3 Things That Helped me Quit my Unhappy Career and Find My Purpose

Throughout my solicitor training back in 2011, I never felt I fitted in. I felt like a sparkly, messy thing trying to mould myself into a black and white box. It was like I was wearing someone else’s skirt suit and it was only a matter of time before they figured out, I had been a mistake hire. I was more energised by possibility and creativity than trying to colour inside the lines and play by the rules. I remember a senior partner saying to me the worst part of the job was the clients. In my head I thought, that’s the only part that gives me any joy or purpose.

I knew my Plan A was not working but I didn’t know what Plan B was. Unhelpfully, my exit plan solely consisted of going out after work, in the hope that someone at the bar or a networking event would ‘find’ me and tell me what I should really be doing with my life. Despite my external achievements, low self-worth kept me looking outside myself for answers. I had no idea about going within and listening to my intuition, thinking about what I actually liked doing, not what I was told would make me ‘successful’.

It turned life had a plan for me but I was making it damn hard for it to show me the way because if I wasn’t socialising, I was working, travelling or finding things to shit on myself about. However, between 2013 and 2014, I got fired, got hired, ran my car off the road and lost my Dad. I start to suspect that these ‘signs from the Universe’ might not be such a far-fetched concept! The regret of letting another year go by without change was stronger than the fear (and my mother’s scaremongering!) of making a mistake. In some less glamourous and more drunken version of Eat, Pray, Love, I quit my job and set off on a round-the-world trip around the world. I was 29.

Lesson 1: When facing a scary decision, weigh up whether the cost of NOT changing outweighs the very convincing stories fear will tell us to keep us from making a move. I call this the Regret v Fear Analysis.

I started my trip in South America. I genuinely thought I would have a Eureka moment as to my purpose on the top of a mountain. So I did a lot of mountain-climbing! However, I also did a lot of partying and was constantly on the move trying to get as much seen as possible! At the end of 5 months including a trip to New Zealand, I hadn’t had been ‘enlightened’ as to my Plan B! I needed to buy time. I got a job in Australia! After unsuccessful attempts to find work in corporate jobs to learn how to ‘do business’, I found myself doing traffic control in construction – the person holding the ‘Stop/Go’ bat! After a couple of months, I negotiated my way off the road and into the office working in project management. I wasn’t sure if I had lost my mind. I am sure my mom did as she mourned her solicitor daughter and where she thought my life was heading! I had no idea what I was doing in construction but I knew I was loving it. I felt like I had been flat-lining in my life and I had been high-voltage shocked back to seeing that there is so much possibility out there and that anything is possible. It wasn’t just an affirmation in your fancy friend’s bathroom. It was true!

Lesson 2: The ‘inner work’ requires slowing down, reflecting and learning to listen to your intuition i.e. the thing that makes you know something without knowing how you know it. It may suggest something that doesn’t appear the most logical so don’t be afraid to take the first step, even if you don’t know where it will lead to. The road will appear while walking.

I spent 3.5 years in Australia before returning to Dublin to work in people and change consulting in late 2019. I slowly began to surrender to the truth that life is a journey and not a destination. It took time to unlearn my safety-seeking habit of achievement, trying to run before I could walk. I felt I needed to be the best yesterday and put enormous pressure on myself to learn, get promoted etc. thinking that everything would be better wherever it was I was trying to get to. This didn’t end well, and I found myself working with a therapist, various healers and coaches which started me on my healing journey. I came back to the corporate world in Ireland with great ambitions to show everyone it was okay to be themselves.  You could have fun, challenge the status quo and show up with passion, vulnerability and still be professional. Or so I thought. I started to see this was a club with low membership and a recipe for loneliness and limited promotion opportunities. When I found myself starting to ‘fit in’ and conforming, I knew it was time to hire a new support team.

Lesson 3: Hire a coach! Working with a coach provides a space to take time out to figure out what YOU really desire. They will help you play out the worst-case scenarios of taking action and the limiting beliefs that are holding you back. A coach will partner with you on your plan for change and remind you that you are stronger than you think, in the moments of doubt!

I have a spiritual and business coach as well as a mindset coach who collectively helped me to take the leap into self-employment.  I now do work aligned to my values that has integrity and impact and really makes me feel like YES – this is what I am here to do! While I still have my insecurities, my coaches help me work through these because my life will hopefully be long and I want to spend it happy, healthy and at peace!