Welcome to episode #214 of the Own Your Best Life Podcast. As we get more advanced in our careers, there’s often a feeling of not wanting to give up everything you worked so hard for in the process of making any kind of change. You might have found yourself in a new role or promoted, wondering if this is what you really want. Or maybe you have thoughts of making a change to your life or career and are worried that this is rocking the boat too much. Either way, the thought of change can feel scary and we wonder what lies ahead if we make this next move.

Today’s podcast is on seeing change as a transition and asking ourselves, “what if this was just the beginning?”.

As we evolve in our lives and careers, we often make bigger and bigger decisions. It’s normal to start to worry if this next decision is going to be the one that takes us too far off the beaten path. We wonder if we change something about ourselves or our relationships – whether or not we’ll regret the choices we made. 

As time goes on, we feel even more committed to our current paths. When we’re younger, we often feel like we’re at the beginning of our careers and lives so indecision and change is par for the course. Deciding what to study or where to go to school seemed like the first step, not the last. Yet, as we age we feel like we don’t have as much wiggle room. What do you do when you’ve been working on a career path for 10 or 15 or 20 years already? How do you stay engaged or as interested? What do you even envision if you feel like you’re going to be at the end of a path soon?

I remember even as I was considering making a change to my career after business school, wondering why I had a hard time making the switch from strategy work to another career. I knew there was something else for me but the thought of starting over was scary. I also didn’t know what was next. I didn’t know what my gifts were, I just knew that I wasn’t fully utilizing them. Even though I was working and had a good job, it felt like I was hiding.

When you’re fully committed to work that you believe is your gift, you don’t feel like you’re hiding. When you feel like your life is growing and changing in ways that transform you, you don’t feel like you’re hiding. Change feels like a fresh start, not the end of your life.

Often, we consider that the change is a loss of a life we had before instead of realizing this one shift in thinking I am going to offer you today. What if this was just the beginning?

When we want something and wonder why it is not here in our life yet, it’s often because we haven’t made space for it. Thoughts are energy. Our ideas are energy and they need space. The endings or things that didn’t work out are making space for something else to come through. We may never know if we lament the loss instead of moving with it and seeing what comes next.

Yet, many of us never get to feel that sense of release and freedom that comes with making the decisions that allow us to move with life into the next change. We find then that sometimes the Universe will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We lose jobs, relationships, money and time. All to make space for something else.

How do we make space even if we’re uncertain about what’s next? How do we figure out our next thing and what our gifts are or where we want to take our life in ways that don’t feel like we’re just preparing for the end?

In my coaching with my clients, I work with them on a 5-step process that helps them see not just the goal, which can often be unclear as well – but also who they want to become as a person, the beliefs they need to have and the process to get there. This helps them make what’s fuzzy become even more clear and the vision starts to take shape, helping them understand the reasons why they want to pursue this path or make this change. It’s so important, yet overlooked to understand the best reasons for going after that next thing. 

Our brains tend to question anything that isn’t certain or already known so often we don’t pursue things, not because they’re not a great next step – but because they’re new or different. This is why people who have grown up with wealth find it easier to make money – it’s not as new or different. People who have seen what hard work is like through their families find it easy to be disciplined or stay committed. It’s not new or different. Yet, no matter what your path and context has been previously, your edge and your growth will likely be in doing the things that are different or new for you. 

This is why the coaching work helps you make the next move matter of fact and simple, not complex or strange. We normalize what you want and what a new kind of life or definition of success looks like in your life. We normalize thinking about investing into your future, your health and relationships. We normalize wealth and feelings of abundance – of enough. We make strength, courage, discipline and joy the baseline and as a result, we bring that energy and thinking into our next phase of life.

Instead of thinking that if you’re over 30 or 40 that you’re only preparing for retirement and death – focused solely on your kids, you think of how much more energy and wisdom you can bring to life. You live like you’re dying not because of your age, but because of your energy.

The reason why this matters is because when you’re at the beginning of a next phase, you have options. You have the option to regret, lament and stay stuck in the past. Remembering the time when you didn’t do what life asked or needed from you or thinking about your failures more than your learnings and growth. Only pursuing the goals of your children, not your own and living their lives not yours. In those moments you can stay there, in the past or in other people’s lives and business –  and keep making it your present or your business – or you have the next option of moving forward with the current of change and have a life with as much creative energy now as you did when you were younger.

Life is always moving and if we move with the new beginnings that are always underway we can start to see the excitement, the growth and the openings as space for all the things that we’ve dreamed of to come into our life. Without as much friction or effort or struggle. Without the constant overworking, self-doubt and sense of dis-ease. Instead, we keep finding that real life is better than we could have imagined. 

This is what’s available to you. The two paths. One where you stay in the past resisting the change, speaking more of what was than of what’s currently present and changing for you right now. Or the second path where you see life as a series of beginnings and have a vision that you’re living into day after day. Using your energy to lead into what’s next instead of stressing about what’s not happening.

The second path is that of the spiritual achiever, taking steps to stop hiding and invest into their growth and evolution.

If you’d like to become a spiritual achiever, I invite you to watch the free training on how to Stand Out and Lead, using spiritual, high-performance strategies: STAND OUT AND LEAD.

You can apply to join my Spiritual Achiever® program, where you’re going to create your next chapter with spiritual and high-performance strategies to achieve time and financial freedom using my proven method. It’s risk-free. You either start seeing results within your first month or I give you your money back. Schedule your call here at www.mayempson.com/contact.  We’ll see you inside.

Want to know more about what happens when you join?

1. When you join Spiritual Achiever® Coaching you’ll be supported for a full year: Career Revelation Academy: A 5-step career change process (if you have a job you want to stay in, I’ll show you how to love it even more) that can launch you into your next career chapter in 30 days.
2. 2x/month group training and coaching on Spirituality, Achievement, Earth Energy and Harmony. You’ll know how to design your days for breakthroughs, create a personal brand and community, lead yourself and others through change, become more physically and mentally fit, reduce stress and reinvent what’s possible in this next chapter of your life.
3. Discover your Leadership Strengths and Branding Workshop: Increase your awareness of what makes YOU different from others and how to become even better at your genius zone.
4. Your Best Year workshop: Create your one year plan and design this next year, no matter what time of the year it is.
5. Your Next 5 Years one-day virtual retreat: Vision what’s possible 5 years from now and break out of your old routines so you can step into new habits, behaviors and routines.
6. Tickets to all in-person Spiritual Achiever retreats (discounted rates): Highly immersive and intimate gatherings where we spend time in nature, experience energy work, eat and move well – all while making big decisions and committing to what’s next for us.
7. Monthly 1:1 Coaching Sessions: To help you break through obstacles, define your individual path, and to work on both strategy and mindset.

The next step?

Schedule a consultation to get clarity on how coaching can help you on your journey.

Once you’re accepted into the program, you’ll receive a calendar invite for a 2-hour deep dive 1:1 session to map out your personal goals and your own year-long journey.

You’ll have immediate access to the Spiritual Achiever process and philosophy – how to achieve your biggest goals and reinvent your life.

You’ll have immediate access to 5 modules of Career Revelation Academy – to love your career even more and launch that next chapter of your career in 30 days.

You’ll have the calendar invites for the upcoming group calls and retreats.

If this speaks to you, I can’t wait to talk to you live: Schedule a consultation.

Reach out at www.mayempson.com/contact for more information on my Spiritual Achiever coaching program. You’ll figure out what’s next and actually go and do it. 

That’s it for this week. Have an amazing one and I’ll talk to you next time.