The Job Didn't Change. You Did.

What to do when the career that once energized you now leaves you feeling exhausted.

I've been observing a consistent client pattern over the past few months. Women who are standing on the other side of a major life event and questioning whether they should continue to stay in a job that brought them energy, satisfaction, and joy before that transition happened.

One of my clients is a high-powered executive who achieved incredible success at a young age and recently became a mother. Now, the job she once loved is something she can barely get herself to do on a day-to-day basis. Another woman I spoke with is recovering from a major health crisis and is now questioning whether she can continue doing the work she once thrived in, let alone achieve a promotion.

These women actually love their jobs. But now, standing on the other side of a major life event, they are wondering whether they still fit their jobs.

A lot of conversations about dissatisfaction at work focus on having the wrong environment, coworkers, manager, or role. But for some of us, we have actually found the dream organization or dream job. Of course, nothing is perfect, but we've found something that genuinely works for us. And yet we're suddenly realizing that this career that once left us feeling accomplished, energized, and fulfilled has become draining. It has become hard. It has left us questioning whether we can still succeed and thrive.

Sometimes, the answer is no, and we should pivot and go somewhere else. But often, when we're questioning whether we're still the right fit for the job, it's because we haven't taken a moment to pause and grieve. To grieve the version of ourselves who thrived in that role. And then to reimagine what thriving might look like now.

I went through a moment like this a few years ago when I discovered I was (very) dyslexic. At the time, I was in a Vice President role after what had been a successful, but also incredibly intense, career. I had spent almost a decade in strategy consulting and had attended top academic institutions, all of which required extensive reading and writing (which, fun fact, apparently is not easy for me).

I wasn't prepared for was what happened after the diagnosis. Suddenly, everything I had spent decades compensating for came sharply into focus and felt incredibly hard. Things I had taken for granted, like crafting emails, reviewing documents, and writing papers, became enormous struggles.

I would sit down to write a simple email and it would take me an hour instead of a few minutes, and by the end of it, the effort would leave me feeling physically sick. As you can probably imagine, very quickly, I began questioning my entire career path. I would wonder “Can I still do this work? Or do I need to find an entirely different career that isn't built around reading and writing, the cornerstone of everything I have done professionally?”

The thought of starting over or making a pivot that large threw me into waves of fear and grief, while also simultaneously bringing moments of hope and relief. And all the while, I was continuing to struggle and feel drained in a job I had worked incredibly hard for and genuinely enjoyed. Things that once gave me a sense of pride and competence felt like ‘check the box’ exercises I had to do to simply get through the day.

After wrestling with the options, I decided I didn't want to pull the ripcord yet. I didn't want to leave the job, my colleagues, or the people I respected simply because I had gone through a major life change. I wanted to figure out whether there was a way to reclaim the energy and joy I had once found in my work within the context of this new version of myself.

Through this process, I found that a lot of people tend to give well-meaning advice in these moments: “Just take your foot off the gas a bit,” or “You need to lower your standards,” or “Hey, you should just accept that you're going to get a ‘D’ instead of an ‘A’ for a while,” or, my personal favorite “Just care less!”

The problem is that for many high-achieving women, work isn't just work. We genuinely relish the challenges we get to tackle through our careers. We enjoy the intellectual rigor. We care deeply about showing up well. We take pride in producing thoughtful work, being strong teammates, and being effective leaders. So going against those values by “just caring less” often makes us feel worse, not better.

Trust me, I've tried.

I knew I needed a solution that both honored this new version of who I was and the values that mattered most to me to reconnect with the sense of purpose and competence I had previously had in my work. For me, I discovered that the path forward actually involved stepping more fully into my dyslexia rather than running from it. It meant embracing my identity as a dyslexic person. Being honest and transparent with others about my limitations and struggles. Setting real boundaries around how much time I spent reading and writing and learning to be ok with making accommodations for myself.

You may be musing at this point, “But Emily, you were managing PhD scientists (whose emails can often read like dissertations), and you’re expected to mostly read and write in your job." Yes, dear reader, you are correct. And no, I wasn’t sure if real boundaries were possible. But over time, through experimentation and education, I did, in fact, find approaches that worked.

For instance, I told my team about the boundaries I was trying to establish, not because I expected them to change their behavior, but because I wanted social accountability (I find that there is nothing better than some social pressure to keep me accountable). I shifted from typing to using voice-to-text.

I think the key thing that allowed me to navigate that transition successfully was realizing and accepting that I could not just revert to the old version of myself again. I couldn't go back to the version of Emily that existed before the diagnosis. This may seem like a “no duh” moment, but for me, it required me to accept that many of my previous ‘tried and true’ techniques and ways of working were no longer viable. I had to wholeheartedly accept this new version of myself. My strengths and my limitations. I had to identify which of my ways of working no longer served me and then determine new techniques that would help this version of me thrive.

I see so many high-achieving women get stuck in this exact place. When a major life event changes us, we often assume we have only three choices: (1) Push harder, (2) Dial it back and accept that we're just going to struggle for a while, or (3) Give up and settle for something smaller. In my experience, none of those is usually the answer. The path forward often lies in fully grieving the past version of ourselves, renegotiating who we are and the identities we hold, clarifying our values, and then imagining a new version of ourselves.

Self-authorship is hard work. But those of us who are successful, smart, and high-achieving are not afraid of hard work. The goal isn't to become the person you were before, but to build a version of your life and career that fits who you are now. And while that process can be painful, it is also surprisingly liberating. Sometimes the only way to rediscover joy in your work is not to try to go back or to step out, but to move forward and build what’s next.