Career decision? Or midlife identity crisis in disguise?
When you’re struggling every day with the question of “what’s next” for your business or career, it’s not so much about what you’ll DO.
More than anything, it’s a question of who you’re starting to BECOME.
So it’s not so much of a “technical” problem to solve - it’s more likely a MIDLIFE IDENTITY CRISIS to storm.
There is a profound invitation to step out of the identity you’ve spent 10, 15+ years building and perfecting and become someone new.
Someone who wants a fresh challenge and purpose in life, and who craves deeper meaning and fulfillment.
However, most professionals, when they feel it’s time for a change, focus on figuring out all the TECHNICAL aspects of that change:
Should I take that job offer? Should I change an industry? Get an MBA? Or start my own business? Should I try to turn that hobby into a full time job?
Or if they run a business:
Should I focus on a new market or niche? Should I pivot or scale?
And they try to make this decision as fast as possible, without taking the time to reconnect with themselves:
To really understand their own nature and their authentic wants and needs, and ideal conditions that allow them to thrive.
What’s worse, they ask all the wrong people for advice: family, friends, work colleagues.
These are the people who only know the *old* you.
I.e., the version they’ve watched for years, the box they’re used to keeping you in.
And because they can’t picture you as anything else… they’ll (lovingly) tug you right back into the past.
Which is exactly why it takes people YEARS to find the answers they’re looking for.
Now, there’s a much more effective (and field-tested!) way to go through this identity shift.
One of my favorite thinkers on this, Robert Dilts, mapped out what he called the “logical levels of change.”
He saw change as a pyramid.
And change initiated at the higher levels (identity, purpose) tends to create systemic change across the levels below.
So redefining your identity and purpose reshapes the skills you develop, the behaviors you practice, and the environments you choose.
However - changes made at the lower levels (such as altering your environment or learning a new skill) rarely produce enduring shifts upward.
So you can change jobs, acquire certifications, or adopt new routines, yet still feel misaligned if the layers of belief, identity, and purpose remain unexamined.
The lesson?
You cannot make your way through an existential transformation of this magnitude by only focusing on the technical side of things.
(And advice and strategy alone won’t help you).
That’s not because something’s wrong with you.
It’s simply because you’re solving things in the wrong order: picking a restaurant before you even know what you’re hungry for.
So until you stop treating your longing for more purpose and satisfaction in your work as only a technical problem to solve, or as a question with only one right answer – and start honoring it as an IDENTITY EVOLUTION – clarity will elude you.
Because nothing changes until YOU change.
And that’s where I can help ;)
I don’t just offer you a career strategy.
I offer my work as a mirror, a compassionate guide, and a map through the fog.
My gift is accessing what you truly want and need (underneath all the rationalizations about what you think you *should* want and need) –
– so you can make all those technical decisions with clarity and ease and do work that fully aligns with your identity and purpose.
I’m able to do this very quickly because I’ve developed a process that draws out and synthesizes a large amount of information about how you see yourself and your life — making it immediately clear where your real blocks lie.
To do that efficiently, I use a blend of assessments and a technique I call narrative analysis — which involves examining your life story, the language you use, and even your body language.
(Because how you speak and how you carry yourself often reveals more about what you truly want and need than your conscious mind can access.)
Once we recognize ways in which your inner narrative is fooling you about what you actually want and how it’s sabotaging you with fears, doubts and all sorts of distortions of reality – we replace it with a new, more empowering and liberating narrative.
I do that by asking provocative questions that (lovingly) poke holes in your assumptions, and with various experiential techniques that shake you out of your usual perspective.
This will open entirely new ways of seeing the world and your possibilities, breaking down the walls of imperatives and prohibitions that keep you trapped in tunnel vision.
Then we’ll design a powerful and clear vision of the future that actually gets you jumping out of bed every day.
We do this based on a series of written assignments that reveal how you’re wired for meaning and fulfillment in work (your unique strengths, values, purpose, needs and drives, all while taking into account your circumstances).
This way you’ll see exactly how your current work is misaligned with your true nature and your genuine wants and needs, and what exactly needs to change in your work so you’re able to experience the deepest levels of fulfillment.
As a consequence, we will either redesign your current work situation so that it fully aligns with you in a way that brings lasting satisfaction – or we’ll design your next career chapter.
And you can hire me to help you achieve that in two ways:
One is my signature 6-week private coaching program for successful but unfulfilled leaders and founders where we do everything I just described.
Full details here.
The other is my powerful one-off ‘What’s next’ session – a shorter version of that, where we’ll deep dive into your work situation, and in one 2-hour session, resolve a pressing career-related issue you’ve been battling with for a while. You can find the full details here.
This session is actually the first step of my 6-week program so it gives you a taste of what it’s like to work with me. And many of my clients have found it enough to answer a burning question that’s been on their mind (on average, they tell me 2 years!).
(And if after this session you decide to continue our work, the fee for this service will be applied toward the larger package).
If you’re interested, but not sure which one’s a better fit, feel free to message me via email, Facebook or LinkedIn - your choice - or book a 30-minute call via Zoom if you prefer that. We will have a friendly, no pressure conversation: an audit of your current work situation where I’ll offer my honest assessment of what may be causing your problems, and what I think might be the best next step for you.
And then, if you want my help, and I think you'd make a good client, I'll ask your permission to explain what it looks like to work together.
To your happy success,
Anita
