Feeling Stuck in Your Career? Start With the Life You Want

Being a mum, corporate professional, coach and budding entrepreneur can be exhausting, and recently I realised I was spending so much time doing that I needed to stop for a while and think about whether I was actually heading in the right direction. 

And I am really glad I did.

If you've followed me for a while, you'll know that I have my own personal strategy for the life I want to build. One of my biggest goals is financial independence, and I'm now three years into a ten-year plan to achieve it. But I'm equally determined not to spend ten years sacrificing my life today for some imaginary perfect future.

That strategy gives me direction. It gives me something to work towards and, when things get difficult, it reminds me why I'm doing it.

And recently, I've realised something about my coaching business too.

The truth is, I haven't been making the impact I want to make.

I've spent the last few years blogging, podcasting, coaching and creating content, but I've struggled to reach as many of the people I know need this conversation.

Because there is an entire generation of thirty and forty-somethings who have worked incredibly hard to build successful careers, only to find themselves wondering:

Is this it?

They feel stuck in careers they've invested years building. They want more freedom, purpose and choice, but they don't necessarily want to throw everything away and start again either.

I know that feeling because I was there six years ago.

I felt career stuck, frustrated and, at times, genuinely worried that I was wasting my life.

What eventually changed things for me wasn't finding the perfect new job. It was zooming out and getting clear on the life I wanted to build.

I started applying some of the same principles I'd learned through business to my personal life. Businesses have visions. They have strategies. They set objectives and milestones. They regularly review where they are and adjust their plans.

So I started doing the same.

I thought about what my 10/10 life would actually look like, then started building a strategy to get there.

And this is where my thinking about careers has evolved too.

I don't believe we can look at our careers in isolation, because our career and our life are inextricably linked.

Your career affects your income, freedom, time, family, health and future. But your career isn't your entire life either.

The question isn't simply, “What job do I want?”

It's “What life am I trying to build, and what role does my career play in helping me create it?”

That's the conversation I want to have more of.

Instead of only sharing advice, I'm also sharing more of my own journey: the strategy I've built, the tools and frameworks I use, what's worked, what hasn't, what I'm working towards now and what I'm learning along the way.

Because I'm still figuring parts of this out too.

I still have self-doubt. I still get the Monday morning blues from time to time. I still have moments when my goals feel a very long way away.

But then I come back to my strategy.

I read my life vision. I remind myself what I'm building and why. And, importantly, I look at how far I've already come.

Because meaningful change rarely happens overnight.

It comes from getting clear on what you want, building a strategy that can actually get you there and then making steady, consistent progress in the right direction.

So perhaps the place to start isn't by asking yourself whether you need a new job.

Zoom out first.

What does the life you actually want look like?

What do you want from your career? What do you want your finances to make possible? How do you want to spend your time? What matters to you outside work? What do you want more of — and what would you happily have less of?

Then ask yourself:

What role does my career need to play in making that life possible?

You might discover that you do need a completely different career.

But you might not.

You might need more flexibility. More income. Less responsibility. More challenge. A four-day week. A different organisation. Another income stream. Or simply a much clearer idea of what all this hard work is actually for.

That's why I think career clarity and life clarity are so inextricably linked.

We're not just building careers.

We're building lives.

And our careers should help us create them.

Elsa x