What if there isn’t a final career destination?

Last week I was in a session with a client who is in the middle of a career transition.  

While she continues to look for a full time role, to make some money and spend the time productively, she’s trying out a part-time gig in a helping field  that is radically different from the intense roles in the startup tech world she’s  spent most of her career. 

As often happens, the part-time role has been incredibly rewarding–energizing work with a supportive boss. If that’s not a winning combination, I don’t know what is. 

We talked about how she can deepen or broaden this work so it could meet more of her non-negotiables. Continue to experiment along this path to see if it (instead of her current job search on other paths) could check all the boxes. 

And she said something I hear from many clients. ”I feel like I’m always experimenting!”

In essence – when am I going to get to the final destination already?

My response: Yes, that’s life. 

Life is experimenting and constant tweaking and shifting and changing. 

As much as we want certainty, there is no final destination – I mean, not while you’re still breathing and still – truly who knows about that part either.  

Careers are fluid. 

We get into trouble when we put rigid rules and restrictions around them. 

Those are the career cages we build for ourselves. 

So, if you catch yourself thinking–I’ll finally be happy when I find the perfect job, the perfect partner or the perfect dog, remember those things () don’t exist. 

Life is learning from our experiments as often as we can and as many times as it takes. 

Big Birthday Reflection

Next week, I have a big birthday. Hey there, 50. I’m coming for you. Or you, me.

It’s caused me to be more reflective than usual. Some may wonder, how is this even possible? You can just ask the people who live with me.

But truly – I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how I want the second half (eternal optimist!) of my life to look. Who I want to show up to be. What I want to accomplish.

Yet, when I sat down to compile my thoughts on the matter today, I was drawn to the past instead of the future. It’s been a time of tremendous growth and I decided to switch gears to marvel at the multitudes contained within this one decade of my life.

The losses of too many humans I loved/love.

The creation of a business and commitment to an entirely new career path.

A steady and meaningful writing practice.

The work of self-acceptance and the countercultural belief that I am enough exactly as I am right now.

The addition of a new lens to re-envision my past with compassion for my ancestors, knowing they did their best and that I also want to do better for my kids.

The parenting of two of my favorite people and the chance to lovingly usher them into the confounding teenage years.

Continuing to find my homebase in a two plus decade partnership between two people who have changed and grown and have never stopped supporting each other through so much damn changing and growing.

I don’t think there’s a decade I’ve been prouder of the risks I took and the mistakes I made.

Even in the roughest of moments this past ten years, my actions came from a place of self knowledge and an honoring of the true me.

I’m grateful to have taken the time for this accounting to know – I’m entering my 50’s from this place and I’m dreaming up the next decade from a calm awareness that I like the artist in charge.

If you’re coming up on a big birthday, anniversary or a meaningful milestone for you, I invite you to look back before you forge ahead. Absorb the learning and the celebration and take a beat, so you can honor the gravity of the path you’ve taken to create this life.

When you think its too late...

Sometimes a career shift idea comes on fast and swallows you in a warm hug.

A calm. A knowing. A feel-good movie fullness.

And as big as it feels in that one moment, it can disappear the next.

Not only is it gone, but it leaves a shamey aftertaste.

So, what happened?

We’ve let our practiced and ready internal “Shut It Down Machine” take over.

It’s an efficient system designed to protect us from change, from failure, from what others might think.

And yes it does all that. But it also keeps us stuck. In the same job. On the same path. Tolerating the same shit cultures.

It sounds like…

You: Maybe I want to be a writer.

Shut It Down Machine: Who do you think you are wanting to be a writer? You’re X years old. You don’t have the skills. You don’t have the education. You won’t make the money you need. It’s too late.

There it is. It’s too late.

Now, I’m not saying becoming a writer is going to actually check all your boxes and be the right career path for you.

But, the clue that this desire gives you is an invitation to investigate further. To let this idea live and breathe. To get into action around it so you can learn the multitude of ways it can inform you about your right next path.

When you step into the land of “It’s too late.”, you shut down your intuition and close yourself off from understanding and honoring your own wants.

How comfortable or uncomfortable is it for you to want something?

And why is it so hard that we need to shame ourselves for even thinking about it?

I encourage you to begin to notice when your Shut It Down Machine jumps in to wash away your wanting. Stick up for your desires. You don’t have to go out and sign up for the MFA program in the first 5 minutes after the thought, but you can get curious and take your time to learn more.

A simple, “I can take my time to figure this out.” is a lovely antidote to “It’s too late.”

You and your desires are worthy of taking all the time you need.

Career Transition’s Unexpected Treasures

A couple of weeks ago I was writing a birthday card for one of my close friends – and I realized we’ve been in each other's lives and inner circle for nearly a decade.

We met in coach training back when we were both in marketing roles, hungry for something new and on the edge of what we didn’t know would be a life-changing, identity-shifting moment in time.

On long runs in Prospect Park, we coached each other through the hard reality of having one foot in our full time roles and one tip toeing into a world we didn’t yet know how to navigate.

At brainstorming lunches, we laughed at ourselves and our respective mistakes. And when I say laughed, I mean projectile tears and lettuce from our takeout salads.

Of all the things I’d hoped for in my career transition – a new friend to walk beside me on the journey was not even on my radar.

And yet it’s the part I didn’t know how much I needed.

I wish I could go back to “ten years ago me”, a bundle of nerves and fear as I humbly asked myself…Wait, what the hell are you doing with your career while you have two young kids and a mortgage?

And I would say – you will not take this leap alone.

As you move closer to the work you love, you will meet your people who love it like you do.

Who will nerd out with you on the minutiae that would bore your partner and your old friends to tears.

Who will celebrate you, knowing both how hard it is to do what you’re doing and how far you’ve come from the very first idea of your business that lived only in your mind.

It’s hard to quantify the life and the growth I would have missed out on if I was too fearful to make the change, but when I think about the people I would have never met – the pang in my belly makes me grateful I don’t need to live with that regret.