In the last email, we talked about the point where your job starts running your life.

Where you’re performing.
Still delivering.
But the intensity doesn’t let up - and your work starts to take over more than it should.

For a lot of people, that shows up as a gradual shift:

You’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing.
But it’s no longer sustainable.
And you’re not enjoying it the way you used to.

The next problem most people run into isn’t a lack of options.

It’s that they don’t have the space to think about them.

What’s actually going on

If you look at how most high-performing professionals are operating, it’s pretty consistent:

• back-to-back meetings
• constant deadlines
• very little uninterrupted time

You’re executing all day.

And when your time is fully consumed by execution, there’s no room left for strategy.

So even if you know something needs to change, you don’t actually have the capacity to step back and evaluate it properly.

The real constraint

Most people assume the issue is:

“I need a better plan.”
“I need to figure out what to do next.”

That’s usually not true.

The issue isn’t a lack of ideas.

It’s a lack of space to think.

What this looks like in practice

What I see most often is this:

You think about making a change in short bursts.

• late at night
• between meetings
• when you’re already tired

Then work pulls you back in.

Nothing moves forward.

Not because there aren’t options.

But because there’s never been space to evaluate them properly.

So you stay in the same structure - by default.

Why this matters more than it seems

This is also why most people never expand beyond their job as their only source of income.

Not because they can’t.

But because they don’t have the time or space to think differently about how their career and income could be structured.

What this can actually look like

I was talking to someone recently who was in a Director-level investor relations role at a publicly traded company.

Strong performer.
Well compensated.
Clear path to continue progressing.

But her role had taken over her time.

And she hit the same point we talked about last week - she couldn’t (and didn't want to) keep doing it the same way.

Instead of immediately jumping to “find another job,” she stepped back and asked a different question:

She started exploring advisory work on the side.

At first, it was small:

• a few conversations
• a couple of early clients
• testing where her experience translated outside of her company

Over time, that turned into a real alternative path.

She eventually left her role and structured her work around advisory.

Now:

• her income is higher than it was in her corporate role
• she has significantly more control over her time
• and she’s starting to build a second business

What to take from that

The point isn’t that everyone should leave their job.

The point is: She wasn’t stuck.
She just needed space to see what else was possible and then test it.

The shift most people miss

Your career is just one lever.

But you can’t access the others if you’re fully consumed by it.

There are different ways to structure your:

• income
• time
• scope of work

But none of that matters if you don’t create space to think.

Where to start

Most people jump straight to:

“What should I do next?”

Instead, I would suggest that a better place to start is:

Because once you have that, the options become much clearer.

How I approach this with clients

This is one of the first things I work through with clients.

Not jumping straight to a new role.

But creating enough space to:

• step back
• evaluate what they’ve built
• understand how it translates into different paths
• and align that with their life and constraints

Some clients can do this while still working, others take vacation time to evaluate this, others take extended unpaid time off and still others resign and give themselves a period of time to do this work before going back to the workforce.

Once you get space, the next step becomes much more obvious.

In closing

Most people don’t lack options.

They lack the space to see them clearly.

If you feel like you’ve been too deep in execution to step back and think clearly about your career, this is the moment to change that.

Reply with “space” and tell me what’s going on.

I’ll help you think it through.

Until next week,
Beckie

PS Want to talk through your career direction? I open a limited number of free Career Strategy Calls each month.

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