Here's the deal. You know that feeling you've got right now? That "totally lost, I'm stuck, what am I even supposed to do with my career, can't someone just tell me what I'm supposed to be doing" feeling?
Man, it sucks, doesn't it? I know that feeling intimately.
I've been through TWO major career shifts of my own and have since helped loads of clients, just like you, figure out what they want to do and how to get there. So no, you don't have to do it alone. Promise.
However, only you can know what's really right for you.
I'm here to tell you that it doesn't take months of going back to school, years of trial and error, or even days of pulling your hair out. You just need to grab your beverage of choice, find a quiet spot, snag a pen, fresh Google doc, collage paper, or whatever you like to roll with, and really dig deep.
You do need to be honest with yourself and ask a few super deep questions that will get your career GPS all rebooted in the right direction.
The Real Issue: You Think You've Wasted Time
Before we dive into those questions, I need to address something I hear constantly from clients who want to change careers: "I can't do X because I've wasted too much time doing Y."
Here's the deal: you have not wasted too much time doing anything.
I've actually got five reasons why you haven't wasted too much time, and understanding these will fundamentally shift how you approach your career clarity work.
Reason #1: You're Learning
You've spent all of this time learning, maybe in an actual classroom, but most likely out in the corporate world, in whatever type of field you're in.
You're acquiring skills, you're acquiring institutional knowledge, you are learning. That is not wasted at any point in time, anywhere.
Every job, every project, every mistake, every success has taught you something. Even if you hated what you were doing, you learned what you don't want, which is incredibly valuable information.
Reason #2: You're Growing
You're growing as a person with life experiences, general life experiences. The more life experiences you have, the more you're going to be able to bring to whatever it is that you're doing.
I don't care what it is. Having more life experiences makes you a better employee. They allow you to have a wider point of view. They allow you to understand why things are done due to reasons out in the world, and that is going to make you a more thoughtful employee.
That is not a waste of time.
Reason #3: You're Changing
Your needs and your wants change as you grow. Most people do one thing for so long because that's what they needed and wanted at the time, but now they need and want other things. That's okay.
It doesn't mean you've wasted that prior time. It simply means that your needs and your wants have changed.
For you to have a meaningful career, your current job needs to actually support your values, your priorities, your needs, and your wants.
If it's contradicting what you need and what you want and what you find important, then it's not going to be a good fit for you. You're not going to be fulfilled. You absolutely shouldn't stay doing it simply because it's what you've always done.
That said, the experience of what you're doing now is not wasted time. It's just time that you spent doing something that was important to you. Just because it's become less important to you over time, or your family has changed, or your responsibilities have changed, that's okay.
That means it is time to move on and find something that supports where you are right now.
Reason #4: You're Evolving
Your interests are evolving. Not just your priorities but your actual interests. When you were 10 years old, maybe you were super into horses. It doesn't mean that you're still going to be super into horses when you're 40. Your interests change.
Maybe you were an amazing project manager because you loved those tiny little details. You loved the minute details and ticking off the boxes, but as you're getting older and gaining more life experiences, you're starting to love the big-picture strategy stuff way more.
Those tiny details don't intrigue you so much anymore.
You want to really be involved in creating the whole big package, and you want to leave the nitty-gritty to someone else. That's great. That's not a waste of time. That's evolving.
Evolving in your career is evolving as a human and that is evolving as an employee. That is not wasted time.
Reason #5: You're Aging
I hate to remind you of this, but you're going to get older no matter what you choose to do. I had a client recently say, "I can't go back to school because I'll be 40 when I graduate." Well, yeah.
She's going to be 40 no matter what she decides to do. Now, she can either be a 40-year-old on track to get that really awesome job she's been wanting for 10 years, or she can be 40 and still doing the job she's doing now, still being resentful and unfulfilled, and 40.
The fact that you're going to be a particular age and going to be older, I think, is a complete nonsense excuse for not doing something that you want to do. It is not wasted time. It is just how humans work.
Age is a ridiculous excuse.
We grow, we change, we evolve, we get older, and I don't believe that any of it is a waste. I think those are all advantages. In tech talk, that's "a feature, not a bug."
If you go about a career change with the knowledge behind you that you're a bigger, better, more evolved person, not that you've wasted time, but that you've got more to give and more to bring, that's going to be infinitely better than sitting around saying, "Ugh, I just wasted too much time."
There's no way you've wasted however much time it is you've had until now. No matter what you did.
I don't care if you were living off the grid making friendship bracelets at the beach and selling them. That's being an entrepreneur. That's not a waste of time. It's just a different way of doing things. Don't let the idea of "wasted time" hold you back from making the decisions you want to make or doing the things you want to do.
Build your future not based on what you've been doing but what you want to do.
The Deep Questions That Create Clarity
Now that we've cleared that mental roadblock, let's get to the work. You need to ask yourself those deep things you know are really important but that you don't give time to consider on a daily basis.
Here are the types of questions that will actually move the needle:
What are my top three personal strengths? Not what your boss thinks they are or what your job description says. What are YOU genuinely excellent at?
What am I yearning for? Not what you think you should want. What do you actually crave? More autonomy? More collaboration? More creativity? More structure?
What do I value most and how can I honor that? Is it family time? Financial security? Creative expression? Making an impact? Travel? Stability?
These aren't surface-level questions. They require real introspection. Block out time. Turn off your phone. Get comfortable being uncomfortable as you dig into answers you might have been avoiding.
Turning Insights Into Action
Once you've got your answers, you need to take two more crucial steps:
Step 1: What was your biggest "Aha!" or takeaway?
This should be the thing that feels most significant to you at this moment in your life. The realization that made you sit up straighter. The truth that felt like a punch to the gut or a weight lifting off your shoulders.
Maybe it's: "I've been chasing status instead of meaning." Or: "I'm actually really good at connecting people and ideas, but my job never lets me do that." Or: "I've been trying to be someone I'm not for the past five years."
Write it down. Own it.
Step 2: List five ways your Aha! could impact your career
This is where insight becomes action. If your Aha! is that you value flexibility over prestige, how could that reshape your career decisions? Could you:
Negotiate remote work in your current role?
Look for contract or freelance opportunities?
Target companies known for work-life balance?
Start a side business that could eventually replace your income?
Move to a less demanding position that gives you time for what matters?
Don't be surprised if in the next few days you tweak a few of your answers or have another Aha! moment, or two, or six. That's totally normal, expected, and awesome.
Your next step is to begin looking at your career and evaluate how your big takeaways can be incorporated into your daily work life.
When You Need More Than DIY
Look, I'm a career coach, so I'm biased. But let me be real with you about when DIY career clarity work isn't enough and when you might actually need professional help.
You don't need a career coach if:
You've already figured everything out. You've achieved all the things you could possibly want from a career: fulfillment, fun, meaning, money, and it all just happened. You clearly don't need help because you've got it all figured out.
You're perfectly happy stuck in a role with no growth, money, or responsibility in a field you hate. Period. If that's genuinely fine with you, carry on.
You're perfectly happy just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Maybe literally. I don't know. But so far it's worked pretty well for your career, right?
But you probably DO need a career coach if:
You want to create a career that actually makes you happy, but you keep spinning your wheels trying to figure out how.
You need someone to hold you accountable to your goals because, let's be honest, you're really good at making excuses for yourself.
You want to build your confidence and understand your unique value but can't seem to see it objectively on your own.
You need help making actual decisions about the evolution of your career and life, not just endlessly contemplating them.
You want to learn lifelong career skills like confidence, communication, conflict resolution, and relationship building that will serve you for decades.
You need help telling your story and selling yourself to employers because "winging it" in interviews isn't working out so well.
You want to launch a new career or advance in your current one but don't know where to start or how to strategize.
Here's what a good career coach does: they offer clarity, direction, and motivation. They act as an accountability buddy and as someone to metaphorically kick your ass toward your goals. They see patterns you can't see because you're too close to your own story. They ask the questions you avoid asking yourself.
But they're not for everyone. And they're definitely not magic. You still have to do the work.
Your Next Steps
Whether you work with a coach or go it alone, the process is the same: deep introspection, honest answers, and then action.
Stop telling yourself you've wasted time. You haven't. Every experience has brought you to this exact moment where you're finally ready to figure out what you actually want.
That's not wasted time. That's preparation.
Now grab that beverage, find that quiet spot, and start asking yourself the deep questions. Write down your biggest Ahas. List how they could reshape your career. And then, here's the crucial part: actually do something about it.
Because here's the thing: you're going to get older no matter what. Your needs and interests are going to keep evolving no matter what. You can either spend the next few years building toward something meaningful, or you can spend them wishing you had started.
The time you spend figuring this out isn't wasted. It's invested.
And you're worth the investment.
Build your future not based on what you've been doing but what you want to do. Start today.
Because the only real waste of time is staying stuck in a career that doesn't serve you simply because you're afraid it's "too late" to change.
It's not too late. It's never too late.
You've got this.
Yours in career goodness-
EBS
—-
EB Sanders | Career Coach for Creative Types
