Busy but lost? How Summer’s quieter moments unlock career clarity
Being busy all the time won't give you career clarity: here’s how to turn your holiday into your most strategic career move yet.
Picture this…
You’ve closed the laptop, turned on the Out of Office, packed your suitcase, boarded the plane and landed yourself on a white sandy beach where the Mediterranean sun shines on your face. You’ve been looking forward to this break for months now, a week of sea swims, reading, fresh food and switching off. But that first day lying on the beach, you can’t stop your mind from sprinting through the to-do lists. You’ve been constantly ‘on’ and now that you’ve physically stopped your brain is still whirring away.
The thing is, being busy all the time, hasn’t given you any career clarity, instead you’re more confused than ever at what the next step could be for you, and feel that even though you’ve been constantly pushing yourself, trying to make positive progress things have stagnated and instead you just feel exhausted with the constant ‘go go go’ of it all.
So, here’s how to turn your holiday into your most strategic career move yet (and keep reading to the end to try a free insight session!).
Personally, stillness has been something that has transformed my career and life. I think back to the first lockdown in 2020, when I finally had some extra time and was able to make a career pivot from corporate events to the education charity sector. Or when I was away in my campervan and that stepping away unexpectedly sparked the big insight that I wanted to move abroad (writing this from the sunny city of Valencia!).
Summer stillness can be an incredible launch-pad for the next stage of your career because actually, pausing can be a catalyst for a breakthrough and holidays/downtime can teach us so much, even when we’re not trying.
The reality of our modern working day is that we’re flat out. Back to back meetings, multiple projects and deadlines, leaner teams (which often means we’re doing 3 people’s jobs!) and therefore leaving little physical or mental time for any extra career exploration. It’s why so many people I work with come to me feeling lost and stuck, not knowing what the next career move should be. This ‘busy but lost’ dilemma stems from the fact that we’re already making 35,000 decisions a day. Our brains are full and making any bigger decisions, especially ones to do with our livelihood like a career change can feel just too much. It’s why we often stay stuck, because it feels like there isn’t capacity.
However, in order for us to actually gain insights, clarity and strategy for a career change or big decisions, we need to pause. From a brain perspective, you might not think it, but when we truly rest, our brain is doing some of its smartest work. A network called the Default Mode Network (DMN) is active when you aren’t focussing on a specific task. For example when you are resting or daydreaming. At this time, our brain doesn’t just turn to the ‘off’ position, our DMN is hard at work: creating connections, processing emotions, future-focussing and making meaning. This mode is allowing us to strategically think, be creative and build self-awareness which is crucial for making big career decisions. This explains why my biggest breakthroughs came when I wasn’t even trying, like on that campervan trip where I first felt the pull to move abroad. I wasn’t sitting at my desk planning a five-year strategy, I was in stillness, and my brain joined the dots for me.
So how can you actually use your holiday or downtime to unlock career clarity?
The best thing is to intentionally create some cognitive white space. By that, I mean some time where you are doing no work (ideally totally offline/screen free).
Pre-break:
Do a handwritten brain-dump, capturing how you’re feeling, your energy, stresses, hopes and rate your clarity in terms of your career. If you’ve been feeling stuck in your career, write about it! If you’ve been contemplating a switch but it feels kind of fuzzy right now, capture that feeling!
Why it works: It helps to externalise that mental clutter that’s built up and gives you a before benchmark.
Design your downtime:
Will you be in nature? Screen free? Pursuing a new hobby? Beach sun-bathing?
Why it works: Creating a break in your usual routine fuels insight.
Reflections:
Daily prompts whilst you have your break to build insights. This could be simply asking yourself these 3 questions:
- What sparked my curiosity today?
- What feels fun?
- Which challenges keep mentally poking my attention?
Why it works: We’re not judging here, we’re just noticing what’s going on for us. Because with this awareness comes clarity. Something that helps me is to voicenote myself whilst out on a walk because movement is great for sparking creativity and insights!
So what happens when you return from your break?
It’s easy to slip back into an old routine and get rushed off your feet again with the full inbox and daily commitments. But in order to really use this getaway time as a tool for career-discovery, it’s important to land before jumping back into the day-to-day.
Firstly, have a look back at the pre-break download and compare this to your mid-break prompts.
What do you notice about any shifts?
What are the themes and common words?
Which patterns do you see?
Now that you’ve gathered some insights and information around the patterns or common threads that have reoccurred over the course of your break, it’s time to create a career experiment.
What I mean by that, is thinking about 1 thing that you could do to experiment with some of the insights you’ve had over your break. For example, if you noticed that a passion for sustainability kept surfacing, find an opportunity to volunteer. Perhaps there is a local charity organisation that could use your help or an ESG project at work that you could get involved with. Start experimenting with this insight so you can see whether it’s something you might want to pursue further.
In order for us to actually follow through with these experiments I would say there are two key aspects to it: Setting clear metrics and building accountability. Make sure you explicitly plan when you are going to do it, and when you are going to check-in with it to conduct further reflections. Sharing it with a family member, friend or getting some professional help from a coach can help your commitments become reality.
These quiet moments during summer aren’t designed to be a quick fix. It’s a way to slow down and allow your DMN to do its thing, but most importantly to create sustainable growth within your career. Being busy but lost is not a favourable path to be on and actually giving yourself the gift of this pause can do wonders for your career clarity.
Shifting your mindset:
away from productivity = hours spent at the desk
towards rest = revenue-generating
can be an incredibly powerful switch. It helps you to focus on insights and then leveraging these insights by taking intentional action which is a lot more productive in accelerating your career growth, compared to busy work.
I often use the analogy of a plane taking off when I talk about intentional pauses. Instead of thinking of rest as stalling your future plans, think of it as the pause a plane takes right before takeoff. It’s geared up, in position and takes that rest-stop so that it can accelerate with intention along the runway. This could be the start of a big change for you, but only if you create the space for it to happen.
I invite you now to choose a date for your pause (if you’re not going on holiday, maybe there is a weekend you can block in your calendar).
Pause → Reflect → Realign → Accelerate
So instead of your holiday flashing you by in the blink of an eye and falling back into old patterns straight on your return, use this summer period as your strategy for creating career clarity.
If you’d like some help turning your holiday insights into a clear plan, I’m offering a free 45-minute Strategy Session to the first 3 people who email me. Together, we’ll map out your personalised strategy for resetting, so instead of falling back into old patterns after your break, you’ll return with clarity, confidence, and a career strategy that feels aligned. Drop me a message to claim your spot: caitlin@ripple-impact.com