I’m a walking, talking example of how essential a great-fitting career is to happiness!

I was always really good at school - and I worked really hard at it. 

I grew up in a small city in Kentucky, and all I wanted was to get out of there. And to me, that meant I needed to do well in school and be able to go into a good (i.e., well paying) career field. 

So I did all the “smart kid” things that I was told you were supposed to do to be successful.  I was valedictorian, graduated summa cum laude from undergrad, and did tons of extracurriculars along the way.  I finally wound up in a top-15 law school and graduated with credentials that looked great in the legal world - I was on law review, graduated cum laude, and landed a prestigious clerkship with a federal appellate judge when I graduated. 

Success!!  

Or…not.

You know what all that work at school prepared me for?  To be great at school.

You know what it didn’t prepare me for? Knowing what kind of work would energize me on a daily basis, instead of slowly draining the life out of me one lonely day after the next sitting with just the law and a computer all day (and sometimes all night). 

Oh yeah, and I ended up with 6-figures of debt from the fancy law school learning that. 

I started off at a great law firm in Washington, DC, filled with smart, nice people, doing work for some of the biggest companies in the world, and generally having really good hours for a law firm!  It seemed like all of my colleagues were soooooo happy there.

But me? It was like pulling teeth to get through every project - even though I was getting great reviews on my work. 

And let me tell you that having my plans canceled so I could stay up late into the night for a last minute client “emergency” was not how I wanted to be spending my life. 

I was crying at home one day when it hit me that THIS ISN’T OK.

Work shouldn’t make you cry.  Work shouldn’t make you miserable.

Work should be a GOOD part of your life.

I finally started diving into figuring out why I wasn’t thriving.  I started learning about strengths, aptitudes, and career fit - and how mismatched mine were with what I was doing each day.

It was really reassuring to get some insight on why I wasn’t happy. 

It turns out I was really good at the analytical and problem solving skills that you need to practice law… but among other things, I needed a lot more variety, a lot more collaboration, and a lot more work with people!

Oh, and I wanted a very different lifestyle. Sure I had good hours for a law firm… but there are a lot of nights and weekends involved in being a lawyer. And you pretty regularly find out about those nights and weekends at the last minute.  

So I had more clarity.

But I still didn’t know what kind of work would make me happy.

And, I was still massively in debt with my law school loans and felt trapped into making a law firm salary. So I stayed.  And I kept working on paying off those loans.

After a few years, I moved on to work for a Global Fortune 500 tech company. I actually really tried to vet the job with what I’d learned to make sure it would be a better fit for me. And it was better.  

But that turned out to be its own problem.

I still had great co-workers, I got to travel internationally, and I was working on national and international policy issues. And (woo!) I had regular hours.  But despite my vetting, a lot of what I was doing was the same as at the law firm. I eventually started finding myself uninterested, unmotivated and trying to muscle my way through.

It was just enough better that sure, I wasn’t happy… but I was comfortably unhappy. 

Those golden handcuffs?  They’re a real thing.

And I was so happy with the schedule that for quite a while, that was enough for me. So I ignored my disinterest and boredom. I ignored it when I started to feel drained again.  I just kept pushing on.

Wasn’t that what it meant to be responsible?  Wasn’t that what it meant to be an adult?

Shouldn’t I just be grateful to have a good job? 

But being unhappy at work had a huge impact on my entire life.

It detracted from my energy, creativity, optimism and focus. It limited what I felt up to doing in my free time - despite having the schedule I had wanted. I wasn’t having enough fun, seeing enough friends, going on enough dates… you know, not enough living.

That all made it so much harder to figure out what a good solution would be. 

I finally picked back up trying to figure out if there might be some kind of work that I might actually enjoy. I kept learning.  I read career books, talked to amazing counselors, read articles, took assessments and online quizzes.

And you know what else I learned?  That learning wasn’t enough to make a change.

Eventually, I knew it was time to make a change.

I finally decided to try talking with a career coach.  And ultimately decided to work with her.

I had spent more than a decade trying to figure things out on my own.  Without success.

But once I started working with a coach:

• Within a couple weeks, I was feeling clear on my deepest motivators and how being an attorney wasn’t hitting them.

• Within 3 months, I was feeling really confident that coaching was a really good fit for me and had started coaching my friends.

• Within 6 months, I was taking major steps to build my skills so I could do this coaching thing for real -- and was actually enjoying working for the first time in my life.

A few amazing programs down the road, I’m now a Certified Professional Career Coach -- and loving every second of it!  

Today, I get to spend my days helping amazing, intelligent professionals create work lives they can thrive in — and that also help them have awesome lives.

I meet incredible people who want to do great work, be engaged and happy in their careers, and build lives they love. Who are thrilled to discover the (scientifically proven!) principle that happier people are more successful! And who are willing to do the work to make that happen for them.

It’s the best job in the world.