The Year I Lost My Direction and Found the Truth

I Knew Exactly Who I Was

At the end of 2024, I was certain of my path.

I had set a goal that felt bold but possible: one day I would speak at Knowledge and become a ServiceNow MVP. I had just been promoted to Senior UI Developer. I was helping to hire and mentor new interns, mentoring new hires, contributing ideas that shaped product direction, and building a reputation as someone who delivered. I felt trusted. I felt valued. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Then 2025 began, and everything started shifting.

When Excitement Turns Into Doubt

When another Senior UI Developer joined our company, I was genuinely excited. Finally, someone else who understood the space I worked in. I was asked to onboard him, teach him the stack, walk him through decisions, and help him ramp up.

I shared ideas I had been holding onto, hoping collaboration would make them even better.

Instead, I watched those ideas slowly stop being mine.

It is a strange realization when you start recognizing your own thoughts coming back to you through someone else’s voice. At first, you question yourself. Maybe you misunderstood. Maybe it is coincidence. Maybe you are reading too much into it.

Eventually I stopped sharing. I kept my head down. I focused on my work, my team, and doing my job well.

When a Dream Finally Happens

Then something incredible happened.

An employee who had been scheduled to attend Knowledge 2025 left the company, and suddenly a ticket opened up. At the exact same time, I received an invitation to help run a lab with MGOPW! It felt like everything aligned at once, like an opportunity had been waiting for me.

I spent April preparing. Writing code. Drafting instructions. Practicing. Refining. Living and breathing that lab. I was also preparing for a women-focused CreatorCon session and helping coordinate the WomenNow breakfast for the first morning of the conference.

When May arrived and I stood there as a speaker, it felt surreal. My name was on a company flyer. People attended my session. The lab received great reviews. I was proud, grateful, energized.

For a moment, everything I had worked toward felt real and solid.

And Then It Was Gone

The next week I was laid off.

No warning. No real conversation. No acknowledgment of the two and a half years I had poured into that company as one of its founding employees. The call was scripted. Clinical. Final.

The same company that praised me publicly let me go privately.

I wish I could say I brushed it off and moved on. I did not.

I felt confused, hurt, and disoriented. I had believed I embodied their values. I believed loyalty mattered. I believed hard work spoke for itself. Being let go so impersonally made me question whether any of it had actually been real.

The Strange Place Between Roles

Job searching only made things harder.

I had spent years immersed in the ServiceNow ecosystem, in a niche most people do not even know exists. Senior UI roles outside that world saw my background and hesitated. ServiceNow developer roles saw my certifications but wanted experience I had not been hired to gain. Companies wanted Service Portal experience. I had built custom UI Builder apps and components, which is a specialized skill set few organizations were using yet.

I was stuck between categories. Too technical for some roles. Not technical enough for others.

Where I Am Now

Eventually I found a role doing ITSM work for a consulting firm that supports law firms. On paper, it made sense. My fifteen years as a paralegal plus my ServiceNow experience gave me a unique perspective.

I should have felt lucky.

Instead, I felt lost.

I have been there six months now, and I do not recognize myself in my workday. I am not the person volunteering for extra projects. I am not the one racing to build new things. I am not the rising star.

Most of my work now is backend configuration and database logic. Important work, yes. But it is not what makes my brain light up. I am a front end engineer at heart. I think in interfaces, interactions, and user experience. That is where I feel alive.

Without that spark, I feel like I am slowly disappearing.

The Message That Stopped Me

Recently, a former coworker from the company that laid me off reached out and asked if I would be a reference. We started talking, and they shared that their confidence had taken a hit as well and that they no longer felt passionate about their work.

I told them I understood exactly how they felt.

Then they said something that stopped me.

They told me they listed me as a reference because they always knew they could count on me to take their ideas and build something better. They said that kind of collaboration was rare to find.

I told them I needed to hear that more than they probably realized.

Because the hardest part of this past year has not been the job loss, the rejections, or even the career shift.

It has been the doubt.

What Doubt Sounds Like

I used to be certain of my abilities. Now I question them. I used to feel unique. Now I worry I am replaceable. I used to walk into rooms confidently. Now I hesitate before unmuting.

Being lost is not loud or dramatic. It is quiet. Subtle. Like watching your reflection slowly blur and wondering when it stopped looking like you.

What I’m Starting to Understand

This year did not erase who I am. It stripped away what I thought defined me.

Titles can vanish. Companies can change their minds. Recognition can come and go. None of those things were actually the source of my skill or my value. They were just mirrors reflecting it back to me. When the mirrors disappeared, I assumed the reflection had too.

It had not.

I am still the person who rebuilt a career after surviving a brain tumor and paralysis. I am still the person who transitioned from fifteen years in law into technology. I am still the person who teaches, mentors, speaks, writes, and builds. I am still the person who set a goal in 2024 and chased it until it became real in 2025.

Being lost does not mean you have no direction. Sometimes it just means the map you trusted turned out to be wrong.

So maybe I am not drawing a new one yet.

Maybe I am still standing here, holding the pencil, figuring out where to begin.

I submitted labs for Knowledge 2026 that were not selected. I am still waiting to hear back about my MVP application, unsure what that answer will be. And maybe that uncertainty is part of this season too.

What I do know is this:

The part of me that loves taking an idea, a wireframe, or a design and building it into something real is still here.

I just haven’t found her path again yet.