligent people who happen to be unemployed, they are usually able to make it back to where they need to be in life.
You can apply all of this to your own life and your path toward the future. If you lose a job that you assumed would help you after graduation, move on to something else. You may end up in a better place in the end. I recently lost a huge client of mine that paid me roughly $4,000 a month. I was devastated and a little panic stricken after the loss, but that allowed me to apply for new work with new clients. I now make twice the money from about half the work, all because I wasn’t reaching out to all my opportunities in the past. You may experience the same revelation if you keep a positive attitude.