Yesterday I had lunch with a woman who, last year, walked away from a 25‑year corporate career – just a few years shy of the golden pension so many of us hang on for. She realized she didn’t have any gas left in the tank. She knew she needed to leave.

Part of what pushed her, she said, was watching her elderly father – a man who had worked hard his entire life – slip into dementia these last years. A lifetime of discipline, responsibility, and sacrifice, and now he can’t remember the stories he’s lived. It crystallized something in her: she didn’t want to endure the last few years of her career waiting for permission to begin living.

We were there to talk about freelance copywriting services, but somehow, we got beautifully sidetracked into the deeper questions of life. I wondered if maybe this was part of their soul contract. That, on some level beyond this lifetime, her father agreed to let his story end this way so that her own soul could be shaken awake. So that she would finally see her gifts, her desires, her life, with a clarity she’d been postponing for years.

Once she did see it, it took some time, but she acted. In her 50s, she sold her home, downsized her entire life, and used the money to go back to school so she could train for a second career that will allow her to build a business she’s genuinely passionate about. She’s a single woman, making this leap without a safety net of partnership or shared income, and I just find that so brave.

And I recognized the terrain she was describing. I’ve been through that kind of reinvention myself. Mine looked slightly different – it looked like telling the truth, to myself and others, about who I was and watching, almost in slow motion, as the picture on the tarot card of The Tower came to life around me. I came out, and in that moment, the life I’d built collapsed in a single, shuddering exhale.

So, when she talked about choosing herself, I understood with a white-hot intensity, what it takes to step out of a life you should want and into the life your soul is calling you toward. That’s the thing about our souls. They’re relentless possibilitarians. They don’t care how inconvenient it is, or how much upheaval it causes, or how terrified you are of disappointing or hurting people. They don’t concern themselves with your suffering – only with your becoming.

But it struck me, again, how deeply women are conditioned to ignore that call. We are handed down so many commandments about work and worth. Be grateful. Be loyal. Be selfless. Be tireless. Don’t miss a moment of your kids’ lives, but don’t fall behind either. Don’t make anyone uncomfortable. Your needs come last. Don’t let them see you struggle; make it look effortless. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t start over. Climb the ladder, but don’t want too much for yourself. Stay the course. Don’t outgrow the life that’s paying the bills.

I’ve worked for more than 35 years – more than 20 of them inside the architecture of the corporate and government world. The calendars. The deadlines. The performance reviews. The hiring and firing. The endless meetings. An entire universe that begins and ends inside a boardroom or a council chamber. It’s a whole ecosystem with its own gravity, its own mythology about what matters and who you’re supposed to be.

And the truth is, I’ve done extraordinary things inside those structures. I’ve had the privilege of doing some of the most meaningful work of my life. Work that’s made things easier for other people – that has opened doors, changed systems, created pathways, or made someone’s day, or someone’s future, a little better. I’ve helped build things that will outlast me, and I’ve had the honour of serving in ways that feel purposeful and real.

But even meaning can’t always answer the question of what now? So, when the biggest project of my career came to an end two years ago, I suddenly found myself standing on the other side of it in an unexpected stillness – that physical and emotional altitude drop that happens after several years that have taken every ounce of your intellect and stamina and heart. For the first time in my work life, I didn’t know what the next big thing was. I just knew that I’d never not had a next big thing.

But as someone whose career has been a bit of an unconventional path, I decided to do something unconventional even for me – to just be uncomfortable about it all for a while. I didn’t rush to fill the space. I didn’t force clarity. I just sat in the not-knowing for several months. And an incredible thing happened.

My work‑life balance returned in a way I hadn’t experienced in years – maybe decades. And with the pressure dialed down, something in me began to unclench. My creativity came rushing back. I started writing more prolifically – a novel, poetry, breadcrumbs of sentences that will someday be something. I began making and selling art. Ideas bloomed in every direction.

It was as if all the parts of me that had been waiting patiently on the sidelines of my big corporate life finally stepped forward and said, Ahh, there you are.

Eventually, I worked with a career counsellor to understand more about what actually lights me up. And I realized something that startled me with its clarity: my next big thing wasn’t likely to be career‑related at all. It isn’t another title or project or ladder rung. It’s something more interior, but still uncertain.

And once I finally made space for the possibility of just staying open to the uncertainty of it, the universe started doing what it always does – it began conspiring to get me where I want to go. It takes courage to stay open like that, to resist the instinct to slam the door shut the moment uncertainty walks in. I’m still working on it. But, I feel the change happening – in tiny tectonic shifts. And I get the message.

It’s the universe whispering: Pay attention. This way….

You don’t have to stay in the life you built when you were a different version of yourself. You’re allowed to want something else. You’re allowed to imagine something else. You’re allowed to become someone else.

Reinvention isn’t about tossing your life aside; it’s about realizing there are other ways to think about it, reshape it, or inhabit it differently. There are simple pivots – small openings that lead to bigger ones. There are versions of change that don’t require burning everything down – only the courage to stay open to what’s trying to find you.

Other lives are possible.

You are your next big thing.