You know when you buy your first home, and you walk through those empty rooms picturing everything your life is about to become? The echo of your footsteps in a room with no furniture yet. Standing in the kitchen imagining holidays you haven’t had yet. Signing your name and feeling like you just proved something to yourself. And underneath all of that pride, there’s this other feeling too, the weight of a mortgage you’ve never carried before, the quiet math running in the back of your mind about what you just committed to for the next thirty years.
And then several years later, you’re standing in that same house on a random Tuesday, maybe stepping over toys in the hallway or trying to find a quiet corner to take a phone call, and you feel this quiet realization creep in that the space doesn’t fit anymore. You still love this house. You remember exactly why you chose it. You’ve created sweet memories here with your family and your neighbors. And at the same time, there’s this other feeling sitting right next to that love, a kind of quiet claustrophobia, the walls that once felt so open now pressing in just a little more each week.
That tension is the moment you stop asking whether to grow, and start asking how to grow.
You might be experiencing that same tension in your current job, like the walls are closing in on you, with no room left to stretch or grow. You’ve loved this job. You’ve done it well for years, but the challenges that once felt exciting now feel mundane, because you’ve outgrown it. You might even love your manager and your coworkers, and the thought of starting somewhere new, building relationships all over again from scratch, feels daunting.
Something in you is starting to sense it might be time for a change. And right behind that sense comes the fear of the unknown. What if you make the wrong choice? What if the next job isn’t any better, or worse, lands you somewhere toxic?
You don’t want to just take the next thing that comes along and hope it gets you where you want to be. You want to be thoughtful and strategic about it. But how do you do that when all your energy is going toward a job that isn’t leading anywhere?
If any of that is swirling around for you right now, you’re not alone in it, and it’s exactly what we’re talking about today.
When Effort Stops Being the Answer
Today, I find myself going through the same growing pains with my podcast, Your Trauma-Wise Career Guide, that you might be going through in your current job.
Here’s what those growing pains look like for me. I built my podcast from scratch with very little knowledge of what I “should” be doing, with the dedicated mission of helping you recognize the trauma responses that show up in critical career moments, understand where they came from, and build a new way of responding, so you can advocate for yourself and grow into who you were equipped to be.
I worked so hard, episode after episode, to make sure this show delivered on that mission for you. I kept working at it, trying new things, putting in the hours, and no matter what I tried, even 67 episodes later, I kept hitting the ceiling of my own knowledge.
That’s the moment I want to walk you through today, the one where you realize effort alone isn’t the answer anymore.
Today, I’m walking you through a three-step process that can help you move past a ceiling that’s had your career stuck for too long.
Before we get started, if you are at all curious about what trauma-informed career development is all about, I invite you to hop on over to the Resilient Career Academy on Substack at resilientcareers.substack.com, where I share the tips, tricks, and strategies needed to help you realize your career goals.
Let’s get into it.
If you’ve been sitting in the discomfort between where you are and where you want to be in your career for a while now, and you’ve finally made the courageous decision to DSD (Do Something Different), I want to acknowledge and celebrate what a big deal that decision really is.
There’s a concept from psychologist Albert Bandura called self-efficacy. It is the belief in your own capacity to take the actions needed to reach an outcome you want, and it is a critical skill for trauma survivors in particular. Self-efficacy moves us away from the “learned helplessness” we may have experienced as a child that sounds something like: “no matter what I do, nothing ever really changes.” Have you ever heard yourself saying or even thinking those words? Sure. You are not alone.
Now that you’ve made this decision to take action and to pursue your career goals, where do you start?
Step One: The Pause
The first step in this process is called THE PAUSE.
A pause isn’t the same as stopping. It’s the space that lets you see clearly before you commit to what comes next. Without it, most of us default to the fastest fix available, the next job posting, the next application, the next yes, just to make the discomfort stop. A pause interrupts that reflex long enough to ask a better question, not just “what’s available,” but “what fits.” And it does more than that. It gives you the room to intentionally build a strategy for how to move forward, and to identify what your next right step is.
This is exactly where I found myself with my podcast. I’d hit the ceiling of what I knew how to do with it. My instinct was to keep pushing forward, another episode, another topic, another push to make it work. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized that no amount of effort on my part was going to make it better, because it wasn’t about effort. It was about needing a different kind of knowledge than the one I’d been running on for the last 67 episodes.
So I hired a podcast coach, someone who’s spent years learning what I hadn’t had time to learn on my own. Based on her recommendation, I made the scary decision to pause production of the podcast to provide the space needed to plan our next steps.
Now, before you panic, please know that I am not going anywhere. I am still going to be active in the Resilient Career Academy on Substack and joyfully serving my members there. I will also continue taking on individual coaching clients.
If you are ready to move from understanding what you are feeling to knowing what to do about it, consider joining The Resilient Career Academy as a member.
Inside, you’ll find a monthly live Q&A where we work through real career questions together, a growing library of tools and worksheets for the moments you’re navigating right now, and a community of people who understand that career growth and trauma recovery are more connected than most workplaces ever acknowledge. Members also get a discount on 1:1 coaching, for when you want that outside perspective to help you see your own situation clearly.
I would love to have you there.
Step Two: The Plan
But a pause by itself isn’t the whole process. It’s the space you create so you can build something in it. Which brings us to the second step.
The plan.
Creating a plan requires the Executive Functioning and logical part of your brain to be online, so it is critical to be regulated at this time.
When you’re dysregulated, stressed, anxious, running on adrenaline, that part of your brain takes a back seat to the part built for survival, not strategy. That’s the part of you that can spot danger fast, but it isn’t built for weighing options or thinking three steps ahead. If you try to plan from that state, you’ll likely find yourself reaching for the fastest exit instead of the right one.
So before the planning starts, it’s worth checking in with yourself. Are you feeling calm enough to think clearly, or are you still in the middle of the storm that led you to the pause in the first place? If it’s the second one, that’s not a sign you’re doing this wrong. It’s information, and it might mean giving yourself a little more time before you start mapping out next steps.
Once you’re regulated, the actual planning can start. This is where you take a real look at three things: what you’re moving away from, what you actually want to move toward, and what’s within your control to change right now.
Start with what you’re moving away from. Not just “I’m unhappy,” but specifics. Is it the role itself, the environment, the ceiling on growth, the mismatch between what you do and what actually lights you up? The clearer you get here, the less likely you are to walk into the exact same situation wearing a different name tag.
Then get specific about what you’re moving toward. This is where a lot of people get stuck, because it can feel like you’re supposed to have the whole picture figured out before you’re allowed to move. You don’t. You just need enough clarity to take the next right step, not the entire staircase.
And finally, get honest about what’s actually within your control. You can’t control the job market, or how quickly an opportunity shows up, or what someone else decides. What you can control is how you prepare, who you talk to, what skills you sharpen, and how intentionally you use this space you’ve created.
This is exactly what my coach and I have been doing with my podcast. We looked at what wasn’t working, what I actually wanted this show to become, and what was within my control to change starting now. That became the plan. Not a guess, and not a leap. A plan built with clear eyes, from a regulated place, aimed at something specific.
One more thing worth naming here. A plan doesn’t have to be perfect to be worth having. It just has to be honest about where you are and clear about the next right step. You can always adjust it as you learn more, and that’s the plan working the way it’s supposed to.
This is also where a lot of people benefit from bringing in outside eyes. You’ve been standing inside your own situation for a long time, and sometimes it takes someone else to help you see the shape of it clearly. That’s exactly what a podcast coach did for me, and it’s exactly what I get to do for the people I coach.
If you are contemplating a strategic pause, or in the middle of a pause, and you would like help working through the strategic planning of what your next move should be and how to chart the course, schedule a free discovery call where we will explore how I can help you get to your next destination.
Once the plan is in place, you’re not done. A plan without action just stays a plan. Which brings us to the third and final step.
The pivot.
Step Three: The Pivot
The pivot is where the plan actually meets your life. It’s the moment you stop preparing and start moving, on purpose, with the clarity you built during the pause.
This is different from the leap you might have taken before the pause, the one made out of frustration or fear, grabbing the first thing that promised relief. A pivot built from a real plan looks different. It’s deliberate. You know what you’re moving away from, you know what you’re moving toward, and you’ve already thought through what’s within your control. So when you move, you’re not moving blind.
For me, that pivot lands in October. That’s when my podcast comes back, built on everything the pause and the plan made possible, a show with room to grow instead of one bumping up against the same ceiling I’d been running into for the past 67 episodes. I didn’t know exactly what October would look like when I made the decision to pause. I just knew I trusted the process enough to walk through it.
That’s the invitation for you too. You don’t have to see the whole picture before you take the next step. You just have to trust that the pause and the plan gave you enough clarity to move, and that the moving itself is how the rest becomes clear.
If This Felt Familiar
Today we walked through the three-step process for implementing a strategic career pivot, the same one I walked through myself with the podcast redesign.
We talked about the pause, the courage it takes to admit that effort alone isn’t the answer, and the self-efficacy it takes to believe you’re capable of building what comes next.
We talked about the plan, why it requires you to be regulated before you build it, and what it actually takes to get clear on what you’re moving away from, what you’re moving toward, and what’s within your control.
And we talked about the pivot, the moment the plan meets your life, and why you don’t need the whole picture before you take the next step.
If any part of this felt familiar, that’s the invitation to trust that you’re capable of building what comes next.
While you're waiting for the comeback, this is a great time to go back and listen to any episodes you might have missed. Subscribe now so you don't miss a single update on the redesign, and so you're first to know the moment the new season drops.
Really enjoyed this piece. Thank you!