A couple of weeks ago, I got caught telling a whopper set of lies.

I was waiting for my daughter to get out of school, when another mum asked, “How are you doing?”

“Good,” I said breathlessly, “but crazy busy!”

(Lie #1: I certainly was busy, but I was not well at all.  My back pain had returned in spades and the stress was so bad I’d started getting recurrent cold sores in my mouth.)

“I’ve got a launch coming up, I created a new product, and I’m wrapping up the book chapter I’ve been writing on contract.  And of course the hubby’s been out of town a lot, so doing most of the child care. But,” I sighed, “I just have to get through April and things will slow down.”

My friend cocked her head and asked, “Haven’t you been saying that since October?”

Lie #2, that I thought everything would “slow down next month,” was the worst of all, because at least part of me believed it.  Indeed, I’d been engaged in a vocational sprint for more than six months, where the finish line always remained just a few steps ahead of me.

In my last update on my no goals experiment, I shared 3 strategies for de-cluttering your commitments. I’m here to say I tried juggling and failed.  It was a good experiment, but at least for me, I couldn’t make it work.

I decided the only real solution was to remove all work commitments and start completely over.

For many of my clients, the thought of starting over is one of their biggest fears.  There were certainly days I just wanted to curl up and hide in my room.  I was so stressed about the how: how to break ties without burning bridges, how to throttle back without losing momentum, and how to focus on the work I love without burning out.

In this post, I’ll show you how I’m addressing all three of those concerns and how you might do the same.

A while back, I published a review of the new book Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath.  I talked about some of the major pitfalls people make when trying to make big decisions where they didn’t have a lot of relevant prior experience to guide them.  As part of a book give-away (now over, sorry), I invited folks to share one big decision they were struggling with.

The response was over-whelming.

Many were along the lines of “Should I change careers/jobs or not?”  If you read the review, you know that “whether or not” type decisions are dangerous anyway. But this one in particular is troubling because it jumps to a solution (changing careers/jobs) before identifying the problem.

And THAT is a recipe for making a bad decision.

It occurred to me that before I can help you design a career you love, we have to discover and address the underlying problem.  If you’ve been struggling with the idea of career change for a while, you probably know this is easier said than done.

Over the next two weeks, that’s exactly what we’re going to tackle.  I’ll be running a free mini-course that unpacks the “Should I change” question and takes a step back.  We’ll examine

1. How to productively reframe the “I don’t know what I want, but it’s not this” mindset
2. How to challenge the limiting beliefs that hold you back
3. How to discover the real problem you’re trying to solve when contemplating career change
4. How to widen your options and prevent a catastrophic wrong turn
5. Case studies of alternatives that produced big wins

Finally, at the end of the two weeks, I’ll host a live Q&A webinar on April 20th that wraps up all the material and helps you confidently plan your next step, whether that’s a career tweak or a big leap.

This is a mini-course, which means I don’t want you to just READ about this topic–there are actual exercises to do that I’ve never released before.  That’s going to require some work and engagement on your part, but hey, it’s Spring.  Instead of cleaning your house, let’s work on the things that are really nagging you.

Of course, there is a catch.  Everything in the course is private and exclusive for my subscribers.  It also happens to be free for a limited time. If you’d like access to the material without paying big bucks, you have to sign-up here.

All the course material comes down on April 28, so don’t put this off.

Why am I doing this?  The No Regrets Career Academy will be opening again in just a few weeks. But as good as the No Regrets material is, I realized it’s worthless if you’re incapable of making a decision on the first question: should I consider a new career?  I’ll probably turn this into a paid course in the future, but for now, consider it my way of saying thanks.

Hope to see you on the other side!

The scenario you fear most is finally summoning the courage to make a change, only to find your new career is far, far worse than what you had before.

As you’ll see below, this is a very valid fear.

This post is a true story of how one of my clients, Emma (not her real name), left a career in music for the money and stability of law, a decision that seemed grounded, rational, and one her family supported.  Unfortunately, the change proved a nightmare: she hated the work, and the money and stability she was chasing never materialized.

Emma has graciously agreed to share her story in the hopes you can learn some lessons and avoid her mistake.

The real question is: how do you know when the risk of career change makes sense?  At the end of the post, I’ll show you how you can get a “free map,” and hopefully prevent any wrong turns of your own.