Am I am outlier for feeling this?

My client is 40, (I'll call Kris) newly promoted to VP, and doing well by every measure we are encouraged to chase. However on a recent coaching call, Kris told me that she wasn't sure she wanted the next big job.

She asked me if not wanting to climb any higher on the ladder made her an outlier and if I had encountered this with the other clients I've coached over the years. Now more than ever I have.

I coach a lot of high achievers who spent years being focused on the climb. I was one of them, too. It feels good to receive promotions and bigger paychecks. At some point for many of us, we pause to reflect and ask, Do I even want this or have I just said yes because it feels good to be wanted?

I told her what I tell a lot of my clients, our career (and even our lives) have two halves. The first half of our career is about building our name, brand, title, salary and achievements to give our egos the dopamine hit it desires. Then at some point, we start to realize that some of what we thought would make us happy and successful doesn't actually deliver as promised.

With my client, a question was brewing underneath all her ambition — now that I've proven I can do this, what do I actually want? For Kris, the honest answer was more family time, less stress, and a slower pace in a new season of life that's emerging as her child ages out of elementary school. Not the corner office she thought she was chasing.

The tricky part is that no one hands you a new map for this second half. The old goal was so obvious, so measurable, climb, climb, climb. And when it fades, you're left standing in the in-between with no clear next rung and a lot of fear about what that means.

My client kept reaching for logic and frameworks to make the future career path clear and the fear go away. But this isn't a stage of life you can spreadsheet your way through. No roadmaps exist, however, we do have access to a compass (which I talked about in my free workshop last Friday) that can help us determine the right next steps to fulfill meaningful career goals. (see tips below)

🔥 Have you hit a point where the next rung stopped calling you the way it used to? And did you treat that as a problem to fix, or as information worth listening to?

PUT THIS IDEA INTO ACTION

When the old goal stops fitting and there's no clear map for what's next, you don't need a five-year plan or a clear roadmap. You need a compass, which will always remind you of your True North (vs what someone else thinks is the right way).

We are taught in corporate America to make every decision from the neck up. Logic, spreadsheets, the deck and give me the data. However, that only gives us access to one brain and neuroscientists tell us we have three brains, a head brain, a heart brain, and a gut brain, all feeding into our decisions.

Those three brains give us a compass and here's how to start trusting it again:

1: Notice where your body already knows (gut brain).

• Think of the next rung you're "supposed" to want.

• Imagine actually saying yes to it. Does your body feel open, light, pulled forward? Or tight, heavy, sinking?

• That heavy, sinking feeling has a name. It's dread. Learn to recognize where it lives in you.

Sometimes your energy and your health are talking to you long before your logic catches up. When I was writing a book that wasn't mine to write, a health issue kept flaring up until I finally listened and stopped. Within a week, I felt better.

2: Run the decision through your values (heart brain).

When there's no map, your values become the fixed point. Once she ran the next promotion through the values we defined in coaching, the answer got obvious. It didn't move her toward any of them.

• Write your top five values somewhere you'll see them.

• For the next opportunity, ask, does this honor them, or ask me to abandon one or more of them?

3: Practice the compass in small, low-stakes moments.

You calibrate a compass on tiny decisions so you can trust it on the big ones.

• Imagine dinner at two different restaurants, pay attention how your body responds to each one. Which one feels lighter, more freeing, more exciting?

• Notice which small choices you make out of habit, and which ones your body actually leans toward.

• Bring that same body awareness to the next career conversation you have to navigate.

TRY THIS NEXT: The next time you notice yourself reaching for a rung out of habit, pause and ask, is this still my goal, or just an old goal I never questioned?

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Kelli Thompson is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who specializes in helping women advance to the rooms where decisions are made (or build her own room). She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck

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