Big life changes – where to start?

I am ready for a career transition and also experienced a recent loss in my family which has triggered a sense of urgency to reevaluate the way I am choosing to spend my time and money. With all the tools available here at The Flow Collective, I want to start to unpack everything I’m thinking and feeling so that I can extract some action items to move into a more suitable career, but I am feeling overwhelmed about where to start. Here are some of the thoughts that arise as I attempt to make sense of this transitional time and find a sense of direction:

– My current job no longer serves my desire for growth, connection, and purpose. It’s time to update my resume and start looking elsewhere. It’s also possible my current employer would be willing to change my role but I don’t want to have this conversation until I have explored other options and clarified for myself what exactly I want.

– My partner and I both work remotely and travel seasonally back and forth. We own a home in one location and stay at my mother’s home at the other location. We are content with this arrangement for the time being, but together are evaluating how we want to spend our time and questioning whether we want something different within the next five years.

– I love the flexibility of remote work but seek a role that involves more interpersonal interaction than my current one. The good news is, it’s not a hard requirement to find another fully remote job. It could be seasonal or just in one of the two locations and we’d work it out. I also consider the idea of going through a trade school program, but I am 41 and fall victim to the thought that “I’m too old to start from scratch with a new trade.”

– I am confident that the value I can offer far exceeds my current income, however, (a thought I keep telling myself is that) my lack of official certifications makes it harder to find a higher-paying position. What is closer to the truth is that I have a vast number of skills and experience that allow me to add great value across a variety of roles, but I have some work to do on re-discovering my inner confidence and defining where I contribute the most value. Building a resume is tough!

This is my first Ask a Coach submission. I keep delaying because I keep having the thought that I don’t have a clear or concise enough question, but I know that’s just the brain doing its thing so I am taking this messy, imperfect action by submitting this messy, imperfect question.

I’d love some insights, questions, and guidance on which tools might be helpful to start sorting through my thoughts to clarify my own goals and next action steps.

Thank you!

Answer:

We are so delighted you submitted a question! It was perfect just the way you did it.

Here are the things that I’ve pulled out from your submission, please tell me if I’ve hit the nail or if I’ve missed it!

You want your income to reflect what you have to offer
You want more interpersonal interaction
You want flexibility

So you do know some things you want, right? Sometimes saying we don’t know what we want feels so real, but what it does is keeps us in confusion – and confusion keeps us stuck. If you were to step out of the pool of confusion, and into the hot tub of desire (or whatever metaphorical body of water seems like it’s full of comfort and possibility), what would come to you or rise to the surface? What DON’T you want?

Maisie has a great podcast called Practising Wanting (episode 90). Have a listen and see what you discover. Come back when you want more coaching on this!