Reductions In Force 2026
Rampant reductions in force could be the theme song of 2026. If you’ve been caught up in a layoff, you’re not alone. Industries across the board from tech and banking to healthcare have been affected. Organizations are shutting down due to competition and restructuring. Many others are choosing to replace talented, skilled, and experienced people with AI.
Layoffs introduce a host of human challenges
Reductions in force alter the business landscape, organizational culture, and they create instability as new processes and workflows are implemented. They also introduce significant human challenges—both tactical and cognitive that impact our mindsets and overall well-being. As people attempt to replace the job they lost, the cognitive challenges running in the background are the ones begging for attention because they can be the toughest to navigate.
Moving forward and having success after a layoff is absolutely possible. Rebounding requires a shift in awareness and mindset. In this blog, I’ll break down five of the key mindset challenges I’ve helped clients navigate over the years. I’ll give you three practical steps to address the cognitive challenges to help you draft your plans and build your next career chapter with more agency, clarity, and confidence.
Layoff Challenge #1: The Narrative
One minute you’re in the zone, confidently grooving along and doing your thing like only you can. Out of the blue, the rug gets yanked right out from under your dancing feet. Your HR representative contacts you to say something like, “We’ve decided to go in a different direction. Today is your last day.”
You’ve barely had time to process the words coming out of their mouth when they hit you with the next required statement: “It’s not personal, it’s business.” You feel the sucker punch. WTF just happened?
You have questions. You want answers. If you’re lucky, you’re met with a healthy dose of empathy and given the opportunity to ask those questions and receive the courtesy of the straight answers you deserve.
But, if your experience is like that of the many thousands of people caught up in the rampant RIF trend, you get an email or an invitation to a cryptic Zoom meeting where someone with a blank stare simply says, ” You’re being replaced by AI.”
That’s a tough pill to swallow. It’s the layoff narrative that can lead you to believe that you can actually be replaced by an inanimate tool that imitates humans.
As you process the news, your mind may start reflecting on the array of contributions you’ve made over the years, listing the ‘why’ for the awards on your bookshelves that need weekly dusting, or recounting one stellar performance review after the next that you received.
Your mind may instigate you to ask yourself what you could have done to be more valuable—to be one of the people who wasn’t replaceable. This cycle of thinking will invariably lead you to question your own human and professional value. When left unchecked, it will set you up for a vicious and depleting cycle of rumination that degrades your mindset— shaking the confidence you built across your career.
Layoff Challenge # 2: Loss Of Confidence
One of the most difficult aspects of a layoff is our inherent tendency to question our own value. Our brains easily go to this place, courtesy of our biology. We’re hard wired for negativity bias—a mechanism designed to help us survive.
Whether you’re left with unanswered questions or a crystal clear answer that explains why you were laid off, one looming question inevitably pops up on your mind’s radar: Why me?
Being told you’re being replaced by someone who’s more capable, skilled, or who’s had a more successful track record doing the job is one thing. Being told you’re being replaced by AI can feel flat out demoralizing. This is especially true if you’ve spent decades building experience and mastery in your field.
Imposter syndrome (who you thought you kicked to the curb years ago) may show up and uproot everything you knew about yourself, your abilities, and your successes. As your mind attempts to sift through what’s true and what’s nonsense, a creep floods your mindset, affecting your sense of self, your confidence, your energy, and your belief that securing an even better role is possible.
Layoff Challenge #3: Uncertainty, Fear, and Disconnection
I mentioned that layoffs present tactical and cognitive challenges. In my experience, these challenges not just interrelated. They feed on one another. Tactical challenges include things like loss of income and benefits, lack of a set schedule, disconnection from the people you worked with, and the purpose you had in your role.
Cognitive challenges, the ones that tend to go unnoticed, include a loss in confidence, uncertainty, stress, fear, and loneliness. These are states of mind that can be even harder to navigate when your calendar is suddenly wide open and you’re at home disconnected from the team left behind.
As the tactical challenges surface in your awareness, they feed the cognitive ones. You will need to address both sets of challenges to rebound, move forward, and build the focus and energy needed to get clear on what you want and land your next role.
Someone paid you for who you are and what you do. They will pay you again.
Layoff Challenge #4: Rejection Mindset
My experience in coaching clients who have been hit by the double threat combo of tactical and cognitive challenges, has taught me that a fear mindset will take the wheel when given the chance.
If your first instinct is to start applying for new roles like your life depends on it, fear is likely driving the bus. Applying to roles in this state of mind will not lead you to better or give you the clarity, energy, or focus needed to build your next chapter. The math is simple. Fear fuels desperation and a scarcity mindset. Mindset dictates behavior.
We know the recruiting industry has been altered by AI—much like many other industries. It’s a rare and wonderful thing when a human being reviews applications and contacts an applicant. This is important to remember because AI vetting can lead to radio silence and another self-limiting mindset that manifests as layoff challenge #4: rejection.
With every unacknowledged application you submit, your mind begins reinforcing the limiting narratives you’ve now started to believe. You begin to tell yourself you’re not valuable or talented enough—that you’re too young or too old. Your mind may start to convince you that you’ll never land another role because we’re doomed—screwed by the machine. These narratives quickly lead to layoff challenge #5.
Layoff Challenge #5: Forgetting What Makes You, You
Forgetting what makes you, you is perhaps the most damaging human side effect of the 2026 layoff trend. I predict this specific challenge, if left unchecked and unaddressed, will become fodder for a confidence crisis at scale—our next mental health epidemic:.
The longer the space is between the lost role and the next, the more likely it is that your mind will be tempted to minimize or even forget the irreplaceable human qualities, hard earned, finely honed skills, and the experiences you lived that made you powerful and effective across your career. Remembering what makes you, you is the most important task you have after a layoff. It’s the one that gives you clarity and reminds you that you were successful and you will be successful in your career again.
These challenges can feel incredibly difficult to navigate. With so many people experiencing them simultaneously, it’s tempting to commiserate, fold, and buy into the narratives that are making news headlines. Here’s what I want you to know.
- Your layoff will not define you unless you allow it to.
- Your mindset is your choice.
- Rebounding and moving forward is not only possible, it’s the launch pad to your next chapter.
Three Steps to Rebound and Move Forward After A Layoff
I remember the shake in my client’s voice as she fought back tears and the clenching sensation in her throat. She recounted the day that started like any other. A few hours later, HR let her know she’d been laid off. She was talented, experienced, and well respected. She’d earned deep trust, worked her buns off, and excelled in every aspect of her leadership—a rising star in every sense. The news left her stunned, shocked, and grieving the sudden loss.
She had a choice. She could let her layoff define her or she could remember what made her successful and create a path forward that would lead her to her next career chapter. She committed to doing the work she needed to do to reset her mindset. That work helped her rebuild her confidence, refocus her energy, and get strategic about every application she submitted. Four months later, she landed a new role.
Here are three of the practical steps I incorporated into our coaching sessions that helped her reset her mind, rebound, and move forward.
- Check your mindset. When fear, anxiety, and uncertainty rule your mindset, they breed scarcity and desperation. Nothing good will follow. Embrace discomfort. Make space for the uncomfortable feelings so you can get clear on what you’re feeling.
- Create a buffer. Resist your brain’s urgency to start applying ASAP. Take a beat to breathe. You’ve been through a lot. Rebounding takes time. Give yourself permission to decompress for a set number of days to establish a new temporary schedule that works for you. Time will improve your clarity, focus, energy, and mindset
- Reframe to remember.
- After a layoff, your mind will naturally focus more on what you’ve lost than on what you have. Remember: Someone paid you for who you are and what you do. They will pay you again. As you decompress, reflect and spend some time answering these questions:
- What brought me fulfillment and purpose in my last role?
- What am I most grateful for as I think about the work I’ve done?
- What specific qualities made me successful?
- What skills have I developed that were valued by my colleagues and clients?
- How do I communicate that sets me apart?
- How has my thinking inspired others, led to innovation, or been the key to solving problems?
- What’s distinct about the way I process information and share insights?
- When have I inspired others? What stories do I have to share?
- Where have I met challenges in my career?
- What did I learn about myself?
- How could those lessons make me more resilient now?
- How can I package up my unique qualities, skills, talents, experiences, and stories to meet the new business landscape?
Take an inventory of your insights then, write them down. This awareness will transform your mindset because it will connect you with everything that makes you uniquely you, giving you a solid foundation to move forward.
These three steps will help you shift your focus from what you lost to all that you have to offer. The process will set the stage for you to rebound from the layoff, move forward with more intention, and build your next chapter with more agency, clarity, and confidence. You’ve got this!
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