Hello, Reader!
You may not need to know where you're going yet. But you can begin by paying attention to what life is asking of you now.
When I started writing Why Smart People Stay Too Long in the Wrong Career, I thought I was writing about career change.
I wanted to understand why capable, experienced people stay in jobs that no longer feel right, even when they can imagine doing something else.
I still want to understand that. But the deeper I went into the subject, the more I realised that changing careers is only part of the story.
There are questions about identity. About the expectations we've lived up to, the choices we've made, and the versions of ourselves we've worked hard to become.
There are questions about what happens when a life that once felt right begins to feel too small, or when the things we're good at no longer give us the satisfaction they used to.
And there is the uncertainty of what comes next.
I began to see that the question Should I change careers? can arrive before we understand what we're really trying to change.
Experience gives us clues, not answers
Looking back, I've changed professional directions more than once.
I began as a translator and interpreter, moved into hospitality and business travel, became a Sales and Marketing Director in a global IT company, and eventually found my way into coaching.
Each chapter gave me experience, skills, relationships, and a way of understanding myself. Each taught me something I couldn't have known in advance.
Yet experience doesn't automatically tell us what to do next. Sometimes it makes the decision harder.
The longer we've worked in a field, the more we've invested in it. We know how to do the job. People rely on us. Our experience has value, and our professional identity is woven into the life we've built.
It's difficult to question a choice that has served us well.
But a choice can have been right for the person we were then and still need reconsideration by the person we are now.
We don't have to declare our past a mistake in order to make room for a different future. We can be grateful for what a chapter gave us and still recognize that we may have outgrown it.
You don't have to solve uncertainty all at once
When we begin to question our direction, it's tempting to demand an answer immediately.
Should I stay or leave? Retrain or start a business? Choose security or take a risk?
These are important decisions. But they can feel overwhelming when we expect ourselves to make them before we've understood the situation.
In my book, I explore the idea of testing the future: finding out more before committing to a decision.
I've tried to follow that principle in my own work, too.
I wrote 40 Letters of Change and paid attention to how readers responded. I developed The Next Chapter Journey and listened to people who completed it, people who stopped along the way, and people who chose not to continue.
I also experimented with publishing my first book in English, The Midlife Career Pivot. I wanted to discover whether I could do it, whether I'd enjoy the process, and what might happen when my work reached readers I had never met.
None of these experiences gave me a complete answer. They gave me information I couldn't have obtained by thinking alone.
Gradually, I began to notice a pattern. Before people could decide what to do next, they often needed space to understand what was happening to them.
Perhaps the most useful first step isn't always a decision. It might be a conversation, a small experiment, a question we haven't allowed ourselves to ask, or a little time to look at our situation differently.
We can learn our way forward.
Give yourself permission to explore
We tend to grant ourselves permission to change when we have a convincing reason. A job disappears. A company restructures. Our circumstances leave us no choice.
But what if nothing dramatic has happened?
What if the job is still good, the salary is reasonable, and the colleagues are pleasant, yet we find ourselves wondering whether this is still where we want to spend our time and energy?
We may tell ourselves that we should be satisfied. We may compare our situation with someone else's and conclude that we have no right to question it.
Or we may feel guilty for wanting something we cannot yet describe.
I don't think we need to turn every doubt into a plan to leave. Nor do we need to justify every question with a crisis.
We can simply be curious.
- What has changed in me?
- What matters more now than it once did?
- What am I missing?
- What would I like to experience, learn, or contribute in the years ahead?
These questions don't demand immediate answers. They give us permission to explore.
And exploration can lead in many directions. We may discover that our current work needs to change. We may find a new interest to pursue alongside it. We may decide that what needs attention isn't our career at all, but the way work fits into the rest of our lives.
The point is to understand more before deciding what to change.
Perhaps the next chapter begins with a conversation
Writing this book has changed the way I think about what I want to do next.
I started with a subject: why smart people stay too long in the wrong career.
Along the way, I became increasingly interested in the questions people carry, the stories they tell themselves, and the things they are trying to understand before they can move forward.
And I've discovered that one of my favourite parts of being an author is hearing from readers.
A response that begins with a few sentences can open up an entirely new line of thought. A question can lead to another question. A personal story can reveal a perspective I hadn't considered.
I find myself wanting to continue those conversations.
That's why I'm exploring an idea called The Next Conversation: a quiet space for thoughtful people navigating change, where we can make room for questions that don't always have easy answers.
I'm still shaping the idea, and I'd like the people who may find it useful to help me understand what it should become.
If you've read my work, followed Letters of Change, or simply found yourself thinking about your own next chapter, I'd love you to take a look.
Explore the idea and share your thoughts: The Next Conversationโ
And perhaps that's where I'd like to leave you this week.
You don't need a complete picture of your future to begin paying attention to it.
You don't have to reject what you've built to explore what else might be possible.
You don't even have to know whether you want to change anything yet.
You can start with what you know, acknowledge what you don't, and give yourself room to discover the rest.
What does your next chapter need from you right now?
Perhaps it's courage. Perhaps it's patience, a new experience, a difficult conversation, or permission to ask a question you've been postponing.
Whatever comes to mind, you don't have to turn it into a decision today.
For now, it may be enough to listen.
Until next time,
Elena
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