You drove home, wondering how to tell your family and asking yourself over and over, “Why me?”

Welcome to gray, anxious world of unemployment. Was it fair that you were selected to go? Of course not. Is life always fair? Of course not.

The key to maintaining your sense of self-worth through pressures of unemployment and rigors of job search, an often demeaning process, is to reframe your outlook and look at yourself both objectively and kindly. You are in an uncomfortable position that was not caused by anything you did, or anything you didn’t do. It happened, as bad things often happen to good people.

Treasure yourself, your skills, and your personal value and learn to see what has happened to you as what it can be: an opportunity to take a “time out,” to re-assess yourself, practice self-exploration and self-appreciation, and a chance to redirect your life into new and positive directions.

2. Start a journal, if you don’t already have one. Chronicle your activities, how you feel while doing them, and how you feel afterwards. Watch patterns of your emotions so that you can start to predict when something is going to be stressful and uncomfortable. Schedule a fun activity afterwards to help you regain your balance. If certain activities make you feel buoyant and hopeful, concentrate on increasing such activities throughout week.

3. Approach interviews with thought that each one is really only practice for perfect position you will eventually find. Perform as well as you can without investing your sense of worth in one person’s decision. If it takes a hundred interviews to secure a job, each “No” you receive brings you one step closer to that final “Yes” you are seeking and therefore every step on road to unemployment is worthwhile and “rejection” no longer belongs in your vocabulary.