Setbacks are a universal experience; our careers are not always going to be consistently moving forward at the same pace, and sometimes we find bumps in the road or even brick walls in the path of life we thought we were going down.

However, not every troubling moment of our lives and careers is a brick wall, much as how some steps in our careers feel like they are pushing us forward only to keep us stuck on a treadmill.

One of the best examples of this in action is redundancy, which has been a growing phenomenon, much to the distress not only for people who found their promising careers vanish into thin air in a moment, but to those who still have a job and survivor’s guilt along with it.

Once the shock has dissipated and the logistical aspects are made clear, that leaves a cluster of mixed emotions and the difficult task of looking ahead at what comes next.

There is always a next step and a thriving future after redundancy, but it is one that often looks very different from the present. Life and career coaches can help you with this next step.

Suddenly stopping for a moment can allow you to get some much-needed perspective on where you want to go next and what you want the future to look like.

Whilst we often establish or are encouraged to establish long-term career goals when we are just starting to find our feet in our industries and our lives, this often leads us to set goals for ourselves that we outgrow.

Our goals for the future should motivate and serve us in the present, but a goal set by a past version of ourselves may not necessarily be the endpoint that makes us feel complete now.A lot of people after redundancy realise what they love and hate about what they used to do, and they can tailor their future career towards what they really want to do.

Managers who end up out of a larger company may end up thriving as consultants. Marketing experts can opt for graphic design or writing.

It is a reorienting exercise; stopping in place to check that the compass and map are taking you in the right direction is forward progress, even if it does not always feel that way.