Continuously Unraveling and Rebuilding

As I shared last week, I get the question of “What made you leave academia?” often. But the shift in conversation comes with the next part (which I think is usually the real question): “How did you know what you wanted to do next?”

And here’s what I always want to say first:

I didn’t have it all figured out.
I didn’t even call it “leaving” or a pivot at the time. (Afterwards, I joked I put myself into early self-retirement.)
I just stopped pretending it was fine.
At first, because my body made me.

My pivot wasn’t one moment. It was a continuous unraveling and rebuilding.

Given this series of questions has been increasing lately, I want to share some of what I’ve learned about leaving, staying, and transforming over the last decade.

Again, I didn’t leave all at once. It was a multi-year journey. For a while, I stayed. I adjusted. I tried to make it work. For a while, it did.

But under the surface? Unraveling and rebuilding, continuously.

By the time I pivoted out of academia, I was at the pinnacle of the career I had dreamt about since college. I had a respected, stable job in academia. Probably the last of a generation to have those. I held a leadership role that I wanted. A good salary. Impactful work with graduate students. I was rocking it as a single parent in a new town down the road, but a world apart.

All to say, the thing that got me to (finally) leave higher education, the final straw, was on the other end of what kicked it off.

On my kiddo’s third birthday, I herniated my C6/C7 while sprinting through my neighborhood trying to outrun stress. I had been over-caring, over-working, over-functioning for everyone.

And I broke.
Literally.

I used to warn grad students, ‘Don’t be 2016 Me,’ as I flashed my X-ray scan up. I didn’t quit. I didn’t even take FMLA then. I didn’t have a Plan B.

What I did have were the smallest seeds of my truth:

This isn’t sustainable.
This isn’t how I want to live.
And there has to be another way.

But I didn’t know what it was or would look like. Because, like many of you reading this, I couldn’t leave. Not financially. Not emotionally. Not logistically. The paycheck mattered. So did my work. So did my identity. And on top of all that, I didn’t want to leave. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else at first. 

But I had needs for healing, and my soul had longings. So I followed what made me feel more alive. And in the process, I began to unravel and rebuild from the inside out. That trickled into everything built into a cascading waterfall of transformation. 

It didn’t happen overnight.
It didn’t come with a business plan.
It didn’t feel certain or clean.

But it felt true, like in my body true.

That’s what I want to tell you if you’re sitting in the in-between.

You don’t have to quit your job tomorrow.
You don’t have to know what’s next.
You just have to stop pretending that staying the same is the only option.

And then… begin. Here are some reflection prompts for you:

• What quiet truth is knocking right now that you’ve been avoiding?

• Where are you holding back because you think you need to “figure it all out” first?

• What might happen if you let the first next step be something small—and healing?

If you're sitting in the space between knowing and acting, I get it. I’ve walked that road. And I walk with others through it too. Let's chat if you'd like some support.

P.S. The Career Pivot Toolkit—a free resource I released last week—is another place to start.