Man, 2019 was a wild year for me, especially career-wise. I remember feeling like I was just floating along, you know? Like a fish in the ocean, just going wherever the current took me. I wasn’t really planning things out much, just reacting. And then it hit. Hard.
I was working on this big project, pouring my heart and soul into it. We were building something pretty cool, I thought, something that was really going to make a difference. I’d been with the company for a good few years by then, felt like I knew the ropes. I was leading a small team, sketching out ideas, writing a ton of code, putting in those late nights. You know the drill, right? Eating bad takeout, drinking too much coffee, just grinding it out.
Then, suddenly, the word came down. The whole thing was getting shelved. Not just paused, but totally dropped. Canned. Overnight. It felt like a punch to the gut. All that effort, all those hours, just gone. Poof. And the worst part? A bunch of us were let go. Just like that. My world got rocked pretty hard in the middle of 2019.
I found myself staring at my screen, looking at an email that basically said, “Thanks for your service, but we’re moving in a different direction.” My stomach dropped. I walked out of that office feeling completely numb. What was I going to do now? Bills don’t pay themselves, right? I had a family to support, dreams to chase, and suddenly, the path I thought I was on just vanished.
For a few weeks, I just kind of drifted. I sent out a few resumes, clicked on some job postings, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I felt lost. Every time I thought about starting over, I just felt this wave of exhaustion. I’d built something there, a reputation, a rhythm. Now it was all gone. I just wanted to hide under a rock, honestly.
But then, one morning, I woke up and just thought, “This ain’t me.” I’ve always been one to figure things out, even if it meant getting my hands dirty. I started by getting really honest with myself. What did I actually enjoy doing? What was I good at, even outside that last gig? I grabbed a notebook and just started scribbling. I wrote down everything: skills, interests, things I’d always wanted to try but never had the time for.
Taking Control, One Step at a Time
The first thing I did was reach out to my network. Not just asking for jobs, but just for chats. I set up calls, met people for coffee, just to hear what they were up to, what trends they were seeing. I wanted to understand the landscape. I wasn’t looking for a handout; I was gathering intelligence. I asked questions like, “What are the biggest challenges you’re facing?” and “Where do you see things going in the next year or two?”
- I updated my old resume, but this time, I tailored it for specific roles I was actually interested in, not just shotgunning it everywhere.
- I spent hours on online courses, brushing up on new tech I hadn’t had a chance to dig into at my old job. Python, a bit of cloud stuff – things I knew were becoming essential.
- I started building small personal projects. Just for fun, at first. A little web app to track my reading, then a script to automate some tedious tasks on my computer. These weren’t for clients; they were for me, to keep my skills sharp and my mind engaged.
- I found a few freelance gigs, tiny ones at first. Writing a few blog posts for a tech company, doing some quick fixes for a friend’s website. It wasn’t much, but it brought in some cash and, more importantly, it rebuilt my confidence.
Every small win felt huge. Finishing a course, getting positive feedback on a freelance project, even just having a good conversation with an old colleague – it all added up. I started seeing my situation not as a dead end, but as a big, wide-open space. An opportunity to actually steer my own ship, instead of just being tossed around.
I remember one afternoon, I was pulling together a portfolio of my personal projects and freelance work, and I just felt this shift. This wasn’t about finding another job like the last one; this was about crafting something new, something that fit me better. It was about taking all those scattered pieces and putting them together in a way that made sense for my own future.
By the end of 2019, things had really turned around. I wasn’t back in a traditional office job. Instead, I had pieced together a really interesting mix of freelance projects and even started my own little consulting thing on the side. I was working with different clients, on different problems, and learning new things every single day. It was challenging, for sure, but I felt so much more in control. It wasn’t easy at all, but I managed to navigate it and came out feeling much stronger on the other side. Like I finally learned to swim with the current, instead of against it.
