When I first speak to someone who’s feeling discouraged about their career path, I often hear about worry or regret of having wasted time on the wrong career track. This ache gets stronger at midlife or after a big investment of training and time.
Good news: it was not a waste and that regret feeling is temporary. Once you find your more aligned path, that time invested will all make sense. Nothing was lost!
I was amazed when that discovery happened to me at midlife: “It all makes sense now!” 😯
For many years, I had felt off-track or just in a fog of “I dunno, whatever, maybe this is good enough” until I was burning out. Sometimes I felt so behind friends on their career paths, as if they had “arrived” and I had not. I continued to shrug it off, telling myself I had to get happier before dealing with it.
Finally, when the burnout was undeniable (ugh, try not to wait that long), I did some soul searching with the help of a career coach and got a sense of a more aligned direction. That ultimately led to the work I do now.
Once I started investigating a new path, the past experiences made sense and I was able to use all I had learned. Nothing was wasted! I was amazed by that revelation.
The Puzzle Pieces Were There All Along
The through-line was there but I hadn’t seen it until I felt the click of the right fit, like getting to the end of a good mystery novel when the puzzle pieces all fit together in that satisfying way.
Remember the last book of the Harry Potter series when so many pieces came together!? That was so gratifying. It was like that!
Looking back, I could see that it was all the perfect background for where I am now. In my case, all the times I stumbled into facilitating, group leadership, teaching, advising, mentoring, and uplifting others were preparing me so well to become a career and business coach.
I finally get to center that advisor strength that had been there all along but I hadn’t seen it at the time. It was just what I did naturally, and thus somewhat invisible to me.
The clues were also there in the books I gravitated to, and conversations I would initiate, and so much more. When I told people my plans to be a coach, they often said, “Oh of course, that makes sense!”
It’s not just like this for me. I see this realization happen in my clients and in the journeys of people I observe. The clues are there when you look back.
Putting the Puzzle Together
You don’t have to wait for all the clues to add up on their own and wait for the answer to just appear. In fact, the waiting method doesn’t tend to work at all.
It takes some conscious effort to sit down and look at the puzzle pieces and inner knowings that are already there for you.
Usually, fitting the puzzle together for a career means having some kind of a guide (such as a career book, a career coach, a career clarity program) to help you make sense of the pieces. We are usually too close to it to see it ourselves. But the answers are there.
You’re not starting from scratch.
At midlife, the fear of starting from scratch can stop you in your tracks. But you’ve lived a life and that experience comes with you. I didn’t need to start from scratch and neither do you.
Even when starting my own business, I wasn’t actually not a newbie, it turned out. So many things had helped me develop both coaching skills and business skills, but I hadn’t seen it at first. Turns out, I was actually experienced on day one.
I had to learn to trust I had valuable experience, because starting anything new is intimidating and it kicked up negative self-talk like, “I know nothing” and “Who am I to do this?”
I had to regularly remind myself I wasn’t actually new at the skills I needed. It was just new-ish in the structure, and that kind of newness made it so much better.
Key Takeaways
- Nothing is lost. You haven’t wasted your time.
- You can unlock your puzzle when you decide to take a good look.
- You’re not starting from scratch. Your experience still applies.
A Possible Next Step
Why not put together your puzzle pieces and find out the end of the mystery? It’s not too late.
I love helping people put their puzzle pieces together, through some simple steps for career clarity. So you can finally get out of that stuck hallway like I once felt trapped in.
I have a low-budget group program for exactly that:
Career Clarity for Introverts and HSPs.
