Blog · My pivot, part 1
21 June 2026 · Australia

I quit my senior $103k physio job
with nothing lined up.

The bits folks usually gloss over 💅

The short version

I resigned from a permanent Level 3 ED physio job on $103,814 with nothing lined up. What followed wasn't a clean pivot: a copywriting course that went nowhere, weeks of napping, a temp compliance contract at a council, then a Project Manager role in public health that was made redundant a few weeks in, ten days before Christmas.

The redundancy is what stopped me hedging. Up to that point I'd been dipping a toe in and taking whatever landed in my lap.

Below is the bit people gloss over in their career pivot stories, and what it took to finally go all in.

I was a permanent Level 3 Primary Contact Physio in a NSW Health ED making $103,814 a year (it was 2021). Good money, stable job, and I resigned with nothing lined up.

I had a vague-ish plan. I'd done an online copywriting course and thought I could be a freelance copywriter. I landed one job - a monthly blog for a local orthopaedic surgeon (pocket money at best) and then I did what nobody publishes in their career pivot story: I napped. A lot. For weeks.

Eventually I was roped into a temp contract for a compliance support role at a local council, part-time (cos I hadn't fully given up on my freelance dream). It wasn't long before I went full-time cos I couldn't handle not finishing my tasks (and I'd finally admitted to myself I didn't have the hustle to be a freelancer).

Before I knew it the time on the contract started to tick down and I needed to put on my big girl pants and decide what was next.

As a clinician I'd always wanted to make the health system better - so next ended up being Project Manager back in public health - $119k salary, and it genuinely felt like my path had always led here. A proper non-clinical role in a system I understood.

Unfortunately, a few weeks in my role was made redundant 🫠. It was awful timing, I finished 10 days before Christmas, and had recently depleted most of our savings on unexpected health expenses. As someone who'd always taken temp roles in public health this was a genuine plot twist I didn't see coming. And. It. Sucked.

The silver lining (sorry to be that person) was that it kicked me into gear. Up until that point I'd been hedging this career pivot - dipping a toe in, seeing what came up, taking whatever landed in my lap. After that redundancy I stopped hedging and decided f*ck it I'm going all in on this.

Next: what actually happened when I fully committed, including the moment I almost went back to being a rotating physio (true story).

This first went out to Post-MDT subscribers on 21 June 2026. You can read the original edition in the archive, or get the next one in your inbox.

Read enough? Go find the role.

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