#314: How to Work With the Inner Critic That Keeps You Stuck in a Career or Life Transition

Have you been waiting for a dramatic sign before you let yourself admit something needs to change?

For most women, the moment that begins a career transition does not arrive as a crisis. It builds quietly, over months or years, in the form of a question you cannot stop turning over, a Monday morning that feels heavier than it should, or a quiet dissatisfaction you keep explaining away as tiredness. This episode continues Kavita's My Story series and picks up in the morning everything cracked open, the gremlins that kept her stuck for two more years, and the real turning point that came later, the one almost no one talks about.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why the moment that begins a career and life transition is usually quiet, and how to recognize your own version of it before it grows too loud to ignore
• What your inner critics are actually trying to do for you in a midlife transition, and how to work with them instead of waiting for them to go silent
• Why the people closest to you may understand your transition the least, and what that means for the choice in front of you

Press play to hear the story of the turning point that changes everything, and to find the honest question waiting for you this week.

Have a question about your own trigger moment, your gremlins, or anything else rising in you during this season? Ask Me Anything. Send it to me for a future episode: Kavita@itsmytimenowcoaching.com

If you want to understand where you are right now and where you'd like to be heading next, take the Career & Life Fulfillment Quiz, or book a complimentary Clarity and Next Chapter Call with Kavita to talk through what comes next for you.

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This podcast explores career and life transitions, helping women find clarity, confidence, and purpose through Ikigai and self-discovery. We cover navigating change, overcoming self-doubt and limiting beliefs, finding your purpose-driven career, and building the courage to start your next chapter - whether you're facing a career transition, life transition, or midlife reinvention.

Transcript

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Part of you already knows something has to change. Today, we give that knowing a voice. In this episode you'll discover three things. First, why the moment that changes everything rarely arrives as a crisis, and how to recognize it in your own life before it grows too loud to ignore. Second, what your gremlins, those inner critics that keep you stuck, are actually trying to do for you, and how to work with them instead of waiting for them to go quiet. And third, why the people closest to you may be the very ones who understand your transition the very least. And what that means for the choice in front of you. Stay with me to the end because a real turning point in a transition is quieter than you could expect. And it is one you get to make for yourself. Welcome back to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast. It's your coach, Kabita. If you're new to this podcast, I welcome you to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast family. Something attracted to you here, and for that I am grateful and hope that my insights will inspire you on your journey. If you are my loyal listener, I thank you so much and want you to know that I don't take it lightly that you're here. If you've been miss with me these past few weeks, you know that we are in the middle of a series that I've been calling my story, where I've been sharing the journey of my transitions that carried me from a 25-year career to the work I get to do with you now, all after the age of 50. If you'd like to go back to the beginning, you can start with episode 308 for the start of my story and to see how it may relate to your own. For today, I want to take you back to that Monday morning, the one I left you with last time. The morning I crawled back under the covers and hit the snooze button five times before I finally got out of bed. For me, that was a moment it cracked open. That was a morning I had to face the reality of my situation. Because here's the thing. My career was great. It was great in my twenties, in my thirties, even into my forties. Every experience I had in my pharmaceutical career, every person I met, every relationship I built, all of it was part of who I became. It was not wrong, and it was not a failure. There was nothing about that career I would point to and blame. It was an internal voice, a voice that kept telling me something was missing. And you may know this voice too. That quiet dissatisfaction you cannot quite put your finger on, the one that starts to creep into your mornings and your meetings and the long drive home until it touches everything. Mine hadn't been building for at least two or three years before that Monday morning. So slowly that I kept explaining it away as tiredness or stress or a hard week. And this is the part I want you to hear, because you may be waiting for a dramatic sign, perhaps a layoff or some loud remission to admit you are unhappy, but it does not come that way often. Sometimes the trigger is quiet. A full year before I decided to leave, we were on a beach in Barbados, the four of us, my husband and I and my two sons, and my sons turned to me and asked, Mom, if you could do anything in the world that you wanted to do, what would that be? It was such a caring thing to ask, and I think they asked it because they could see what I had not yet said out loud, that I was unhappy. And the truth is I did not have an answer then. I realized that then that the life I had was fine, but it was not calling on everything that I was good at, everything I loved, everything I valued. Maybe for you it was not a beach in Barbados. Maybe it was a question from a friend you could not stop turning over, or a quiet drive home with the radio off, or a birthday that landed heavier than it should have. Whenever it was, that was not nothing. That was the beginning. So why did I stay? Why did I stay for two more years even after my own children could see I was unhappy? The honest answer is my gremlins. I had so many inner critics, and I'm certain some of them are sitting with you right now too, my friend. Mine told me I did not know how to do anything else. That I was not qualified for anything else. Who was I to start over? I was too old. What was I even going to do? I was going to fail, and I was not good enough. I was not strong enough, and what would people think? Those voices kept me stuck. They kept me afraid and they kept me so frozen that I did not move. I kept doing what was comfortable, what paid me well, and basically I did it with my eyes closed. A listener wrote to me and asked me, As you move through your transition, what were your gremlins, and how did you work with them? Here is what I learned. I did not get free of my gremlins by making them disappear, because they never disappear. Mine are still here today. What changed is what I did with them. I learned to turn toward them and ask, Why are you here? And the answer was always the same. They were there to keep me safe. So I thanked them, and I told them the truth that I did not need that protection anymore. And neither do you. If there is something you truly want in your heart, you don't need that protection. The energy underneath that fear is not your enemy, it is fuel, and you can let it carry you forward instead of holding you back. And that is exactly what I did. Not because the gremlins went quiet, but in spite of the fact that they did not. So I made a decision. I decided to leave the comfort of a career I had been in for 25 years, at the top of my field, with the recognition, the salary, everything a person is supposed to want. And I did not want it anymore. A listener asked me how the people in my life reacted and whether it changed my relationships. And the answer is absolutely yes. I remember the day I went in to tell them at my work that I was leaving, and I remember crying right there in the meeting, because a woman I was telling was a very good friend of mine. Leaving felt like relief in some ways, and in the same breath it felt like sadness or grief. And I will not pretend that it was easy because it was certainly not. Over those years I had built real relationships, especially with my physician friends, or my physician clients, people whose trust I had earned slowly, and year after year, and that was what I knew I would miss the most. When we make these transitions, it is rarely all excitement. It is bittersweet, and we have to weigh the comfort of what we know against the pull of something new. And on that day, even through the tears, the pull was stronger. And here is what surprised me. The people I expected to take it the hardest, my clients and my colleagues, were very gracious. They respected the decision because they knew I had not made it lightly. The doubt came from somewhere I did not expect. Some of my dearest friends asked why I would rock the boat when I had everything. My parents, who had built their whole lives living around stability, were against it. And that hurt because those were the ones I thought would understand the most. What I came to see is that people who had lived through a transition of their own were the ones who did understand me. So if you're bracing yourself, waiting for the people you love the most to give you their blessing before you move, hear me gently, my friend. They may not, and that does not mean you're wrong. It means you learn to trust the voice inside of you the way I finally did. If you have listened to me before, you know I talk about transitions having three phases the trigger, the in-between, and the action. After I left, I was in the in-between phase, and it was an uncomfortable in a way I had not expected. There was no more awards to chase, no calendar full of meetings telling me where I was supposed to go. It is a phase where you lie awake at night asking, have I done the right thing or have I made a terrible mistake? Those were my gremlins again. But underneath them, quieter and steadier, I knew I had not. And then came a morning I will never forget. It was another Monday morning, the same day that had once broken me open. Only this time I walked into a new little office, a little home office that I had set up for myself, and sat down at a new computer I had bought, and thought now what? Where do I even begin? It could have gone either way truthfully. I could have closed that laptop and told myself I could not do this, or I could take one single step forward. And here is the turning point. The quiet one I promised you. It was not the day I decided to leave. It was a day sitting at that desk that I felt that a part of me had been lost, and the truth is it had. But instead of mourning that part of me, I chose to celebrate it. That was a turning point. Not the leaving. The celebrate. And one day when you're sitting at your own version of that desk, that same choice will be waiting for you. And then I took the first step. And what follows next is what led me to where I am today. And we will delve into that next time. So before we close, let me leave you with these three things that I want you to carry with you. First, the moment your life begins to change rarely arrives as a crisis. It can build quietly over years, so notice your own version of that Monday morning instead of waiting for something dramatic to give you the permission. Second, your gremlins are not going anywhere, and they were never meant to. The work is not to silence them. It is to ask what they are protecting you from, and then deciding whether you still need that protection. And third, the people closest to you may not understand your transition. And that does not mean that you're wrong. It means learning to trust the voice inside of you over the voices around you. So here is what I want you to do this week. Ask yourself, what is my version of that Monday morning? What is the feeling I keep hitting this snooze button on? You don't have to leap today. You only have to be honest with yourself about what you already know. And this series is being shaped by you. If something is rising in you about your journey or the chapter that you're sitting in, or anything else, ask me anything. Send me an email at cavita at it'smytimenowcoaching.com, and I'm answering listener questions all through the series, and yours could be next. If you want to understand where you are right now and what you where you'd like to be moving forward, take my career and life fulfillment quiz with a link in the show notes. And if you're ready to move forward and really talk about what comes next for you, I'm offering a complimentary clarity and next chapter call with me. The links are also in the show notes. I will pick this story up soon because I have not told you yet where that first step led, how it became a conference, then a microphone, and then the work I was born to do. And how somewhere and all of it I found my Ikikai, or my reason for being. But for today, I want to leave you exactly where I once stood, at that threshold, with the laptop open and the whole world in front of me. Remember, my friend, you can do the same. You get to decide what comes next. So say it with me and say it with confidence. It's my time now.