Reinvention in your 50s is not possible. So they say.

Let’s be honest. Most people believe reinvention in your 50s is a fantasy. “You don’t change course at the end of your career,” they say. “You stay in your lane. You play safe. You’re too old, too slow, too expensive. Reinvention is for the young, the agile, the lucky.” Arghh…We are doomed before we start.

If you were made redundant in your 50s you have probably heard some or all of the above. I certainly did. Along with:

• “Don’t take risks”
• “Just find something stable.”
• “At your age, you can’t start over.”

Disagree.

William James said “Most people live in a restricted circle of potential”

Agree.

Redundancy is more than just a professional setback – it is a deeply personal experience. We feel unqualified, too old, outdated, slow, invisible, lost, we feel like a failure.

Shock, shame, anger, loss of confidence, all visit us when we are made redundant and hearing others augmenting the voices of our most vocal internal judges, pushes every fear button we have.

Redundancy strips away the structures that held our identity in place: our title, our routine, our sense of competence, our professional worth. Suddenly, we are left questioning everything:

• “Am I still relevant?”
• “Do I have anything valuable left to offer?”
• “What if I fail?”

That is why the biggest barrier isn’t age, skills, opportunity. It’s the collapse of self‑confidence that redundancy triggers.

Neuroscience has studied self-confidence features and reached the conclusion that it has an impact on the dopamine release. Action, reward and memory power confidence. Taking actions, experiencing small wins and recognising it, releases dopamine, which boosts motivation and reinforces belief in oneself, encouraging further action.

Contrary to some belief confidence is not a feature that some lucky ones have been born with, while the rest of us can only hope to learn to overcome our misfortune of drawing the short stick at birth. Confidence is not a feeling, is rather the sum of what we think (yes, I know, cheesy, we are what we think) and the actions we take, instead of a fixed attribute.

Putting it simply is an act of willingness.

The ability to learn new skills builds self-confidence which in turn motivates us to take more challenges and build more skills, that leads to increased self-confidence which in turn motivates us to learn more competencies. This is a cause-effect approach, working in a loop where one feature creates the fuel to boost the other and helps us progress towards the goals we have established.

Self-confidence is not telling ourselves that we can do it, is not believing we can do it, is actually taking action to do things that most probably make us very uncomfortable.

But how can you keep confident when you get rejection after rejection, when you experience through social media the negative side of the current job market, when you are assessed by a machine, when AI is taking over the candidate preparation, when there are hundreds of applications for the same role, when you have lost your identity and are not clear who you are.

Luckily there are neuroscience based confidence rebuilding strategies.

1. Mindset shift. It is not about telling ourselves daily, positive, encouraging words; this is short-term encouragement not mindset shift. Mindset shifts are not instantaneous, magical or solely about positive thinking, is a conscious shift in our beliefs, attitudes and thought patterns, moving us from fixed view to a growth view. It is also accepting that change/growth is messy and not linear
2. Habit formation. This is to help us build motivation and confidence in our abilities. New habits also impact our mindset growth proving that we can learn new skills, that we can adapt and reinvent ourselves. New habit can be anything: staying up to date with industry by reading one new article regularly, following initiatives of bigest players in the industry, read a certain number of pages per day, etc. Some data say we need a minimum of 66 days to form a habit, so science advises us to stay away from big transformational habits, like I am going to run 10 miles daily, as there is an increased likelihood to give up quite early into the the journey and negatively impact our confidence
3. Stepping out of the comfort zone, facing fears. Start small. Breaking biggest fears into smaller chunks, choosing activities that are part in the comfort zone and part outside it, accepting that we have limitations and stopping to over scrutinise the past, accepting that perfection is not a goal, can help progressing the present to a desirable future

Reinvention in our 50s is not an act of self-transformation. It is not about becoming someone new, about burning everything and start from zero, chasing a new identity and trying to compete with 30 year olds on their own turf. Is about rebuilding belief in our relevance, learning selectively not endlessly, taking small, uncomfortable steps and reinventing our confidence.

It is about remembering who we are when everything familiar falls away. It is about rediscovering the parts of ourselves that redundancy tried to erase.

Starting over in a familiar or less familiar environment is possible. Thriving again is absolutely possible.