When You Don't Want What You Used to Want

 Something is shifting.

I can feel it in my bones, and lately I keep hearing versions of the same thing from other people. There is a restlessness, a desire pulling them toward something different and more meaningful. They are tired of the corporate maze, tired of hitting dead ends, tired of giving so much of themselves to something that perhaps doesn't mean as much to them as it once did. 

I recently heard this quote, and it gets to the point we may all be feeling:

“I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come out of the rain.”

 —Mary Oliver

I understand how many are feeling because I can feel it happening in me too.

After 27 years working in corporate America and another nine years coaching inside companies, I can feel my corporate identity beginning to slip away. I still love the people. I still love helping leaders and teams become more consciously aware of how they show up, communicate, and influence one another. I know that work matters and that it creates real results.

But something in me is changing.

Time to release the “forever” bracelet 

The drive I once had for success, titles, recognition, and achievement no longer has the same pull. I find myself far more interested in peace. I want to listen to the birds in the morning. I want to watch the sun magically rise over the mountains. I want time to write, meditate, wander in the woods, have deep conversations, and understand myself and this strange and beautiful experience of being alive on this planet Earth. 

Even writing that feels a little vulnerable.

There was a time when slowing down would have scared me. Achievement was woven so deeply into my identity that I wasn't always sure who I was without something to accomplish. I knew how to strive, and I knew how to work harder. I was a pro at setting the next goal and going after it.

But what happens when the things that once motivated you stop motivating you?

I ponder: is it my age, where I am in this last third of my life, being an empty nester, and the desire to NOT have a back-to-back schedule anymore?

I don't think it necessarily means something is wrong. I think sometimes it means something is complete.

There are seasons in nature when everything is growing wildly, reaching toward the sun, producing, blooming, and expanding. And then there are seasons when the energy turns inward. Nature doesn't panic when this happens. The tree doesn't desperately glue its leaves back onto its branches because it thinks it should still be producing.

It listens to the season.

Maybe we are meant to do the same.

I think many of us feel the shift but resist it because the old identity is familiar. We know how to be the executive, the achiever, the caretaker, the entrepreneur, the person everyone relies on. We know the rules of that game, even when we're exhausted from playing it.

The harder question is who we are becoming when those identities begin to loosen.

I don't have a perfectly packaged answer for myself yet, and strangely, I don't feel the same urgency to find one. That may be part of my shift too. For much of my life, uncertainty meant I needed to make a plan. Now I'm becoming more willing to stand in the unknown for a while and listen.

That doesn't mean I want to stop contributing. Quite the opposite. I still want to be useful, engaged, curious, creative, and of service. I still have work I want to do in the world. But I am becoming much more interested in how I want to live as I do it.

That feels like an important distinction.

Maybe the next chapter isn't about doing more. Maybe it isn't another title, accomplishment, business goal, or mountain to climb. Maybe success begins to mean something different as we evolve.

Success is more freedom, love, connection, and meaning.

Something inside is saying, There might be another way and I lean in and trust it.

The Energy Leadership work I've practiced and taught for years comes back to awareness. We cannot consciously choose something different until we're willing to see where we are now. And sometimes awareness begins with admitting a truth we have been trying not to hear.

I don't want what I used to want.

There is nothing wrong with honoring that. In fact, perhaps the greater risk is knowing something has changed and continuing to live as though it hasn't.

So I'm listening.

I am permitting myself to let the old identity loosen its grip and become curious about what wants to emerge next.

Maybe you feel something shifting too. You don't have to know exactly where it's taking you. For now, perhaps it's enough to stop resisting the pull and listen.

With heart,