Are you chasing the career you want?

Have you ever had that moment where you stopped for one second, looked around at the career you have built and wondered, is this what I really want?

I have been that person.

The fast-paced world we live in doesn’t allow for stepping off the hamster wheel and having space to assess whether we are making decisions that are moving us towards a life that will make us happy. Instead we keep running and ticking off the goals laid out in front of us as we think striving for that next step is what we should do.

I didn’t stop running on my hamster wheel until I was about 10 years into my career.  Unfortunately for me, I was faced with infertility treatments that didn’t allow me to run my career at the level I wanted, so I took a time out. I used to look back on these time-out incredibly negatively. Obviously it was a challenging time in my life but I felt it also made me look weak, that I should have been able to keep juggling all the balls with impeccable performance.

However, now when I look back on it, I actually feel grateful.  Chances are if I hadn’t stepped off that hamster wheel, I would have kept chasing the carrots dangled in front of me.  I love chasing down goals, but the problem here was that the goals weren’t necessary aligned to my values and were not going to create a life I would ultimately be happy with. 

During my time off the hamster wheel I was able to review what I truly loved to do, what I wanted to do with my life when all the chips were down. Most importantly, it gave me the strength to know that I don’t want to live a life chasing goals that aren’t truly what I want.  I want to instead live a life where I go after what I would do if I knew I would succeed.

When I look at my life now I see how far I have come.  Not only have I built my own business but I am working in a role that I love to do and that helps people every single day.  Before this, I truly thought it was a myth that you could love your job. Plus, I’m sending a great message to my children about chasing down YOUR goals and living YOUR best life unashamedly.

So my advice to you is to set some time aside, maybe a long weekend, to consider whether or not you are chasing the right dreams or are you going through the motions of collecting carrots on your hamster wheel?