If you’ve been fired, it can have you questioning your path, your worth, and your future. I know because I’ve been there. Here’s what I learned from being fired, so you can have an easier time.

So yes, I was FIRED. Not “let go” along with the rest of a department, not the last one in/first one out, and not a tech layoff. FIRED. As in, it’s you, it’s personal, we want YOU gone.

A little background: I started as an actor, and between acting jobs and day jobs, I worked almost exclusively contract jobs in my 20s and early 30s. The longest I worked in one place was 9 months, and that was on two different contracts.

I was an actor with lots of short stints: a summer season at a theatre here, a day on a network TV show there, a voice-over gig, smattering. And then day job stuff: waiting tables, temp work, cater waiter, I’d pick up a semester of teaching here and there, that kind of thing.

The Job

And then I was hired as the Educational Director for a company that taught acting classes for kids. I was excited. I was tasked with designing the course catalog, writing course descriptions, and hiring acting teachers. It was so much better than waiting tables. This role played to my strengths, and I was eager to do a good job.

Why I Was Fired

When it came time to create new classes, hire new teachers, and review the existing classes they were offering, I had some questions about our mission because there were a lot of directions we could take:

• Are we preparing kids to book television roles, to get better at improving, or to build confidence in a room with their peers?
• Is this an on-camera technique?
• Is this for the stage? It would help me create classes and hire teachers if I knew the intent and goals of the organization.
• What is the promise we’re making to the kids and families we sign up here?
• Do we have a mission statement I could use as a starting point?

This did not go over well.

We had several conversations about the possibility of crafting a mission statement. I asked for a paragraph about who we are, who we help, and what we help our clients achieve. They refused, and fired me for being “too aristocratic.”

That’s when I did my Googling and found all the BBB reports of parents accusing the company of being a scam. Turns out they had an unofficial mission statement: Sell a family a big dream for their kid to work in Hollywood, get their money, and run some classes but not be able to deliver on any casting promises. That was their plan all along. So what did I learn from this experience of being fired?

What I Learned from Being Fired

Being fired hurts.

Even when I thought the decision was unjust, even when I disagreed with the reasoning, it just hurt. It’s rejection. I felt sad. I felt hurt. And I think I didn’t allow myself to feel those things enough. It felt so bad that I tried to bypass or fast-forward and just get on to anger and blame. And there was legit anger there but that was easier for me than feeling the disappointment of what had seemed so promising not working out. I wish I had let myself grieve the loss of the dream.

Criticism can haunt you when you’re fired.

“You’re too aristocratic” stuck with me for years. I did not believe them, I did not internalize them and take those things on as truth, but they still stung.

Sometimes, you need the push.

This place did not want my best. They didn’t want my integrity. They wanted my compliance and my silence. And my values and worldview were disruptive of their agenda. When your values disrupt the agenda, sometimes you just have to part ways. And I wasn’t either brave enough or wise enough to call it quits and initiate that. I had to be pushed out. And I’m honestly grateful that I was. That’s also a theme I hear from clients who have been fired or let go: Thank goodness they did it because I couldn’t.

Being fired doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong.

When I look back on being fired, I would not change the behavior that got me fired. I would not have done that differently. Having those standards is what has served me in nearly every other place that I’ve worked.

Trust the red flags.

They were there in the interview process, but I was so excited about my fantasy of the role that I didn’t pay enough attention to what was happening, what was being communicated, and how I was being treated. I learned that even if I couldn’t articulate what was off, the feeling in my body of “this is OFF” – is enough. My body will often know before I can cite the logic, and I’ve learned to trust that more and more.

Here’s what I learned from being fired:

• Feel all the feelings
• Use hindsight to figure out what went sideways so you don’t repeat it
• And use the push as a turning point for your own good.