My Career Change - What I Will Probably Never Really Understand

 "Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. confirmed Friday that it's laying off some of its newsroom staff, part of a cost-cutting effort to lower expenses as its revenue crumbles amid a downturn in ad sales and customer subscriptions." - Bloomberg, August 12, 2022.

This reduction-in-force which puts journalists on the street means this: Some of them will retrain for other niches in writing. And those in those niches, where I had been, will experience yet another hit of competition. Shifts like this have made the career path of writing increasingly difficult to navigate.

However, career change is not easy. Also, for many of us it's a slow process we don't completely understand.

In the book "Tarot for Change," Jessica Dore captures the essence of change this way:

" ... change often begins with precontemplation, which is before you know that change needs to be made, and moves from there to contemplation, preparation, action, and ultimately maintenance ..."

In mid 2020 all I know was that I didn't want to retire. Nothing was floating around in my consciousness that I wanted to phase out of writing. For more than four decades I had been doing that for a living.

So, I uprooted from the east where the cost of doing business was escalating and came to the more affordable southwest. Perhaps in my subsconscious were signals about the mysticism embedded even in the soil of that area.

I rewinding that tape I now pick up that I was selectively picking up feedback. For example, when the chairperson of Paul Weiss law firm Brad Karp complimented my writing what I focused on was the part of it about the depth of my thinking. Somehow I started drifting to thinking about thinking. I was deriving more satisfaction from that than writing.

No surprise given that the regional ethos is an embrace of mystical force fields I took a workshop on Tarot reading. Soon enough The New York Times was going to salute that as a tool for self-awareness and introspection. Earlier, as a sideline, I had done paid assignments as a psychic. Something was beginning.

How that something moves along can be nutty. Practicing law is an evidence-based profession. Psychic services aren't. Yet, I would share now and then with Karp, who leads an elite New York City law firm, my experiences learning the Tarot. The fact that he didn't balk might have encouraged me to continue on the off-ramp from writing.

And here I am. Essentially I am 90% out of writing. Money is real and it has to be factored in. So far, on an hourly basis I am earning more as an Tarot reader with a specialization in intuitive career coaching (I had been doing some coaching since 2008 when writing started to be glutted.) The satisfaction is off the charts: The suffering human beings who are my clients get relief from the pain. There is, of course, the energy unleashed by a fresh start.

How I got here - how anyone puts together a career change - I will never be able to understand. In America what we do hardens into our identity. Sure some labled the "quiet quitters" are raging against that reality. But I don't give that much of a future in the memes associated with work. I was a writer. Now I am not a writer. 

Putting on and "maintaining" the new identity has been stressful. The fit isn't there yet. Only recently I overhauled the LinkedIn profile from writer to intuitive coach.

So, I reflect on others who might attempt that kind of professional disruption. It's so open-ended and scary,

It interested me, for instance, that in an Insider article Karp - yes, that prominent leader who briefly would swing by my chaotic force field of change - noted that he might not renew his chairmanship contract in May 2023. At age 63, he's way too young to retire. Obviously, that means exploring another professional identity. Or, several. Once you make one major change, other pivots seem less unthinkable.

First there is the Ah-Ha Moment: I have to change. But where we get the strength to change will likely always be a mystery to me. 

Your just-right professional fit. You can bypass the usual pain points. Yes, Tarot readings available, including spreads and one-card pulls. Complimentary consultation for coaching, job-search materials, and interviewing. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com or text 203-468-8579.