I Got Laid Off: Who Am I Without the Job Title and Paycheck?

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I am Kim Patten,  author of Pivot.  For years, I built a successful business career believing the answer was always more.  A bigger paycheck,  a better title,  more accomplishments,  more recognition.  I kept chasing the next milestone until I realized that if we don't define our own finish lines,  the world will gladly define them for us.  That's why I created Freedom of Enough.

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This is a place where we explore the intersection of ambition,  money, and identity through honest stories,  meaningful conversation,  and thoughtful reflections.  Together, we will challenge the pressure to do more,  have more, and be more as we discover what enough look like for each of us. Because it is time to stop building rockets to space and start living in the world you have already built.  I'm so glad you're here.

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Let's get started.

01:15
A month ago, I got laid off, and one of the first things I felt was relief, which made what happened next even more confusing. I had secretly been hoping for a break for quite some time. I was burnt out from trying to juggle a full-time job, building this podcast, managing my business and social media, and still trying to prioritize my kids and my family. I kept thinking, I just need more time. Then suddenly I had it.

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I wasn't sure what to do with it. Welcome back to Freedom, Nuff Nuff.

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Today, I want to talk about what happened when you finally get the freedom you thought you wanted and discover just how much of your identity was still tied to being productive, being needed, and achieving something. Because that is exactly what happened to me. It started during what I thought was a normal weekly one-on-one with my manager. I joined a meeting and I saw that someone from HR was there too. You know that feeling.

02:20
Immediately I thought there were probably only two possibilities. Either I had done something really wrong or I was being laid off. Turns out it was the second one. There have already been a major reorg months earlier. So somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew layoffs were always possible. But knowing something could happen and hearing the words that is happening to you are completely different experiences.  All these emotions came rushing in at once. I felt free.

02:49
I feel relief, but I also feel a sense of loss. There was fear and surprisingly even a sense of failure.  Shame. The last one caught me off guard because if I had been wanting a break, shouldn't I have just been happy? But wanting to step away from something and having that decision made for you are two very different things.  Suddenly, there would be no Monday morning meeting,  no work emails, no project waiting for me,  no one expecting me to log on.

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And even though I had an entire life outside of my job, a family, a book,  podcast,  creative work I care deeply about, I feel strangely directionless. Then people started hearing the news. And their first reaction was usually something like, oh no, that's terrible. Are you okay? Of course they have good intentions, but I started noticing something. Their reaction almost told me how I was supposed to feel. I had lost my job.

03:48
So this must be bad. I must be devastated. And part of me was grieving. But another part of me felt like someone had just handed me something I had been quietly asking for. Time. My husband suggested that we should celebrate my unemployment. And I'm so glad we did. Because this wasn't only a loss. It was also the beginning of a new story. For months, I have felt this tug to slow down and be more present at home again.

04:16
I have already experienced a season earlier in motherhood when I voluntarily step away from my career and I'm incredibly grateful for those years. Later, I returned to work and now I have found myself at another crossroads. Part of me wanted more time with my family. Part of me loved having a career.  Part of me wanted the security of a paycheck. And if I'm completely truthful, part of me still liked the identity that came with having a professional title. I kept going back and forth.

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I never really made a decision. And then the decision was made for me. Sometimes I wonder if God answered a prayer I wasn't brave enough to pray. The timing felt almost unbelievable. But perfect timing doesn't mean there is a grief. Both things can be true.

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I could be grateful for the gift of time and still miss the feeling of being professionally needed. I could feel excited about what might come next and still feel sad about what had ended. I could feel free and still feel lost. One of the moments I remember most clearly happened on a Sunday night. I was laying in bed thinking about Monday and I felt this heaviness. Tomorrow, I don't have a job to go to. That sentence sounded so strange. Most people dread Monday because they had to go to work.

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I dreaded Monday because I didn't have to go to work. And that was when I started realizing how deeply work had become connected to my sense of identity. For a long time, I had been operating in hyper-productivity mode. If I wasn't working my full-time job, I was writing. If I wasn't writing, I was creating content. If I wasn't creating content, I was working on this podcast. If I was folding laundry, I had an audiobook or podcast play.

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If I was exercising, I was always listening to something. If I was eating lunch, I was probably answering an email or looking at my phone. I had gotten very good at squeezing productivity into almost every empty space of my life. And from the outside, it probably looked impressive, but inside, I was so exhausted. My body was telling me I couldn't keep operating this way. I wasn't sleeping well, I was getting sick more often.

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My brain didn't know how to shut down because I had trained it to believe that every minute needs to accomplish something. Even the things that matter most to me, prayer, scripture,  exercise, time with my children, could start feeling like items I need to fit into the schedule. I was present physically, but mentally, I was almost always rushing towards the next thing. Since publishing Pivot, I have found myself asking three questions again and again.

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How would I know when I have done enough? How would I know when I have enough? And how would I believe that I am enough? Because from the outside, I have so many of the things I once dreamed about. A loving husband, two children I adore, a successful career, a published book,  creative work I care deeply about. And yet, I still want more. I want another book, more followers, more income, a more impressive title.

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there's nothing wrong with wanting these things. I still have ambition,  I still have dreams, but I start asking myself a question I haven't asked often enough. Why do I want more? Why do I want these things? Is it genuinely important to me? Or do I think having it will make me look more important? That distinction matters, because I was

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Beginning to realize I had been asking achievement to give me something achievement never could.  Another book couldn't make me more worthy. More follower couldn't make me enough. A bigger title couldn't finally prove that I matter. Those things might be wonderful, but they were never designed to carry the weight of my identity. I started asking, why did I feel like I haven't done enough?

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Why do I feel like I don't have enough? Why do I still sometimes believe I'm not enough? And here is what really stopped me. The 20 years old version of myself will be so proud of the woman I am today. She will look at my life and see things she wants to dream of. So why was I barely pausing long enough to appreciate them? Why couldn't I look at myself and say, this is good enough Kim. Not because I should never grow again. Not because I should stop dreaming.

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But because my ability to appreciate my life today shouldn't depend on what I accomplish tomorrow. The first Monday after losing my job, I decided not to make myself a schedule. That was harder than it sounds. I went for run, and for the first time in a long time, I didn't have a meeting I needed to come back to. I didn't have to calculate exactly how many minutes I could exercise. I didn't have anywhere I had to be. I could just run.

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and something about that felt incredibly freeing. I started noticing things I had rushed past a hundred times before. The sunshine, the trees, the leaves, the birds, the fresh air, the water, the beauty of the world God had created around me. I wasn't watching the clock. I wasn't squeezing exercise between meetings. I wasn't trying to optimize the run. I was simply running,  enjoying it, and noticing the wonderful life

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I am already living in.  And I started doing the same thing in other parts of my life. I would eat without checking my email. I would put my phone away and actually taste my food.  I would go outside without immediately reaching for something to listen to. I started paying attention to the blessing that had been around me the whole time.  Trust me, my instinct was still to fill the empty space. Almost immediately, I started thinking about moving up the lunch of this podcast. I wanted to create more, work more.

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I wanted something tangible to show for all this extra time. I wanted to make sure that even without a traditional job, I could still point to something and say, see I'm productive. See I'm still doing something important.  That urge didn't disappear because I got laid off. If anything, losing my job exposed it. And I had to keep reminding myself in the scheme of my entire life, taking a day off is okay. Taking a week off is okay. Taking a month off is okay.

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Taking a whole year off is okay. Even stepping away from traditionally productive work for an entire season can be okay.  We have prepared financially for the possibility that someday I might step away from work. What I had not prepared for was how uncomfortable it would feel to slow down. Because if you're used to driving 80 miles per hour, 20 miles an hour feel almost like standing still. And standing still can feel terrifying when you spend your whole life

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measuring progress by how fast you're moving. I once heard someone say that every promotion is really a lateral move because every time you gain something, you usually give something up. You gain more money, but maybe you lose more time. You gain responsibility, but maybe you lose flexibility. You gain freedom, but you may lose structure. You gain time, but you may lose status. You gain presence, but you may have to loosen your grip on the old identity.

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Maybe that's why this season has felt so confusing. From the outside, losing my job might look like a step backward. But what if it isn't backward at all? What if it's simply another lateral move? Where I have lost some things but gained others that matter just as much. And maybe that's also why it has felt like such a gift. There is a story in the Bible that I happened to read the week right after being laid off. Numbers 14.

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and that I had been thinking about. Moses had led the Israelites out of Egypt and they were finally free from slavery. But when the uncertainty of what was ahead become frightening,  they started talking about going back. They're free, but freedom felt uncertain and suddenly the familiar started looking safer. I think we can do version of that in our own life. We pray for margin, we say we want more time.

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We dream about freedom. And then we finally have some space. We immediately try to fill it again because busyness is what we know. Sometimes the familiar feels safer than freedom simply because we already know how to live there. Maybe that's part of what I'm learning in this season. How to trust God when I don't have the entire next chapter plan. How to let go of an identity built around a job title.

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How to be ambitious without asking ambition to prove my worth. How to experience an ordinary day without needing to turn it into accomplishment. And maybe that's what freedom of enough really means to me right now. Being enough, can I believe I can still be valuable when I'm not achieving something professionally? Doing enough, can I end a day without a long list of accomplishment and still believe the day matter?

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having enough? Can I stop chasing the next thing long enough to appreciate what God has already given me? Maybe enough isn't something I finally achieve. Maybe enough is something I recognize. Maybe enough isn't having more. Maybe freedom is finally realizing that what I already have can be enough. And maybe living my best life isn't about adding one more accomplishment.

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Maybe it's slowing down long enough to see how good my life already is. So I want to leave you with one question. What in your life are you rushing past while you're trying to get somewhere else? You don't have to get laid off to find out. This week, give yourself one small pocket of time where you don't have to accomplish anything. Don't make it productive. Don't multitask. Don't immediately feel the silence. Take a walk.

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Eat your lunch, sit outside, look at someone you love, take a deep, deep breath, and simply notice what is already there. Because sometimes choosing enough means not always living for what's next. It means realizing you are already living a full life and slowing down enough to enjoy it.

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Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. It really means a lot to me. If today's conversation resonated with you and you're navigating your own questions about success,  purpose, or what ENOUGH look like, I would love to share a free guide with you. The seven mistakes high achieving women make before making a life changing decision. It's a resource I wish I have had when I was facing my own big decision. You can download it using the link in the show notes or by visiting freedomofenough.com. Until next time.

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Remember, the world will always ask for more, but you get to decide what enough look like.