New year same old me

Happy 2025 you beautiful potatoes!

I ended last year in ill health, followed by an intense social period. Not how I wanted it to work but here we are.

During the intense social period I had pockets of “chill” days in between where I was left alone with my mind to ponder over the general direction of my life. If you haven’t followed my journey here’s the TLDR:

In October, left my corporate job in 2024 without anything lined up. It was better to leave without another job lined up than to stay. I love the job itself, but the environment, not so much.

I’ve had a really eye-opening and humbling experience during the interview stages of the utter nonsense we call the recruitment system/process in the UK. Especially as I attempt to climb the career ladder. It’s an awful place to be as a woman, especially from a minority background.

Fast forward to early December, and we got an early Christmas present that my husband was being made redundant. Who wanted a secure life anyway?

So, CP what’s the plan of action in 2025?

Well.

After having so many bad experiences, I know that working for myself is the dream, but my potatoes, I’ll tell you the struggle – Landing those clients.

I’ve reflected and realised that my issue is the initial phase – the “foreplay” not the job itself. Being a do-er at my core I HATE wasting time. In interviews I either give too little detail or I ramble because I want to give you all the details (depends on how excited I am). I guess I don’t know how much context is enough to sell myself. I’ve never doubted that I couldn’t do the job at hand.

There’s a statistic where it says women tend to only apply for jobs they feel they hit 100% of the criteria vs men who will apply if they hit as little 40% and honestly it blew my mind. But it makes sense doesn’t it.

If you’ve ever spoken to me or know me in person, you’ll know I’m a confident woman. Which in itself if such an issue for the corporate environment. But my point being that even as a confident woman I am struggling to “get started”. I know I’ll work my ass off for the clients I work for, if I could just get them in the first place.

My Attempts.

Having never seen how the consultancy sales goes down in the first place, note I’m going into this process blind. What I do know is that business is fundamentally about relationships. I thought I can do that, I’ve always been good with people!?

Wrong. There are so many other factors in this sector. Firstly, these decision-makers don’t want to speak to a stranger – yours truly; to get in front of the decision-makers, there are 3 different hoops to jump through. Fine. Let’s say you jump them; next up, there’s the mismatch of how you want to approach a problem vs how they want to. From my interview experience, I’ve realised a lot of these people want textbook role types. Can you voice framework A and use jargon B. Having an opinion outside of it is a no-no.

Route 2. I will try building my own site and generating from there.

I’ve had this site (yeh, it’s not the best, but it does the job!) for over a year and haven’t gotten anything fruitful from it. At least, professionally. It’s definitely lovely to have my own little space in the virtual world.

Countless interviews, meltdowns, and pity parties later, I’ve decided to still show up in 2025. The Product (SaaS/Tech) space is BRUTAL right now, but there’s got to be someone who wants to help this potato get started, right? Perhaps it’s naive, or perhaps it’s delulu (delusional), but either way, is it not better for us to have hope than live cynically?

This year, I’m hoping to take the first step toward a long-term goal that I’m sure most of us are hoping for – financial freedom. To get that first win. That first validation that I’m not an absolute buffoon.

If you and I were BFFs, what would your advice be to me?

Working towards bringing the “human” connection back into a virtual world,

CP x