#318: Why a Successful Career Can Feel Empty and How to Start Your Midlife Career Transition

Have you built a life that looks right on paper, yet quietly wonder why it no longer feels like yours?

That feeling of emptiness sitting on top of everything you worked so hard to earn is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is one of the most important signals you will ever receive in a midlife career and life transition, and it is pointing you toward something that has been inside you all along. In this episode, Kavita walks you through the story of a client who reached the top of a demanding corporate world and still felt nothing, and shares the ikigai process that helped her uncover her real reason for being.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why doing everything right can still leave you feeling empty, and what that quiet emptiness is actually trying to tell you in a midlife transition
• The four circles of ikigai that lead you to your reason for being, and why the version you have seen online with a paycheck at the center may be steering you wrong
• How to spot the strengths, passions, and values you have stopped noticing because they come to you so easily, and how to use them to find your purpose

Press play to uncover the four circles that already live inside you, and take the first real step back toward yourself this week.

If this episode is stirring something in you, book a Clarity and Next Chapter Call with Kavita to map your own four circles, or take the Career & Life Fulfillment Quiz to see where your reason for being is quietly waiting to be uncovered.

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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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You did everything right. So why does it feel so empty? Today, we'll talk about what that emptiness is actually trying to tell you. Welcome to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast, a podcast helping women in career and life transitions achieve clarity on their next steps so they can transform uncertainty into an energizing next chapter. I'm your host, Kavita Ahuja, and the founder of It's My Time Now Coaching. If you're wondering what's next in your career or life, you are in the right place. Through solo and guest episodes, you'll gain practical tips, tools, and inspiration to help you uncover blocks, gain confidence, and be, do, and have what you want. I rediscovered myself after the age of 50, and I know you can too. It's my time now to help you do just that. I'm so excited you're here. Let's dive in. In this episode, you'll discover three things. First, why doing everything right can still leave you feeling empty, and what that emptiness is actually trying to tell you. Second, the four circles that lead you to your reason for being, and why the Ikigai diagram you have seen online, the one with a paycheck in it, may not be the complete picture. And third, why everything you are searching for is already inside you and often hidden in the things that come so easily that you have stopped noticing them. So stay with me to the end because you will learn the very first place to start this week. Hello and welcome back to the Midlife Reinvention podcast. It's your coach, Kabita. If you're new here, welcome to the Midlife Reinvention Podcast Family. Something brought you here to this podcast, and for that I'm so grateful. And if you are a returning listener, thank you. I don't take it lightly that you're here and you chose to spend time with me today. I want to begin today with a feeling, because I think it may be one that you know. It is the feeling of having everything you were supposed to want, the role, the income, the respect of the people around you, and quietly, privately feeling almost nothing. Looking at a life that is right on paper and wondering why it does not feel like yours anymore. I think of one of my clients in particular when I describe that feeling. Her story, which I will keep anonymous for privacy, may resonate deeply with you. She had spent decades climbing in a demanding corporate world, and she had reached the top of it. And she came to me completely burnt out, and she told me that her work had become a means to an end, nothing more, in a culture that had turned quietly toxic. And then she said the thing that told me everything. She had spent all of her time taking care of everyone else, and almost none of it taking care of herself. I want to stop right there because if something in you just went still, you need to hear this. That feeling, the life that looks right and feels empty, is not a sign that you are ungrateful or that something is wrong with you. It is a signal, and it is the most important one that you have. You have heard me say that fine is the most dangerous place to be, more dangerous than misery because misery is loud and demands to be dealt with while fine quietly steals your years. She was not in any pain that anyone could see. She was in the quiet kind, the kind that keeps a brilliant woman exactly where she is for another five years and another five years after that. So here is what we did, and it is what I want for you two. We didn't go searching out in the world for some new purpose to bolt into her life. We looked inward at what was already there. And we did it through a specific process I take my clients through. It's about uncovering the overlap between four circles. And let me walk you through them because using hers as an example may bring more clarity in it for you. The first circle is your strengths, what you are genuinely good at. And the ones that matter most are almost never the one obvious ones that you have put on your resume. They are the ones that come so naturally to you that you've stopped seeing them as anything special. For her, one of these strengths among many was this. She could take something tangled and overwhelming and get to the root of it quickly and simplify it and communicate it clearly so she could help others find their clarity without ever taking over. She had actually never thought of it once as a gift. It is a natural gift, however, or superpower that she possesses. I want you to catch that because the talents that we wave away as, oh, that is nothing, anyone can do it, is so often the very one to build on. What is easy for you may be rare for everybody else. The second circle is your passions, what you love, and this is the one we bury the deepest often under decades of being sensible. For her, among many of her passions, was this one. Underneath the executive was a woman who came alive at a blank page, at sketching, at reimagining a space and making it beautiful, and at design. She had even quietly started a certificate in design to explore this passion even further. And when she spoke about it, her whole energy changed in front of me. And that is the thing I want you to watch for in yourself as well. Notice where the color comes back when you talk. Notice the subject you describe faster or the one that turns the lights on or on after an hour of feeling gray. That is not a hobby, that is a spark of something, and it is still there. The third circle is your values, what matters most to you now. And this is a circle that often changes the most in midlife, which is exactly why it matters so much. What she valued at twenty five was not what she valued now. Before it was earning the degrees and recognitions, climbing the corporate ladder, and getting the accolades because that's how she was raised. And those don't go away entirely, but they are often overshadowed now by other things. Now it's education and giving back and the community she had come from, where she had seen with her own eyes the gap between the chances she got and the chances other children did not. This is not abstract for her. It is personal and earned, and it has been waiting under the surface for years. And the fourth circle is your contribution. The difference that is yours to make in the world. It doesn't have to be grand or someone else's idea of importance, but it has to just be important to you. For her, it was taking her business and her analytical mind, and her design gift, and her heart for education, and bringing them back to the kind of small community she grew up in. To build something there. To make her mark in a completely different way than she had been, not through title, but through impact. And when we landed on this overlap, it was like the sparks flew, and she knew deep in her heart that she had to do this. It wasn't even a question. Now we are working on how to bring this spark and light it into the world. So to reiterate, the four circles we worked on, very methodically, in fact, are these your strengths, your passions, your values, and your contribution. Now, here is where I need to show you something because you may have noticed that these four circles are not quite the ones you may have seen. You have almost certainly come across the Ikigai diagram online. Four circles. And the one difference here is that what you can be paid for circle has been replaced by your values. And here's why. That version, the one with a paycheck at the bottom, is not the original. It was assembled in the West not very long ago. The authentic idea, the one I have come to understand far more deeply when I interviewed Francis Morales, who wrote the international bestseller on Ikigai, was never about what you can be paid for. It was never a job finding chart. So in the way I teach it, we take that paycheck out of the center and put your values in its place. And hear me clearly because this is where women get the wrong idea. This is not about making less money. It is about money no longer being the gatekeeper that decides in advance what is allowed to matter to you. When you stop letting the paycheck lead, you make room for abundance in all its forms fulfillment, creativity, connection, and yes, money too, often more of it, because there is nothing more profitable than a woman doing the work she was made for. Your Iki guide does not ask you to choose between meaning and money. It is a thing that finally lets you have both. And I want you to see what the old gatekeeper has quietly cost you because this is personal. Every time something stirs in you, a love, a buried passion, a tug towards something that mattered, you measured it against that paycheck circle. And when you couldn't see how it would pay, you let it go. That is what keeps so many gifted women exactly where they are. Not a lack of purpose. A definition of purpose that disqualified theirs because it couldn't even breathe. So let me stop there and ask you how this all feels for you. Does this resonate with you? If so, I want you to pause this episode right now because before the feeling fades, open the show notes and book a clarity and next chapter call with me. Not next week. Now while you can still feel it, because a feeling is a thing that makes you act, and it fades faster than you think. In that call you will see your own four circles, the ones you have been ignoring, and the very step back towards yourself, whether or not we even work together or we ever work together. The link is right there for you, and so am I. Now let me tell you how it ended for her because it is the most memorable part. As we worked together, something surfaced, a memory from when she was a child. She remembered almost with wonder as it arrived, that as a child she used to build entire towns, little communities she designed and arranged on the floor. She had been designing worlds since before she could even name it. And there it was the businesswoman, the designer, the values around community, the heart for education. Four circles she thought belonged to four different people, all meeting in a little girl building worlds. And here is a point that I most want you to take because it is true for you two. She did not invent any of it. We uncovered it. Every one of those circles was already inside her, some of it waiting since childhood, and the things that came so naturally she had stopped counting them. And there is a signal that will lead you to your own, the same one that led her. Pay attention to the moments when time disappears, when you are so immersed in something you are good at and love that you look up and hours have passed, and you feel more alive than when you began. That feeling is called anabolic energy, the energy of expansion, and it is your own life quietly showing you where you should pay attention to now. And notice for her this was never about walking away from money. It was about no longer letting money decide. She is going back to school now, in her fifties, to study design for real, building towards work so aligned that it can genuinely provide for her and feed her at the same time. And that is what I've seen again and again. When you live from your reason for being, the abundance comes, and it comes in every form, the fulfillment, the creativity, the connection, and the income too. Often greater than before, because aligned work is powerful work. This is but one example of how powerful this process can be. It is not an invention of something outside of you, it is a reclamation of everything inside of you. So, let me leave you with the three things I most want you to carry. First, that empty feeling on top of a successful life is not a weakness, it is a signal, and fine is a most dangerous place to stay. Second, your reason for being is not a paycheck, and it is not out in the world somewhere waiting to be found. It lives where four circles meet. Your strengths, your passions, your values, and your contribution. And third, every one of those circles is already inside you. Sometimes since childhood. And the very things that come so easily you have stopped seeing them. So here is the now. This week, look for your own versions of those little towns on the floor. The things that you loved and are good at long before anyone asked you to be practical. Write them down, and that is a thread, pull on it. And if you paused earlier and booked that call, I can't wait to meet you. And if not, the link is waiting in the show notes whenever you are ready. So remember, my friend, you get to decide what comes next. So say it with me, and say it with confidence. It's my time now.