4 June, 2026
Episode 324: What If the Career You’ve Been Chasing Is No Longer the One You Actually Want?
In this episode
🎙️ Episode Overview
Are you showing up every day to a career you worked incredibly hard to build, yet something quietly feels off?
Are you a mid-career woman who has ticked every box on the success checklist, only to find yourself wondering whether this is really it?
Have you been carrying a definition of success that your younger self set, but haven’t stopped to ask whether it still fits who you are today?
In this episode, Janine opens with a surprisingly moving story about dropping her son off for his first school trip abroad. He ran off to join his friends without a backward glance, and in that moment she realised how much had shifted without her fully noticing. It became a powerful mirror for what so many mid-career women experience: we change, quietly and gradually, but we rarely give ourselves permission to let our careers change with us.
Yet so many mid-career women never give themselves permission to move into what comes next. We keep showing up to a version of our careers that no longer fits, waiting for the fulfilment to return rather than recognising that the season has already shifted.
Summary
✨ What You’ll Learn in This Episode
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Ambition doesn’t disappear, it matures. For mid-career women, ambition often becomes more specific, more personal, and more aligned with who you actually are now rather than who you were told to be. If your career feels hollow despite your success, it is not a sign that you have failed. It is a sign that you have grown beyond the version of yourself who set those original goals.
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The high achiever’s trap. Your discipline and commitment are genuine strengths, but they can quietly become a cage. When you are someone who always follows through, it becomes hard to pause and ask whether the thing you committed to still deserves your commitment. Staying on a path out of habit is not ambition; it is rigidity dressed up as strength. This is the exact moment to separate direction from discipline.
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You do not have to burn it all down. Evolving your ambition is not about walking away from everything you have built or starting from zero. It is about recognising that a new season calls for a different way of showing up. The most fulfilled mid-career women are not those who abandoned their careers, but those who leveraged their years of expertise to move in a direction that fits who they are now, whether that is a lateral move, a portfolio career, or simply a long-overdue recommitment to a path they actually want to be on.
Ready to build your portfolio career?
Join the waitlist for the Portfolio Career Academy launching at the end of June! I will be sharing exclusive details about the program, how it works, and opening up our founding member cohort to those on the waitlist first.
Invest in Yourself and Your Career:
- Community — Join our Network for mid-career women redesigning what’s next in their careers
- Coaching — Join the Waitlist for The Portfolio Career Academy. Turn Your Expertise Into Multiple Streams of Income & Impact Through Building A Portfolio Career. Join The Waitlist
Episode notes
As an award-winning certified executive and career coach, TEDx speaker, podcast host and former lawyer, I have seen way too many female professionals under selling themselves and settling for less in their careers. I am committed to equipping high achieving women with the tools and support to create careers that are both meaningful and impactful.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review. It helps the show reach more ambitious professionals who need this message.
🌿 Monthly Pause & Plan Sessions
I also host a complimentary Pause & Plan session once a month for professionals and leaders who want to step away from the noise and plan with intention. Join our next session.
🔗 Get in Touch
Want to connect and share your thoughts on the episode? Send an email to podcast@careerchangemakers.com
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