Career Refresh Digest #39
Welcome to the latest edition of the Career Refresh Digest.
I really feel for the thousands of people in the New Zealand public service facing uncertainty about their future. That is a genuinely hard place to be.
One of the most common things I see in my coaching work is that when change is happening around them, people's instinct is to hunker down and wait. This issue is about why that works against you – and what helps instead.
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WORTH THINKING ABOUT
What happens when we can't control the outcome
This week the Government announced a further 8,700 public service jobs will go by 2029 – that's on top of the nearly 9,500 already cut since this government took office.
That's a lot for people to take in, especially as many will still be reeling from the last waves of redundancies, at a time when cost of living pressures and rising unemployment are already being felt.
Restructuring, cost pressures, and AI reshaping roles across industries mean that uncertainty about the future of work is something most people are navigating right now.
There's a particular kind of anxiety that comes from waiting for news you can't influence. It's different from the anxiety of a difficult decision, where at least you have agency. This is the anxiety of watching something unfold around you – a restructure, a sector under pressure, a role that may or may not exist in two years – and not knowing yet where you'll land.
When that happens, the instinct is to hunker down, stay quiet, and hope the uncertainty resolves itself. Which is completely understandable. But it has a cost.
The temptation is to wait until the picture is clearer before doing anything. But clarity about your situation doesn't come from the outside in – it comes from the inside out. Waiting for external certainty before doing internal work has it backwards.
Knowing what you want is what helps you recognise what's worth pursuing when it appears – you can spot the right opportunities and move on them with confidence rather than hesitation. The people who navigate disruption well are the ones who used the quiet period before the pressure peaked to understand themselves well enough to act deliberately when the time came.
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WORTH REFLECTING ON
What is within your control
When external circumstances are uncertain, it helps to draw a line between what you can and can't influence – and direct your energy accordingly.
You can't control what gets announced, which roles are affected, or how quickly things move.
What is within your control is your own clarity. Clarity about your career criteria – what you need and want from work at this stage in your life. That kind of clarity is what helps you navigate change with confidence.
Specifically: do you have a current, honest picture of what genuinely suits you at this stage of your career? Not the version you formed five or ten years ago. Not the criteria you inherited from what seemed sensible at the time. The version that reflects who you are now – what you're good at, what you value, the conditions in which you do your best work.
Career clarity is the best foundation for navigating uncertainty – and it's what I help people build every day. It's what lets you assess opportunities quickly and confidently when they arise, whether those opportunities look like the work you've always done or something that requires you to move in a new direction. It's what helps you walk into a conversation knowing what you're looking for, rather than taking whatever's on offer.
And in a world where AI is reshaping roles across every sector, that self-knowledge matters even more. The question isn't only whether your role is safe, it's whether you know yourself well enough to find and pursue work that genuinely suits you – whatever form that takes.
If that picture isn't current, and for many people it isn't, that's exactly where to start.
If you're feeling anxious about job security right now, book a free 15-minute call – it's a chance to find out more about how I work and whether it's the right fit for your situation.
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WORTH DOING
A place to begin
Set aside an hour this week – not to make any decisions, just to think.
Take a blank page and write down your honest answers to these three questions:
What am I genuinely good at, and what do I most enjoy using?
What do I need from my work right now – in terms of the kind of work, the environment, the people, the flexibility, the purpose?
What has changed for me in the last five years that should be informing my career decisions but probably isn't yet?
Don't filter as you go. You're not writing a CV. You're building a current picture of what genuinely suits you, which is the foundation for every well-judged career decision that follows.
That's it from me for this fortnight.
– Lucy
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ABOUT THE CAREER REFRESH DIGEST
The Career Refresh Digest is a fortnightly newsletter for mid-career professionals who feel stuck or out of step with their work. Each issue shares practical insights and tools to help you reset direction, make clearer decisions, and reshape your work to better fit your life – drawing on recommendations, research, and insights from client work.