You know you don't want THIS. But what do you actually want?

That feeling. You know the one.

You're sitting at your desk, or on a Teams call you stopped listening to ten minutes ago, and something just feels off. Not dramatically, not in a way you could easily articulate to someone else. Just... off. Like you're wearing someone else's shoes. Functional. Fine. But not quite right.

You're not unhappy enough to do something drastic. But you're not happy enough to stop noticing. And somewhere in the background, quietly but persistently, a question keeps surfacing:

Is this it?

The most uncomfortable career place to be

People talk a lot about wanting to change careers. What they talk about less - because it's messier, and harder to admit - is the specific kind of stuck that comes when you know what you're walking away from, but you have absolutely no idea what you're walking towards.

It's not burnout, exactly. It's not a bad day, or a bad manager, or a rough patch you can wait out. It's something deeper. A slow, creeping sense that the work you're doing no longer reflects who you are. That you've outgrown something - or grown into someone - and the two no longer match.

And the worst part? When people ask "so what would you do instead?" - you don't have an answer. Which makes the whole thing feel impossible before it's even begun.

So you stay. Not because you want to. Because at least you know what you've got.

The myth of the lightbulb moment

We've been sold a story about career change that looks something like this: one day, out of nowhere, clarity strikes. You realise you want to be a landscape architect, or a therapist, or start your own business. The path ahead becomes obvious. You take a deep breath and leap.

For a tiny minority of people, maybe that happens. For most? Clarity is not a moment. It's a process.

And here's the thing nobody tells you: you don't need to know where you're going before you start moving. You just need to be honest about where you are - and be willing to do the work to figure out the rest.

That work is not about sitting quietly with a journal until the answer comes. It's structured. It's strategic. It involves asking the right questions, in the right order, with someone who isn't invested in you staying exactly where you are.

What "lost" actually looks like

Let me reflect back some of the things I hear most often - and see if any of these land for you.

You're good at your job. Possibly very good. But being good at something stopped feeling like enough a while ago, and you can't quite explain why without sounding ungrateful.

You've had the same conversation with yourself - and probably a trusted friend - at least a dozen times. Nothing changes. The conversation just goes in circles.

You scroll job boards occasionally, but nothing jumps out. Everything either feels like more of the same, or wildly unrealistic, so you close the tab and carry on.

You tell yourself you'll figure it out when things calm down. But things don't calm down. And even when they do, you find a reason to put it off.

You're worried that if you make a move in the wrong direction, you'll end up worse off - so you make no move at all.

You've started wondering whether you're just being difficult. Whether everyone feels like this and you should probably just get on with it.

You're not being difficult. You're just ready. And readiness without direction is one of the most uncomfortable places there is.

The gap between knowing and doing

Here's what I know from working with career changers: the gap is almost never about capability. The people I work with are smart, experienced, and more than capable of doing something different. The gap is about three things.

Clarity - not knowing what they actually want, because they've never had the space or the structure to properly work it out.

Confidence - not believing they can make it happen, or that they deserve to, or that they have enough to offer in a new direction.

Strategy - not knowing how to translate a vague sense of "something different" into a concrete plan with real options and real momentum.

None of those gaps close on their own. But all three of them close faster than you'd think, when you have the right support.

What changes when you stop waiting for clarity to arrive

One of my clients came to me knowing exactly what I've described above - dissatisfied, directionless, going in circles. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She just knew it wasn't this.

By the time we'd done the work together, she wasn't just clearer - she was strategic. She told me: "We shifted from me playing the victim to me being strategic - 'here are my facts, how do we get there together?'"

Another said: "Without coaching, I wouldn't have had the strategy to create options. I'd have just accepted the first job offered to me."

And one who had been stuck in that horrible loop of knowing-but-not-knowing: "I wouldn't have got to where I am without you. I honestly don't think I would have done it."

These are not people who suddenly got lucky, or had a lightbulb moment, or found a job that fell into their lap. They did the work. They got the strategy. And they moved.

This is what Career Compass is for

Career Compass is my six-week group coaching programme, designed specifically for people who are ready to change - but need the structure, the clarity, and the strategy to make it real.

Over six weeks, we work through who you are now (not who you were five years ago), what you actually want (which is often different from what you think you want), and how to build a concrete plan to get there - including how to position yourself, pitch yourself, and back yourself when it counts.

Two out of six people on the founding cohort found new jobs during or shortly after the programme. The rest left with a plan they were finally ready to act on - and the confidence to do it.

"Investing in career coaching shows a level of self-care and thoughtfulness. It demonstrates you're really conscious about what you want to do."

"You gave me the confidence to ask the questions and understand what I actually want."

"You were my voice - I got £10k more than my minimum requirement, and £20k bonus potential on a three-day week."

If you've been waiting for a sign that you're ready - this is probably it.

You don't need to know what you want yet. You just need to decide that staying stuck is no longer an option.

Career Compass is running again on May 26th. Come and find your direction.