“Before” and “After” the Right Career Change

People often find me several months to a year after they took a break from work “to figure out what I want to do next.”

By that point, they had considered or tried one or all of the following: Consulting in their current field, leadership- or life-coaching (since they’re senior leaders with a lot of experience), a different role or company within the same industry, or the same role in a different industry. But within a few months, they were back to square one: They either hadn’t found the fulfilling career they dreamt of, or they got no traction on their new path because—whether they realized this or not—their energy wasn’t fully behind it.

It takes longer than you think to find a more purposeful career. Why? Because it’s not about finding a more meaningful job; it’s about becoming the person who can allow themselves to see what their true desire is, and then pursue it. Becoming that person takes time, since it requires a combination of personal development and experimentation.

Here are some examples of the “before” and “after” versions of you on a solid path to a more fulfilling life:

Before: “What will my social circle say?”

After: You develop a conviction in your own internal guidance. You no longer decide what to do based on the opinions of others, a perceived social status, or a desire to fit in or please anyone. You realize that sacrificing your sense of happiness and fulfillment for the sake of fitting in is not a good or sustainable tradeoff. You know the people who truly care will stick around, and those who drop off will make room for people who align with the new you.

Before: “I can’t possibly do… that.”

After: You remove any dependence on hierarchies of what is “desirable”, “better”, or “prestigious”. The only criterion for what’s “worthy” becomes “what I truly want to do.”
Some people have made millions and found fulfillment in businesses that handle trash, and others have failed miserably in cool tech startups. Prestige doesn’t buy success or happiness.

Before: “That’s a step down.”

After: You realize that preexisting concepts of career advancement are meaningless if they don’t lead to fulfillment (and they typically don’t). The most successful people by any measure (fulfillment, money, happiness, etc.) usually carve their own path; they don’t wait to get promoted five times.

In a world where careers are transforming or disappearing overnight due to AI, titles no longer mean security. Creativity does. It’s so much easier to rise up when you care passionately about what you do than when you do it for career advancement.

Before: “All my experience will go to waste.”

After: You know that choosing a path where there’s no obvious use for your skills or experience doesn’t mean they’ll never be used. Most importantly, your experience made you the person you are, and in the “after” state, you really like that person, so you regret nothing.

Choosing a path based on curiosity rather than maximizing the utilization of skills, knowledge, and experience will eventually lead you to integrating all of the above in some unforeseen way. But forcing the integration upfront could mean missing the less obvious path that is the key to your long-term fulfillment.

Before: “I’m a <doctor / lawyer / accountant / marketer / other>.” 

After: You see your career as a reflection of who you are. It is a flexible, malleable story that evolves rather than being planned years in advance. It can result in a one-word description or a portfolio of interests that expands or narrows over time based on your evolution.

You can have a full-time career that pays the bills and a side gig that will never make money.
A part-time career that pays the bills and an idea that will eventually become a career.
A collection of projects, some of which pay the bills and some of which are hobbies.
Or any other combination that works for you.

Instead of waiting for retirement under an illusion of security that a certain one-word career offers, you learn to live with the inherent uncertainty in our world, while being excited to grow, evolve, and be a productive human for decades to come. 

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People think that finding purpose is about finding something different to do. Sure, that’s the end result. But the much more important part is finding who and how to be. If you want to quit to find your purpose, be ready to change as a person. If you can’t do that in a few months (I certainly couldn’t)—plan accordingly.

You do need to find a viable financial arrangement that will allow you to continue exploring. Typical choices are working full-time in a job that lets you do other things on the side, working part-time or consulting so you have more control of your schedule (while possibly also reducing your expenses), or being lucky enough to have financial support from other sources—savings, a spouse, an inheritance, etc.

Timeboxing a search for a truly meaningful career is, in most cases, unrealistic.

In a way, it’s trying to timebox something we’ll do for the rest of our lives.

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