Sometimes you can sense a change before you see it and before your head even knows it.
I sensed exactly this on my return from holiday recently. The evenings feel a little different now. The warmth from the sun is softer. The air feels fresher. All small signs that something is shifting even though when you look around not much has changed. Nothing has ended abruptly and yet, we know we’re moving into something new.
I’ve been thinking about how often our careers can feel like this too. We can find ourselves at a crossroads without knowing where the next path leads. Perhaps we’re considering a different role. Perhaps we’re questioning whether our current direction still fits. We sense something has changed, but we haven’t yet worked out what it means.
Sometimes there is a strong feeling that something needs to be different, without knowing exactly what that difference should be.
The pressure to know what’s next
We’re encouraged to think about our careers in terms of destinations. What’s the next role? What’s the plan? Where do you see yourself in five years? There can be an expectation that we should know where we’re going before we take the next step.
But I’m increasingly wondering if that is how meaningful career decisions are always made. Some of the people I work with are not looking for a five-year plan. They’re trying to make sense of what they are noticing now. What has changed? What still matters? What no longer fits? What gives them energy?
These questions don’t necessarily provide an immediate answer. But they can begin to give us a sense of direction.
When you can’t see the whole path
I recently took a photograph of a path disappearing into a woodland. You can’t see where the path goes, but through the trees, there is light. It made me think about career crossroads.
Perhaps we don’t always need to see the destination. Perhaps we need enough light to know which direction we want to explore. That light might come from many places. A value that has become more important to us. A conversation that stays with us. Something that sparks our curiosity. A growing awareness that something no longer fits. A feeling that we want to use our experience differently.
These aren’t necessarily answers. They’re clues and sometimes, when we’re at a crossroads, clues are enough to take the next step.
Making space for clarity
The difficulty is that we often try to work all of this out while moving at full speed. Particularly in healthcare, there is always something that needs our attention. Another problem to solve. Another decision to make. Another meeting to attend. Finding time to stop and ask ourselves what we’re actually noticing can feel like something we should do later.
But later doesn’t always come. This is one of the reasons I value thinking space. Not because a pause will magically give us the answer. But because clarity sometimes needs somewhere to emerge. When we create space to think, we can begin to hear things that are difficult to notice when we’re constantly responding. We can distinguish between what we’re genuinely drawn towards and what might simply be fear making things feel louder. We can notice what has energy behind it. We can begin to make sense of complexity rather than immediately trying to solve it.
And sometimes, thinking with someone else can help us see something we couldn’t quite see alone.
Perhaps you don’t need to decide yet
At a career crossroads, it can be tempting to ask: ‘What should I do?’ But perhaps there are other questions worth asking first.
What feels different for me now? What am I increasingly drawn towards? What no longer fits as comfortably as it once did? What small step could I take to explore rather than decide?
The last question particularly interests me, because perhaps we don’t always need to make a big decision. Sometimes we can experiment. Have a conversation. Talk to someone whose work interests us. Explore an idea. Try something different. Pay attention to what happens.
The path can become clearer as we walk it.
A different way of thinking about direction
Perhaps career direction isn’t always about having a destination firmly in sight.
Perhaps it’s about developing enough awareness to recognise which direction feels worth exploring. We might not know exactly where we’ll end up. We might change our minds. We might take a turn we hadn’t anticipated. That’s not necessarily a sign that we’ve got it wrong. It may simply be part of how a career unfolds.
Perhaps that’s what I like about the change of seasons. They remind us that change doesn’t have to happen all at once. One season gradually becomes another. We don’t need to know everything about what comes next.
Sometimes we just need to notice what is changing, make a little space, and pay attention to where the light is coming from.
You don’t always need to see the whole path. Sometimes you just need enough light to know which direction you want to explore.
