Reinventing Yourself, Not the Wheel
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This weekend, I made an Instagram poll on @therapywithmo and it ended in a perfect tie. Half of you wanted to talk about work and career. The other half wanted to talk about relationships and healing. At first, I was a little suprised but then I thought about it more and I don't think that's really a coincidence.
At first glance, they seem like completely different topics. But if you've been following Undoing Toxic for a while, you know I believe they're more connected than we realize.
When Your Life No Longer Fits
Whether we're talking about a career, a relationship, or our own healing, we are often asking the same questions:
What happens when the life I've built no longer feels like it fits?
What would it cost me to stay in a place where I am no longer aligned?
When that happens, our instinct is to think we need to start over. We begin scrolling job boards. We think about going back to school. We wonder if we should move, quit, pivot, or completely reinvent ourselves. We tell ourselves that the answer must be a new path.
But what if the first step isn't reinventing your life?
What if it's reinventing your understanding of yourself?
Before you rewrite your résumé, rewrite your perspective.
Take Inventory Before You Take Action
Before you make your next career move, engage in radical self-reflection:
Why did I choose this field in the first place?
Was it passion? Financial security? Family expectations? Stability? Prestige? Survival?
What mattered to me when I started, and has that changed?
What season of life was I in then? What season am I in now?
Those answers matter because our motivations evolve as we do.
The career decision you made at twenty-two may have been exactly what you needed then. Maybe you were focused on paying bills, securing benefits, building experience, or simply proving to yourself that you could make it. That doesn't make those decisions wrong.
It also doesn't mean they have to define you forever.
One of the toxic beliefs many of us carry is that changing direction means we made a mistake.
It doesn't.
It often means you've grown.
Job versus Career
Another important question to ask yourself is whether you're looking for a job or building a career.
A job pays today's bills. A career is something you intentionally shape over time.
Neither is inherently better than the other. Sometimes a job is exactly what you need in a particular season of life. There are seasons when stability takes priority over ambition, and there's wisdom in recognizing that. But if you're feeling stuck, it may be because you're evaluating a career with the mindset of someone simply trying to survive the next paycheck.
Our careers don't exist in a vacuum, either. They evolve alongside the rest of our lives.
Burnout or a Calling to Move On?
Before making any major career decision, I want you to ask yourself another important question:
Am I burned out, or am I truly ready for a new career?
Burnout has a way of convincing us that the only solution is to get out.
Out of the job.
Out of the organization.
Out of the profession.
Out of everything we've worked so hard to build.
When we're emotionally exhausted, every difficult day feels like evidence that we've chosen the wrong path. We begin fantasizing about quitting, starting over, or doing something completely different. Sometimes that's the right answer.
But not always.
Burnout clouds our judgment because exhaustion changes our perspective. When you're running on empty, it's difficult to distinguish between a career that no longer aligns with you and an environment that is simply no longer sustainable.
Ask yourself:
Do I want out of this profession, or do I want out of this particular workplace?
Those are two very different questions.
Maybe you still love the work, but you're overwhelmed by unrealistic productivity expectations, poor leadership, a toxic culture, chronic understaffing, or a lack of support. Maybe it's not the career you've outgrown—it's the environment.
Some common signs of burnout include feeling emotionally depleted before the workday even begins, becoming increasingly cynical or detached from work you once enjoyed, struggling to concentrate, feeling ineffective despite working harder than ever, dreading Monday long before the weekend ends, or noticing that your patience and compassion are running low.
Burnout doesn't always look like lying in bed unable to move.
Sometimes it looks like showing up every day while quietly feeling disconnected from yourself.
Before making a permanent decision based on temporary exhaustion, ask yourself what recovery might look like.
Would taking PTO actually allow you to rest?
Would stronger boundaries around work hours help?
Would supervision, consultation, or mentorship provide support?
Would delegating more, saying no more often, or using your vacation days change how you're feeling?
Would transferring departments, changing organizations, or exploring a different population within your field allow you to reconnect with the work you once loved?
Sometimes burnout requires more than a long weekend. It requires a different relationship with work.
Don't Mistake Urgency for Clarity
Recovery doesn't always mean leaving your profession.
Sometimes it means creating enough space to remember why you entered it in the first place.
The goal isn't simply to escape discomfort.
The goal is to understand where the discomfort is coming from so your next decision is intentional rather than reactive.
When we're unhappy, it's natural to want relief as quickly as possible. We convince ourselves that if we can just get out, everything will be better.
But there's an old saying that comes to mind: Don't jump from the frying pan into the oven.
In our haste to leave an unhealthy situation, we sometimes overlook the questions we should be asking about what's next. We focus so much on escaping our current environment that we fail to evaluate whether the next opportunity truly aligns with our goals, values, and lifestyle.
Let Go of the Myth of the Perfect Career
I've seen people leave one toxic workplace only to find themselves in another with a different set of problems. Others chase a higher salary only to discover they've sacrificed flexibility, meaningful work, supportive leadership, or time with their families. Sometimes the title improves while the quality of life declines.
It's easy to believe the grass is greener somewhere else.
The truth is, every garden requires tending.
Every workplace has challenges.
Every profession has frustrations.
Every leader has strengths and blind spots.
The question isn't whether you'll find a job without problems. The question is whether you're choosing a place where the challenges are ones you're willing and able to navigate because they align with the life you're trying to build.
This is why I encourage people to slow down before making a major career move.
Research the organization.
Talk to current and former employees.
Ask thoughtful questions during the interview—not just about salary and benefits, but about leadership, professional development, turnover, mentorship, flexibility, and organizational culture.
An interview should never be one-sided.
You're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you.
Career decisions deserve curiosity, not urgency.
Sometimes the wisest move isn't making the fastest exit.
It's making the most informed one.
Our career decisions are rarely just about work; they are about the life we're trying to create.
For many women, career decisions often include questions that extend far beyond salary or title. Flexibility, childcare, caregiving responsibilities, family planning, emotional labor, commute times, and work-life integration all become part of the equation. A role that looks like a promotion on paper may not actually support the life someone wants to build.
Many men, too, face pressures that often go unspoken. Cultural expectations around being a provider, financial responsibility, supporting aging parents, maintaining a certain standard of success, or feeling that their worth is measured by their work can heavily influence career choices. External obligations have a way of narrowing what feels possible, even when someone is longing for something different.
One of my professors in graduate school said something that has stayed with me for years:
"Even if you live to be 150, you'll never work a day in your life doing something you absolutely love."
At first, I hated hearing that.
Isn't the goal to love what you do?
Over time, I realized the lesson wasn't about settling. It was about letting go of perfection.
No career is fulfilling every single day. Every profession has paperwork, difficult conversations, administrative tasks, setbacks, politics, rejection, and moments of doubt. Loving your work doesn't mean loving every aspect of your work.
The goal isn't to find the perfect career. The goal is to build a career that aligns with your values often enough that the difficult days still feel worth it.
Mentorship Changes Everything
When people tell me they're thinking about changing careers, one of my first questions isn't, "What do you want to do?"
It's, "Who is already doing it?" Who is doing what you envision yourself doing in a few months/years?
Find them.
Reach out.
Send the LinkedIn message.
Attend the conference.
Go to the networking event.
Join the professional association.
Ask someone if you can buy them a cup of coffee.
Most people enjoy talking about the path that brought them to where they are. You'll learn things in one conversation that you could spend weeks trying to figure out on your own.
Ask what surprised them.
Ask what they wish they had known.
Ask what skills matter most.
Ask what they would do differently if they were starting today.
Ask what the job actually looks like—not just what it looks like on paper.
Sometimes we're chasing an idea of a career instead of understanding the reality of it.
Immersion versus Observation
During my gap year after undergrad, before I applied to graduate school, I intentionally sought out experiences that would help me answer those questions. I interned. I volunteered. I paid attention. I wanted to understand not just the profession, but the people doing the work every day. And then I said, I love this, how can I do this as my career? I wanted to talk to people, but not just talk, help in a meaningful way. My first internship was doing intake interview assessments. I was then encouraged to research Master of Social Work programs. Those experiences shaped my decision far more than reading job descriptions ever could. And the rest is history.
I also believe in shadowing whenever possible. Observation has its place, but immersion changes you.
There's something powerful about spending time in an environment, watching how professionals navigate challenges, listening to conversations, seeing the pace, the culture, and the emotional demands of the work. You begin to understand what no brochure or website can fully capture. We often learn more by participating than by simply watching.
Reinvention doesn't always require a dramatic leap.
Sometimes it begins with one conversation.
One volunteer opportunity.
One conference.
One mentor.
One difficult question you finally ask yourself honestly.
Hills and Valleys of Every Career
If no one else has, let me be very direct and honest with you: Your career will have hills and valleys. Good and bad days, good and bad seasons. Some that feel like they will go on forever. There will be seasons of rapid growth and seasons that feel painfully still. There will be promotions, disappointments, unexpected detours, and opportunities you never saw coming. Plateaus aren't always signs that you've stopped growing. Sometimes they're invitations to pause, reassess, and prepare for your next climb.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you feel uncertain.
Sometimes you simply need to reconnect with your values, expand your perspective, and remember that the person making today's career decisions is not the same person who made them ten years ago.
Growth gives you permission to choose differently.
Not because your past choices were wrong.
But because you've become someone new.
Healing teaches us that changing our environment isn't the same as changing our patterns. If we don't understand what we're trying to leave, or what we are moving toward, we risk recreating the same dissatisfaction in a different place.
Reflection Question- If you took inventory of your career today, what would you discover? Are your current decisions being driven by your present values, or by goals, expectations, and fears that no longer belong to the person you've become?
Thank you for reading.
Let’s connect. Email me: moniqueevanstherapy@gmail.com
Accepting individual, couples, and family clients (self-pay and select insurance via headway.co- Monique Evans, LCSW)
For social work clinicians, I also offer clinical consultation meetings (Not to be confused with clinical supervision for licensure hours) at any level of practice.
Book me as your mental health presenter for speaking engagements, podcasts, panels, and presentations.
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