What This Article Is About (In 20 Seconds): You’re accomplished, successful, probably brilliant at what you do. So why does figuring out your next career move feel like trying to assemble IKEA furniture in the dark? This article explores why career change decisions paralyse even the sharpest minds, features a proper story about a man who nearly drove himself mad trying to “optimise” his life pivot, and offers actually useful (not LinkedIn-poster-quote-useful) insights about finding clarity when you’re standing at a professional crossroads. If you’re tired of career advice that sounds like it was written by a motivational tea towel, read on.
Five Key Takeaways
- Clarity doesn’t arrive fully formed – it emerges through action, conversation, and allowing yourself to be delightfully uncertain
- Your next career move isn’t a puzzle to solve – it’s a story to write, with characters, plot twists, and the occasional villain (usually your own inner critic)
- The “perfect” career change doesn’t exist – but the right next chapter absolutely does
- Listening to your life’s whispers matters more than following industry trends or well-meaning advice from people who aren’t you
- Story is your secret weapon – the narratives you tell yourself shape the decisions you make more than any spreadsheet ever could
Introduction: The Paralysis of Infinite Possibility
Here’s the thing nobody mentions about being successful: the better you get at your career, the harder it becomes to change it.
When you’re starting out, every door feels like possibility. But once you’ve built something, achieved something, become known for something? Suddenly, thinking about a career change feels like standing on a cliff edge, wondering if you’re about to discover you can fly or just accelerate towards the ground at an alarming rate.
I’ve spent years running storytelling circles where executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals gather to share their narratives. And I can tell you this: the question “How do I get clarity on my next career move?” doesn’t come from people who lack ambition or capability. It comes from people who have too many options, too much at stake, and a brain that’s spectacularly good at creating elaborate disaster scenarios.
The search for clarity on a career change isn’t really about finding the right answer. It’s about learning to trust yourself in the fog, to take the first step when you can only see two feet in front of you, and to remember that your life is a story you’re writing, not a problem you’re solving.
Let me tell you about Andrew.
The Man Who Tried to Spreadsheet His Soul
Andrew Williams sat in my storytelling circle on a Tuesday evening, wearing what I’ve come to recognise as the uniform of the successfully miserable: expensive trainers, a cashmere jumper, and the facial expression of someone who’d just realised they’d been driving in the wrong direction for the past decade.
“I’ve made a spreadsheet,” he announced, producing his phone with the solemnity of someone presenting evidence at trial. “I’ve rated seventeen potential career options across twenty-three criteria. I’ve colour-coded the cells. I’ve even created a weighted scoring system that factors in financial impact, personal fulfilment, and geographical flexibility.”
He looked at us expectantly, waiting for applause or perhaps a slow clap of recognition for his analytical genius.
Sarah, a consultant who’d been with our circle for months, asked the question that changed everything: “What does your gut tell you?”
Andrew’s face did something extraordinary. It sort of, collapsed, like a sandcastle meeting its first wave. “My gut?” he repeated, as if she’d asked him to consult a Ouija board. “My gut is apparently rubbish at career decisions. That’s why I made the spreadsheet.”
We sat with that for a moment, the eight of us in that circle, the smell of fresh coffee mixing with the faint lavender someone had brought in a small diffuser. Outside, London traffic hummed its evening song. Inside, Andrew was about to crack open.
“The spreadsheet says I should take the CEO role in Singapore,” he continued, his voice tight, controlled. “Highest score. Best financial outcome. Prestigious. Everything I’m supposed to want.” He paused, and in that pause, you could hear everything he wasn’t saying. “But I, I feel sick every time I think about it.”
“Tell us about that,” I prompted gently.
And here’s what emerged, slowly, like morning light creeping across a bedroom floor:
Andrew had spent three months building that spreadsheet. He’d interviewed people in various industries, taken online assessments, read seven career books, and consulted two different career coaches. He’d approached his potential career change the way he’d approached everything else in his life: with rigour, discipline, and an almost violent determination to make the “right” choice.
But every time he tried to imagine himself in Singapore, in that corner office, leading that team, his body responded like he’d swallowed stones. His shoulders climbed towards his ears. His breathing shortened. At night, he’d wake up at 3 a.m. with his jaw clenched so tight he was giving himself headaches.
“What do you actually want?” someone asked.
Andrew laughed, a sound like glass breaking. “That’s the thing. I don’t know. I’ve spent so long figuring out what I should want that I’ve genuinely forgotten how to want anything.”
He described his current role: managing director at a private equity firm, successful beyond any reasonable measure, respected by peers, financially comfortable. “On paper,” he said, and the two words hung there like a confession, “my life looks perfect.”
But here’s what Andrew’s life actually felt like, in the parts you couldn’t spreadsheet: Like walking on a tightrope made of other people’s expectations. Like playing a role in a play you’d never auditioned for. Like winning a game, you didn’t realise you’d stopped wanting to play.
“Describe a moment this week when you felt alive,” I suggested.
Andrew sat with that. The room held space for him, the way a good circle does. Someone shifted in their chair, the leather creaking softly. Outside, a siren wailed past, then faded.
“Saturday morning,” he finally said, his voice different now, quieter, more real. “I was helping my neighbour fix their garden wall. My hands were dirty. My back was aching. We were just, building something together. And I realised I was smiling. Actually smiling, not the corporate smile I’ve perfected for meetings, but the real thing.”
“What did that feel like?” Sarah asked.
“Like, remembering,” Andrew said. “Like remembering I’m a person, not just a career.”
Over the following weeks, Andrew kept coming back to the circle. He didn’t stop spreadsheets entirely (you can’t deprogram a consultant overnight), but he started paying attention to different data: the tightness in his chest during certain conversations, the ease he felt when discussing particular possibilities, the dreams that woke him not with anxiety but with strange excitement.
The career change he eventually pursued wasn’t on his original list of seventeen options. He partnered with a friend to create a consultancy focused on sustainable construction practices, working hands-on with projects, getting his boots muddy, building things that would outlast his tenure. It was financially risky, professionally unexpected, and exactly what his gut had been screaming at him to do.
“The spreadsheet would have rated this about 6 out of 10,” he told us months later, tanned from working outdoors, looking ten years younger. “But my life rates it about 11 out of 10.”
The story doesn’t end with Andrew riding off into the sunset, because real stories don’t end tidily. But it does continue with him living in a way that feels true, making decisions not from fear of failure but from curiosity about what might emerge. And that, it turns out, is what clarity actually looks like.
Why Career Change Decisions Break Our Brains
The difficulty with career change clarity isn’t that we lack information. We’re drowning in information. The challenge is that we’re trying to make a fundamentally creative decision using exclusively analytical tools.
Your next career move is an act of imagination. It requires you to envision a future self you’ve never met, in circumstances that don’t yet exist, solving problems you haven’t encountered. And then it asks you to bet your mortgage, your identity, and your professional reputation on that vision.
No wonder we panic.
The Myth of Perfect Information
We convince ourselves that with enough research, enough networking, enough informational interviews, we’ll achieve certainty. But career change clarity isn’t found in more data. It’s found in the courage to make meaning from the data you already have.
In my storytelling circles, I’ve watched brilliant people torture themselves with endless analysis, as if the perfect career move is hiding somewhere in their research, waiting to be discovered. But here’s the truth: you’re not discovering your next career. You’re creating it.
The Story You’re Already Telling Yourself
Pay attention to the narrative running in your head about your career change. Is it a story of escape? Of redemption? Of proving something? Of finally allowing yourself to want what you actually want?
These narratives shape your decisions more than any career counsellor ever could. Andrew’s original story was “I need to optimise my career trajectory.” His real story was “I need to remember how to be human.” The clarity came when he stopped trying to solve the first story and started honouring the second.
Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Does
We’re obsessed with thinking our way to clarity, but your body is giving you feedback constantly. That sinking feeling when someone suggests you pursue a particular path? That’s data. The unexpected energy you feel when discussing a specific opportunity? Also data.
Western professional culture has trained us to override these somatic responses, to treat them as noise rather than signal. But your nervous system is exquisitely attuned to what serves your wellbeing and what doesn’t. Learning to listen to it is perhaps the most valuable career change skill you can develop.
The Permission You’re Waiting For
Many of us are waiting for permission to want what we want. Permission from our industry, our peer group, our family, or that internalised voice that sounds suspiciously like every authority figure we’ve ever tried to impress.
Here’s your permission: You’re allowed to want something different than you wanted five years ago. You’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to pursue something that makes no sense to people who aren’t you. You’re allowed to define success on your own terms, even if those terms would disappoint your 25-year-old self.
Further Reading: Three Unconventional Books for Career Change Clarity
1. “The Crossroads of Should and Must” by Elle Luna
This slim, beautifully designed book asks the simplest and most devastating question: Are you living your Should or your Must? Luna writes about the difference between the life you think you’re supposed to want and the life that’s actually calling you. I chose this because it bypasses traditional career advice entirely and goes straight to the existential heart of the matter. It’s the book Andrew needed before he built his spreadsheet.
2. “Finite and Infinite Games” by James P. Carse
Don’t be fooled by the philosophical title. This book reframes how you think about your entire professional life. Carse distinguishes between “finite games” (played to win, with clear endpoints) and “infinite games” (played to keep playing, with evolving purposes). Most career change anxiety comes from treating your career as a finite game with winners and losers, when it’s actually an infinite game where the goal is continuous growth and meaning. Mind-bendingly useful.
3. “The Art of Gathering” by Priya Parker
Wait, a book about hosting events? Yes. Parker’s insights about creating meaningful gatherings translates directly to how you “gather” the various parts of yourself when contemplating a career change. She writes about purpose, about bringing your whole self to spaces, about the difference between going through the motions and creating genuine transformation. It’s secretly a book about how to approach any significant life transition with intention.
A Story from a Circle
“I came to the storytelling circle thinking I needed career advice. What I got was permission to tell the truth about what I was feeling, not just what I was thinking. Sharing my story with people who held space without judgment helped me hear what I’d been saying to myself for years but refusing to acknowledge. I didn’t find clarity through logic. I found it through story, through finally admitting what my life was whispering. Three months after that first circle, I resigned from a role everyone envied but I’d come to dread. The storytelling work didn’t give me answers, it gave me back my ability to listen to the questions that actually mattered.”
— Rebecca M., Former Investment Banker
Five Sharp FAQs About Career Change Clarity
Q: How long should it take to get clarity on my next career move?
A: This is like asking how long it should take to write a novel. Some people need six months, some need three years, some wake up one morning with sudden clarity after a decade of wondering. Stop treating clarity as a destination with an ETA. Treat it as something that emerges through engagement with the question, not through waiting for the perfect answer to appear.
Q: What if I get clarity and then realise I was wrong?
A: Then you’ll have learned something invaluable and can adjust course. You’re not carving your career change into stone, you’re taking the next step in a direction that feels true right now. The fear of being “wrong” keeps more people stuck than actual wrong decisions ever do. Clarity isn’t about being certain forever, it’s about being clear enough to take the next step.
Q: Should I wait until I’m financially secure before pursuing a career change?
A: “Financially secure” is a moving target that often represents psychological safety more than actual numbers. Some people feel insecure with millions in the bank. Others feel secure enough to leap with three months’ savings. The question isn’t “Am I secure enough?” but “What’s the story I’m telling myself about money and risk?” Unpack that story first, then make the financial decision.
Q: What if my next career move disappoints people who’ve invested in my current path?
A: Those people’s disappointment is their story to manage, not yours. You don’t owe your life to anyone else’s expectations, no matter how well-meaning. Besides, the people who genuinely care about you want you to be fulfilled, not impressively miserable. And if they don’t? That’s valuable information about the relationship.
Q: How do I know if I’m seeking a career change or just running away from discomfort?
A: Beautiful question. Try this: imagine you’ve made the career change and you’re six months in. What discomfort are you hoping will have disappeared? Now imagine that discomfort followed you. Would you still want to be in that new role? If you’re moving towards something compelling, that’s usually a good sign. If you’re only moving away from something difficult, the discomfort tends to pack its bags and come along for the ride.
Conclusion: Career Change Courage
Clarity on your next career move isn’t something you find under a rock or download from the internet. It’s something you cultivate, like a skill or a garden. It emerges when you’re willing to tell yourself the truth, to listen to the quiet wisdom of your body, to treat your life as a story worth crafting with intention.
Andrew didn’t find clarity in his spreadsheet. He found it when he stopped trying to solve his life and started listening to it. When he noticed what made him feel alive versus what made him feel successfully dead inside. When he gave himself permission to want something that didn’t make sense on paper but made perfect sense in his bones.
Your next career move is waiting for you to stop optimising and start living. It’s waiting for you to trust that you already know more than you think you know. It’s waiting for you to be brave enough to take one step towards the story that’s calling you, even when you can’t see the entire path.
The clarity you seek isn’t in the future, it’s in your willingness to pay attention to the present. To the sensations in your body during different conversations. To the stories you tell about who you are and who you might become. To the whispers of longing you’ve been professionally trained to ignore.
You don’t need more information. You need more courage to act on what you already know.
Start Your Career Change Here: The Purpose Protocols
The Purpose Protocol isn’t another course promising overnight transformation or three easy steps to career clarity. It’s a thoughtfully designed journey for accomplished professionals who know they’re ready for their next chapter but aren’t quite sure how to write it. Through a combination of storytelling work, somatic awareness practices, and frameworks that honour both your analytical mind and your intuitive wisdom, the Purpose Protocol helps you discover what you actually want, not what you’re supposed to want. You’ll work with narrative tools that reveal the stories you’ve been telling yourself, somatic practices that help you listen to your body’s wisdom, and a supportive community of fellow travellers who understand that career change isn’t a problem to solve but a story to craft. The programme spans eight weeks, with live sessions, reflective exercises, and the kind of space where real clarity emerges, not from pushing harder but from finally allowing yourself to listen. If you’re tired of spreadsheets that don’t capture what matters and ready to approach your career change with both intelligence and heart, one of the Purpose Protocols might be exactly what you’ve been looking for.
The Purpose Pursuit Protocol – if you want to discover your life purpose, this course will provide you with the clarity, motivation and direction you need to manifest your next chapter – in both your personal and professional life. Get immediate access
The Purpose Pivot Protocol – drawing inspiration from the Camino de Santiago, this transformative course guides you through a proven framework to recalibrate your authentic purpose and create a meaningful and fulfilling next act. Get immediate access
“I am an experienced medical doctor – MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach (dip.) Life Story Coach (cert.) Stress Counselling (cert.) Med Hypnotherapy (dip.) and EAGALA (cert.) I may have an impressive number of letters after my name, and more than three decades of professional experience, but what qualifies me to excel at what I do is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficulties and my extensive personal experience of managing major life changes using strategies I developed over many years.” Dr M Montagu
References
- Masdonati, J., Frésard, C. É., & Parmentier, M. (2022). Involuntary Career Changes: A Lonesome Social Experience. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 899051. This article explores how social environments—including personal, work, and institutional relationships—influence involuntary career changes. Findings highlight moments of loneliness, relational barriers, and the complex emotional landscape of adults forced to change careers due to unemployment or health issues.
- “Making the Difficult Career Transition: Writing the Next Chapter” by P.J. Coppola (2022) A literature review on career transition and adaptability, emphasising the role of growth mindset, social support, strategic planning, and personal reflection in successful career changes. This article details both voluntary and involuntary transitions, suggesting that values, purpose, and emotional preparedness are vital for navigating these shifts.
- “Career transitions across the lifespan: A review and research agenda” by J. Akkermans (2024) synthesises findings from over 93 longitudinal studies about career change, focusing on processual and lifespan perspectives. This review covers triggers, barriers, and outcomes of transitions at various life stages.
- “A Review of Career Transition Trends for Women” by A. Deshpande (2023) analyses literature specific to women’s experiences of career transition, using bibliometric and thematic analysis to highlight unique challenges and patterns for female career changers.
- “Emotional Well-Being Following a Later Life Career Change” by E.M. Vogelsang investigates well-being outcomes for older adults changing careers, emphasising the importance of agency and resources when navigating later-life transitions.