For ambitious, mid-career professionals, career transitions are complex, and over time, they can become quite disorienting and destabilizing. While we may do our best to make the optimal choice, our minds are often littered with questions and unknowns. We vacillate justifications around money, time, family, well-being, security, autonomy, etc. This messy mental state is related to what psychologists ‘cognitive dissonance’ - when your mind tries to reconcile two or more thoughts (or behaviors) that are inconsistent with your beliefs or values. So why does your smart brain launch into these mental gymnastics? And how can you outsmart it to minimize exhaustion?

I spent decades collecting some pretty strong beliefs about work, money, and professionalism.

My beliefs carried me (and a lot of people I know) pretty far, but at a certain point they stopped being helpful and they started complicating my career transitions.

In 2019, I finally figured out what it actually takes to make a successful career transition: getting really clear on your own definition of success.

Have you heard the old adage, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”? It sounds cheesy, but it’s actually a valuable reminder that in a battle between established norms and new ways of working, the norms usually have the upper hand. Similarly, in a battle between relationships and rules, relationships usually have the upper hand!