Stuck or Stalled? The Time is Right to Rethink Your Journey

Are you a strong woman who looks at a challenge straight in the eye and gives it a wink? Maybe you are but today you are stalled or stuck, frustrated with your job, or tired of the life you have been leading. Isn’t it time for you to step back and ask yourself Why? Why am I here? What has been the path I have been on for a short or a long time and is it the one I want to be on for the rest of my life?

For many of the women I coach, the pandemic has enabled them to ask themselves these simple questions, as if the crisis opened them up to what they could be.

Is this you too? If so, ask yourself these 4 important questions:

• Who are you?
• What’s your story?
• Where are you going?
• How can you become the best that you can be?

A New Program Just For You!?

I have created a new online program,?Rethink Your Journey with Andi Simon, ?to help you answer these very questions. The program emerged after I wrote my book, “Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business ,”?and the executive coaching I was doing made me deeply aware of the frustrations so many women seem to be facing today. While these clients had good jobs, they were asking for more — more purpose, more giving back, more time for things that really mattered to them.

To help them, and you, find a next phase of your life that answers these questions, I created an online program with input and perspective from many different women who have been through the same experiences.

Of course, you need to be curious about the answers yourself and actually want to see your life through a fresh lens.

Maybe you aren’t sure where to go for the answers. You may be thinking about the problem but still just thinking a lot. You might be having trouble sleeping at night, tossing and turning with worry or agitation. To help you sort through where you are now and where to go next, here are some ideas to think about before you dive into a program of change.

I have created a series of blogs so you can begin to think about these questions quietly and deliberately. Then you can sign up for the online course and start your own Rethink Journey as you think forward into the next phase of your life. It is an important phase and one you can own and manage on your own. You can?take charge of you?and?take care of you?at the same time.

Think About You for a Moment?

Some recurring questions people ask me as I begin my coaching with them often go like this:

• What’s missing in my life today?
• I know there’s more to life than what I have now.
• I am successful but don’t like what I am doing. Or I wish I was successful but don’t know how to move past my job today to get to the one I want for tomorrow.
• I have plateaued in my career and the glass ceiling is just not opening up for me.
• I look around and wonder what others seem to have that brings them a better sense of happiness and well-being.
• I am happy now, but the future seems blurry, and I want a better pathway to get to tomorrow.

You may have your own questions. At?SAMC ?we conducted research among women to see what they were thinking about. We asked them if they had thought about changing something in their lives today. Sixty five percent said, “a great deal” or “a lot.” The areas of particular concern for them were their career, their job, their business and their health.

Time to Build a Better You?

Are you ready?to change something important in your life? Do you think you deserve to have more purpose and passion?

Perhaps a little perspective could help you Rethink your own story!

I have been doing a great deal of personal coaching to help women, in particular, course-correct to find a better next phase in their personal and professional lives. Some of their stories are important to share so you can see how you are not alone. Role models, even for changing your own life, are important.

Marion Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund once said, “If you cannot see it, you cannot be it.” You too need to see what another woman was dealing with and how a change process helped her open a new pathway forward. It could be just what you are looking for as well.

Let’s take Stephanie, for example. (I have changed her name to protect her privacy.) She is a very accomplished professional woman with multiple degrees, a partnership in a firm, and three lovely grown children she has raised by herself. Sounds like a great place to be for a woman. The only problem is, she has tired of the job she does, wants to find a new life for herself, and isn’t sure where to start or how to move in a fresh direction. She knows what she knows, but doesn’t know how to create something that seems so different and unfamiliar. She was referred to me for some help.

As we went through my Rethink Your Journey program together, Stephanie began to do three important things:

1. Understand her story today through self-awakening.
2. Appreciate those areas she really valued, and those she didn’t want to continue doing.
3. Visualize how she would like that next phase of her life to be so it wasn’t just more of the same, but really much “better.” Her definition of better became the driver of change.

What came out of our time together and the Rethink process were some important “aha” moments.

Some of the most important things she loved to do, from taking walks with her dog to a day at a spa, were always pushed to the bottom of her to-do list. Things she really did not like to do dominated her daily activities and made her finish each day angry. What she wanted to do in the future was to leave her present job and the firm and create her own consulting business to help particular types of clients, particularly older business owners who were looking to set up their businesses for succession or an exit strategy.

Once Stephanie opened her mind to what mattered to her, she began to hear things emerge that would allow her to create this next phase in her life. As it happened, a colleague was setting up an elder-law firm and asked her to join it when she retired. Then a friend asked her to go to a spa, and off she went to enjoy some time for herself.

Change happened for Stephanie because she was willing to step back and really look at what mattered to her, what she wanted her life to look like, and what she was ready to let go of. It can happen for you too!

Could a Rethink Your Journey be Right for You?

Every one of us has a story about ourselves. We don’t often reflect on it, but it is driving us forward every day. If it is a story you love and that brings you joy, then keep it. If it is something that is not working well for you today, then let’s see how you would like to change it.

Want to learn more? Details here: Rethink Your Journey With Andi Simon . Let’s see if the time is right for you to rethink your own life’s journey so you can become the best that you can be.