When you are fired it can lead to a lot of confusion and uncertainty. Trust me, I've been there. You wonder what you did wrong and how this could have happened to you. Luckily there are a few techniques to end the confusion so you can move on with your life.

The first thing you should do is review your history in your own head. Have you been late a lot? This will get even great employees canned. How has your job performance been lately? Have you fallen off for some reason? Of course sometimes these answers are hard to come by and you need an objective source. You could ask your former coworkers but why not go directly to the source?

The second thing you can do to help understand why you were fired is to directly ask you employers. They will be happy to tell you why and in fact are legally obligated to do so. The question then is whether you think they are telling the truth or not. If they are being honest use this as a springboard to improve yourself.

On the other hand, if you think you were fired unfairly or due to intolerable business practices you do have reprieves. There are organizations that investigate claims of employee discrimination free of charge and these will be very helpful to you. The first place you should go is the Human Rights Commission. You can call them toll free at: 1-800-233-3247 or find them online at www.hum.wa.gov/. The Equal Employment Opportunity Center will also investigate your claims for you. You can call them toll free at 1-800-669-4000 access them on the web at www.eeoc.gov/.

I think that being fired can be a growth experience if you let it, but one of the keys to being able to do that is to know why you were fired to begin with. I think following the above tips are vital to finding this all important answer.

Learn more about this author, Royce Radcliffe.
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