What am I doing with my life? ( 4 questions you need to ask)

What am I doing with my life?

It’s a sunny Tuesday in September. I’m in my kitchen with a good friend chatting about nothing and everything and she looks up from her coffee and says, ‘what am I doing with my life?’

This question has plaughed me in the past and it’s a question that regularly comes up in the coaching space. Let me share Sophie’s story with you.

Sophie* was a successful lawyer with two little girls who feeling completely overwhelmed and also underwhelmed. She adored her girls, was earning a great salary and had a super supportive husband.

She didn’t want to be living like she was living, she didn’t want to be logging on to her laptop every evening, worried about the next email, she didn’t want to be ratty with her children, she didn’t want to be doing what she was doing in 5 years time.

She desperately wanted a change, she wanted out, she wanted something different, she wanted to be able to enjoy her family, she wanted an evening when she wasn’t on her laptop.

But she didn’t know where to start.

If you’re feeling like Sophie you might find yourself trailing around job sites, constantly thinking about how discontent you feel. Looking at radically different options and half wondering if you could retrain as a physcologist/ interior designer / financial advisor/ teacher.

Stabbing in the dark to find the solution to your stuckness.

If Sophie had decided that she wanted to run a cafe/ become a teacher the danger is that she may have got a couple of years down the line and thought - this isn’t for me. It’s a high risk strategy, that often feels too scary to even consider.

How to avoid making this mistake…

Who are you?

When I first got clear on my core values they changed the way I was living. I was a stressed out Principal Teacher at the time, with two little boys desperate to feel more fulfilled (& fun).

One of my core values was to ‘feel alive’. At the time I was doing nothing that made me feel alive. I was getting through the days. I’d completely lost sight of the part of me that needs challenge, outdoors, new people, new places.

Sophie and I began to work on her core values. It was easy to do.

Connection, learning & fun.

She got in touch with an old friend, started playing the piano, Friday evening turned into games night at home with her family.

Working on her core values started to shift things, it reminded her who she was. What was really important to her. It wasn’t about massive changes. It was the little stuff. Things like choosing to go into the office rather than working in her spare room (connection). She pro-actively started thinking about how to add in more fun. Sometimes it was just putting some Taylor Swift on while the kids had tea.

What do you want?

This was hard for Sophie. She had always done what she felt she ‘should’ do.

She wanted to take her girls to school or pick them up sometimes so she could feel part of a community (connection). She wanted to feel stretched, to develop expertise (learning) she wanted to feel more relaxed so that she could feel like fun mum some of the time.

She surprised herself by realising that there were elements of her work that she got a lot out of, the focused parts, making sense of the complex stuff. But that she found the expectations re clients on email really difficult.

What does success look like for you?

Sophie started to consider downsizing or reducing her hours but it felt like failure.

I remember asking Sophie, what would she think if one of her team shared that they were going to do just that. She took a moment and said, ‘good on you, well done for being brave and taking the step. I’d feel a bit envious’

Whether success means, helping others, championing women leaders, feeling positive when you wake up in the morning, being able to take a month off every summer. Getting clear on this can help you leave behind any ideas of success that’s aren’t serving you.

What are your options?

Again this was tricky to start with. ‘I still feel like there aren’t any options’. So we played with it. If you could wave a magic wand what would you put on the list. Then the ideas came. Anything that’s ever crossed your mind let’s get it down. It’s amazing how even just writing this list can help you distil it. Sophie’s list ranged from starting an outdoor adventure business for older women to being a copywriter. She laughed as she looked at the list but then started to tune into what actually appealed to her. She started to get clarity on what her next steps might be. This involved going away to research two of the options, to work out what would be involved.

What’s stopping you?

This had already come up through our coaching conversations. I observed that Sophie often mentioned her salary and that she had to have the same salary moving forward. I shared this observation with her and she said, ‘That’s not true, I would like to have the same salary but not at the cost of feeling like this’. Something shifted in Sophie. She left to go away and get clear on her financial situation with her husband.

When you’re coaching someone they are doing the thinking, and that thinking will continue between sessions.

Before our final session I received an email from Sophie sharing that she’d applied for two jobs, out with the professional practice. She shared that she felt a sense of relief and that work had actually been better now she was starting to feel that she had options.

Ultimately Sophie moved into an in-house role in an area that interested her. It involved a reduction in her take home pay but offered her the connection and work/life balance that was right for her.

Feeling a bit stuck?

Grab a notebook and jot down your answers to these questions. See what comes up for you.

Want more?

Coaching can offer you the thinking space you’re looking for. We work together to move your thinking forward. Click here to discover if coaching is right for you.