Hello and welcome, Reader!

Sometimes you don't even think about changing your career.

You just notice that you don't feel quite right.

You are tired.
You don't sleep as well as you used to.
You have less energy for the things you enjoy.
You feel strangely disconnected from a life that, on paper, should be making you happy.

So you start looking at yourself.

Maybe you need to exercise more or eat healthier.

Maybe you need to slow down: practice yoga, Pilates, and meditation.

Less screen time, more sleep.

A weekend away.

And you try. You really do.

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She tried to fix herself

I have seen this with a woman in her forties who had built a successful career in finance.

She was experienced and successful, by all means. She had worked hard and become very good at what she did.

When she started feeling exhausted and dissatisfied, a career change wasn't the first thing she considered.

She tried to feel better.

She explored yoga and mindfulness. She became more conscious about food and exercise. She looked for ways to recover from the pressure.

And yet, somehow, the feeling remained.

She didn't dislike yoga. She didn't dislike taking care of herself.

She just couldn't understand why all these changes weren't changing the thing underneath.

Eventually, the conversation became more honest.

She didn't want to keep living and working the way she had been for the last ten years or so.

And perhaps the hardest part was realizing that this thought had been there for some time, quietly asking to be noticed.

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When the career still looks right

This is where things become difficult.

Because her career wasn't failing.

There was no dramatic reason to leave.

The job still paid well. She had status and responsibility. She had spent years becoming good at it.

In many ways, this career had given her a lot.

It had helped her become who she was.

But your career can help you become who you are and later start asking you to remain that same person forever.

And you may have changed.

Your priorities may be different. The things that mattered so much ten or fifteen years ago may no longer matter in quite the same way.

Yet the role is still there.

And you keep finding ways to make it work.

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What are you trying to change?

The State of Career Change Report 2026 shows how common this experience is among people already considering a career change. Only 3% of respondents said they were always fulfilled at work, while 48% said they were rarely or never fulfilled. 73% (!) said work negatively affected their overall life satisfaction, and 91% (!) of those people said it negatively affected their mental health. Almost half, 47%, had drawn on no support at all while navigating their situation. (See the source below)

Those numbers made me think about how easy it is to look for the problem in ourselves.

• Perhaps I need to become more resilient.
• Perhaps I need better habits.
• Perhaps I need to learn how to manage stress.
• Perhaps I simply need to be grateful for what I have.

And I agree, sometimes those things are exactly what we need.

But there may be a more important question underneath.

This is one of the questions I explore in my new book, Why Smart People Stay Too Long in the Wrong Career. I wrote it for the moment when you don't necessarily know that you want to leave, but you can no longer quite ignore the feeling that something has already changed.

If that sounds familiar, you can find the book here.

Your career may still work perfectly well.

The question is whether it still fits the person you are becoming.

​Source: Careershifters, The State of Career Change Report 2026.​

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Until next time,

Elena