2025: Redundancy to Relevance

Where to start? 2025 has been a ride like no other: challenging, relaxing, taxing, demoralising but the most liberating. My entire identity and belief system was shattered, and I had never felt so out of control.

In February, for the first time in my life, I lost my job suddenly. Speaking to others afterwards, I’d apparently been lucky it had taken so long. Losing my job in effect made me lose my identity — I was known as a lawyer. It made me lost. And to top it off, I entered one of the toughest job markets I’ve ever seen.

Every cliché worked against me: don’t have the language skills, too senior, don’t have the specific experience, getting pigeon-holed. I went through a total mindset shift. At first my goal was simple: find a new job. I was clear I didn’t want something that would consume as many hours as before. A real 9-to-5 and nothing beyond. I found that it was hard to find this and nobody was hiring anyway.

I discovered something uncomfortable about employment: people assert they want experience and transferable skills. They talk about how you can learn on the job. The reality was the opposite. If you didn’t have prior experience in the exact thing they needed, you wouldn’t be considered. It doesn’t help that we’re in a buyer’s market.

This was disheartening. Hours spent on tailored CVs, reframing roles, one or two interviews, but mostly just rejections.

Time out

For months I wasn’t sure who I was or who I fit in with anymore. I had always been “a lawyer at a law firm”. Now I wasn’t, and the absence was unsettling.

I meandered. I looked at courses, signed up to Coursera, considered going back to formal study. None of it sat right with me.

But I also managed to take proper breaks. Properly decompress. Not worry about work. Meet friends, hang out, do mundane things. Best of all, I was able to really connect with my kids. That time was the best investment I made all year.

By September I was fully recharged and raring to go. But go where? I knew what I didn’t want, but I was still trying to figure out what I wanted.

A moment of madness

In a moment of madness, I shared my story and my recent journey on social media — namely LinkedIn. I didn’t have a plan. I just shared my reflections.

The response was beyond what I expected. I received so many private messages and catch-up requests. People I’d worked with at the beginning of my career, all the way through to my most recent ex-colleagues. And then there were people who didn’t really know me but were so generous with their time.

I also revived my blog. It’s more of a passion project. On any given day I’m lucky to get more than 10 visitors. But this time I decided I wasn’t looking for numbers — I was going for consistent posts. At least one post a week. I’ve maintained that. And without actively promoting it, I picked up subscribers — some kind friends, and some generous strangers. I’m grateful for those subscribers because they’ve gone out of their way to sign up and receive my posts by email.

What’s also blown me away: people I know say they’re reading my “journey” via my blog or social media, and that what I write resonates.

Key themes from conversations this year: senior people getting laid off; people feeling stuck in jobs; people unable to say what they really think in public; employers pigeon-holing talent quickly; and how big the world feels when you step outside your employee shell.

Doubts and pivots

I really enjoyed having time off this year with very limited pressure. Yes, I know I was lucky.

But for many moments I truly felt lost. I had no idea what my future was, and that was scary. For the longest time I’d had an identity. Now I had no idea.

There was a lot of soul-searching about what I wanted and didn’t want. Both in my head and speaking to others pulled me in many different directions. Yes, I had freedom. But no direction.

Actually finding direction took several months and probably began in September when I re-launched the blog and started writing regularly on LinkedIn. Many people reached out with support and guidance. I wrote more — both reflections and actual career experiences. More people reached out. I continued to connect.

At this point I was still hoping to find employment, but I’d made fewer applications. The success rate remained poor.

In November a few friends needed some pro bono help, which I gave. I was also helping someone out on another project. This got me thinking: why don’t I just try building something for myself?

There was a huge amount of doubt. I mean, I’d always been an employee. For some reason I couldn’t get hired. I only ever did offshore law. I don’t speak, read or write Chinese. I don’t know the first thing about operating a business. Who would hire me? The list went on and on. I kept coming up with excuses to talk myself out of it.

I nearly didn’t try. I almost let those excuses win.

But despite all the doubt, the ability to build something for myself was attractive. I’d spoken to several people who’d gone down this road. They all said it’s hard work (and rightly so), but they would never go back to full-time employment.

So I started exploring what “going it on my own” would look like. Again, so much freedom here — but at least it would be on my terms.

What was I good at? What did I enjoy? What excited me?

This year I really enjoyed the ability to meet and speak to a wide variety of people. I wasn’t tied to a specific field. I also enjoyed learning and testing new things — stuff I would never have imagined if I was still employed.

What actually changed

It wasn’t the job search that unlocked things. It was stopping pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

For years I’d operated within a structure: the identity, staying in the lane, the routine. When that disappeared I spent months trying to fit back into that same shape. It didn’t work because I’d changed and the market had changed.

What changed was this: I started sharing honestly. I stopped trying to look like the perfect candidate and started being the messy, uncertain version of myself. That honesty opened doors — not to jobs, but to conversations. Those conversations led to small projects. Those projects led to confidence. That confidence led to a plan.

What I learned

Until this year I hadn’t really thought about identity. This year I realised I had one — and then it got broken. I’m still picking up the pieces, but I know I’ll get there.

My time off was revitalising. I properly switched off, and I needed it more than I knew.

Consistency beats perfection. I proved that to myself through weekly writing — small public experiments that rekindled connections and created opportunities I wouldn’t have imagined six months earlier.

And perhaps the hardest lesson: freedom without direction is terrifying. The trick was converting that freedom into a practical plan. That took me a lot longer than I thought, and was a lonely journey.

Finally, I took a risk. I decided to be vulnerable. I wasn’t looking for pity and sympathy, but wanted to be honest.

What’s next: 2026

I now have a plan for 2026. It’s very different from my previous job and it’s also very unexpected. I have a direction, and I’m quite surprised by what it looks like.

It will be hard work: building, testing, selling. But I’m genuinely excited by it — though I’m still not entirely sure how it will all play out.

I’ll share the plan publicly in the new year.

Thank you

Finally, thank you to everyone I’ve interacted with over the course of 2025. These conversations have been my highlight.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.