You Haven’t Lost Your Way. Your Season Changed.

Something feels off. Not wrong. Not necessarily broken. Just not quite right.

The job you used to love feels draining now. The path you chose felt so energetic and right, now it feels like someone else’s. You’re not sure if you changed, or something broke.

What if it’s neither.

When I was in my 20s, just fresh out of college, I wanted a job where I could use my degree and advance my skills. I entered corporate America, eventually getting an MBA to boot.

In my 30s, I wanted a job that allowed me to be more creative and the opportunity to try different things. I got a multimedia degree and entered the contracting world.

In my 40s, I wanted a job that gave me more freedom to travel and greater flexibility of time, I started my own business.

In my 50s, I worked part-time and all of it remotely.

Now in my 60s, my priorities, what I want out of life, my values, and even my goals are much, much different than when I was in my 20s.

As I’ve progressed through these changes in priorities, values, and goals; my career also changed in significant ways.

At the beginning of this career journey, nobody ever told me a career could look like this.

Working with hundreds of professionals over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern. We let life change us — our values, our priorities, our relationships — but we don’t let those changes touch our careers.

So we stay. In the job. In the role. In the season that expired years ago.

The ladder keeps going up. We keep climbing. Nobody stops to ask if it’s still the right ladder.

Seasons of life are more than age. They’re shaped by family, health, relationships, money, loss, freedom. What’s going on around you, and within you.

Eight years ago, my husband and I decided to enter a ‘more relaxed’ season for our lives. We decided we wanted to spend more time traveling and bring more adventure into our lives. At the same time, we wanted to spend time with family and remain available for our aging parents.

Those priorities defined what our ‘jobs’ need to be.

I worked remotely. My husband, since we were settled near my parents to help them, fixed up homes. Our ‘jobs’ still allow us to travel and visit family.

That season had a name. Once we named it, the job decisions made themselves.

The shifts didn’t always happen quickly. Sometimes I stayed in the wrong season longer than I should have.

If something feels off right now, in your job, your path, your sense of direction, it might not be a problem to solve.

It might just be a season asking to be named.

The unsettled feeling isn’t a warning.

It’s information.

Seasons change. You’re allowed to change with them.