615: From “Biggest Mistake of My Life” to the “Best Fit of My Life”

Kate Gleason Bachman 00:00

I was quite disillusioned very quickly, and felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life by becoming a nurse, even though this is something I had worked for. You know, it took me years to do the prerequisite courses and get prepared.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:14

We're taught that meaningful careers come from following your passion, but what happens when that path leads to a dead end? When your entire identity is wrapped up in your profession, admitting it's not working feels like erasing a part of who you are. I've noticed something that almost nobody talks about when it comes to a career change or a job change. Your job doesn't have to be all bad to not be right for you. The most powerful career breakthroughs often happen when you go from a career that has many positives into something that is a far, far better fit. But to do that, you have to have the courage to declare exactly what you want, even when it seems impossible. By the way, another misconception, sometimes the perfect career isn't about finding everything in one place, but instead it's creating the perfect combination for the life that you want to build.

Kate Gleason Bachman 01:08

I think what really drew me into the role of the nurse was the advocacy role. You know, that has always been something that's important to me. In doing the career change process, I was able to actually really hone in on that being kind of a core value of mine is to be an advocate.

Scott Anthony Barlow 01:22

That's Kate Gleason Bachman. What's fascinating about Kate's story is that she made a significant change early in her career and decided to go back to school for nursing. But after a short time working as a nurse, she realized it just wasn't everything she had imagined. In fact, she felt a little bit duped because she couldn't care for patients the way that she thought she would be able to. So after hopping from organization to organization to find the right fit, she decided something had to give. Maybe it was time to make another career change. Maybe it was time to go after what she really wanted, even if that meant leaving nursing. I want to walk you through Kate's surprising journey of what actually fits her for her career. See, early on, Kate had identified a core value that guided her– social justice. This call to make a difference very much guided her initial career choices, and eventually led her to nursing as a way to advocate for others. And I think this happens to a lot of us. We start out with a value or a passion that feels right, and we follow it into a career or a job that seems to align.

Kate Gleason Bachman 02:29

In high school, I always had an interest in social justice issues, and I think from a young, young age, I knew that was going to drive the work that I did in some way. So I used to volunteer. I used to ride my bike to the next town over and then take the city bus to go. I'm from upstate New York, into Albany to volunteer at the Social Justice Center, which, you know, had all these different things going on. And I just knew that was kind of a world that I wanted to be a part of. So I ended up, you know, I went to college, and my first job out of college was working in public health research, and so I kind of found my way to, you know, public health as a way to, kind of work on social justice issues. And my first career change happened shortly after that, when I realized I worked there doing research, and then I actually worked for a training and technical assistance organization, not unlike the one that I work for now, actually, but at the time, I was really feeling like I wanted to be kind of closer to service delivery. So I was doing, you know, training and technical assistance and research, and I saw through visiting programs and health centers the work that nurses were doing and advocacy. And I was like, "Oh, I want to do that. I want to be a nurse."

Scott Anthony Barlow 03:52

Here's what I find happens with so many people. They have this vision or idea of what their career or occupation or company is going to be like, and they get into it pretty quickly without testing it out. And then the reality comes crashing down. When Kate enters nursing, she quickly discovers that healthcare in America was far different from what she had imagined. And I've seen the same pattern over and over again with many people, the reality gap between the expectation and the daily work can be absolutely crushing.

Kate Gleason Bachman 04:25

So now, looking back, I think it's a little more clear. At that time, you know, I became a nurse, I did a second degree program that just took a year, and so all of a sudden I was a nurse, and I started working in the hospital, and I, quite frankly, was really shocked by the state of healthcare in the United States. It was not what I anticipated. You know, I had kind of seen nursing as this model of care that, you know, took someone's global health into account, and, you know, their home situation and their mental health, and all the pieces that make up wellness for people kind of who we are. And I thought I would be able to apply that, and then I got into a hospital setting, and, you know, everyone wants to apply that, and it's so difficult and so fast paced, and the pressure is so immense around insurance and reimbursement and getting people in and out the door, and you can't, especially as a new nurse, put those things into practice, it's really challenging. And so I was quite disillusioned very quickly and felt like I had made the biggest mistake of my life by becoming a nurse, even though this is something I had worked for. You know, it took me years to do the prerequisite courses and get prepared to go back to do this second degree program. So I had been working towards it for quite some time, and then I got into nursing and was like, "Whoa, this is not what I thought it was going to be." It was really shocking.

Scott Anthony Barlow 05:54

If you've been around Happen To Your Career for a while, you know that we recommend testing career experiments to make sure that you're putting in a little bit of work and to fully understand what you're getting yourself into. And I've linked up a few of those episodes and a couple other resources in the description so that you can check it out if you want to learn further about career experimentation and avoid this type of trap. But you know what I've also noticed, when high achievers invest heavily in a career path, whether it's time, money, identity, they often feel absolutely trapped when it doesn't work out. And this is exactly what happened to Kate. You might have heard this called the sunk cost fallacy by psychologists or even economists. And that past work keeps us in jobs that just aren't right for us, and the longer we stay, the harder it becomes to leave.

Kate Gleason Bachman 06:51

I mean, I felt devastated and trapped, quite frankly. That first job was really difficult. I stayed there for almost two years, just kind of getting my feet under me as a new nurse. And, you know, learning a lot, and, you know, growing in many ways, but also really being challenged. And I think one of the lessons that I learned in the career change process was to really look at what those takeaways were from each of the, you know, many people have had many jobs, and he was so useful for me to look back and think about like, "What did I take away from this job?" As difficult as it was, that made me grow as a person, that changed how I thought about myself and my work. You know, what are the things that I kind of carried with me? And I realized I picked things up all along the way of this journey that really made a difference in the end. So I learned a lot about working with people about healthcare in the United States, about, you know, being a nurse, just the basics of care that you kind of learn on your feet after being in school. So I kind of stayed as long as I could, and then I moved to do home care Nnrsing, briefly, home care hospice nursing, which I loved, but had a lot of challenges as well, in terms of the patient caseload and the amount of travel that had to that was part of it. And so finally, kind of pivoted to find myself back in the nonprofit sphere, actually, at the same nonprofit agency that I had worked at for my very first job doing public health research in Philadelphia. And so I found myself, I had, you know, through the years of kind of being in nursing school, and leading up to that, I had done work with people experiencing homelessness, and I found this job as a nurse in the city shelter system, and that was where I kind of started to feel like, "Okay, I'm finding my place as a nurse. This, I think, is where I can really do the advocacy and the education piece that I want." And so that kind of started this cycle of being in this, the nonprofit world as a nurse, which I ultimately decided, well, I'm still in, in some ways, but in a different way. You know, I decided to make a shift, but not for many years.

Scott Anthony Barlow 09:05

Okay. Like Kate, when people go to make a shift, often the first attempt at career change is misguided. Why? Because often we try to make it when we don't yet have the tools, we don't have the perspective, we don't have the framework to make a truly meaningful shift. We're still using old ways of thinking to try to solve a new problem, and Kate's first attempt shows exactly this. She was still using the same thinking that got her stuck in the first place. This is a human tendency that most of us will do without even realizing it.

Kate Gleason Bachman 09:36

I worked in the shelter system for three years, and then as part of that same agency, then in a health center that worked pretty exclusively with people experiencing homelessness that's in Philadelphia. And I was feeling burnt out. That's kind of how I would describe what was going on for me. I was feeling like there was just... my work was coming home with me. There was so much going on. It was very, very chaotic. And I have a strong drive to solve problems, so an interest of mine. And so I really liked that aspect of it, but it was the volume of problems was so great. It was overwhelming to me. It was like a mismatch with my kind of need for balance in my life and the needs of the workplace, which were huge. And so that was when I actually first kind of saw myself as trying to make a career change within nursing, and that was back in 2016. So I had been a nurse since 2007 and so I had already been a nurse for quite a while, and I had decided that I really needed to make a shift, and I attempted a career change on my own, and it didn't go as I thought it would. So I made a change to still being a nurse, but working for a hospital system, I was hoping to have kind of more organization around my role, and just to be working in a little bit of a less chaotic environment. I think that's what I was wanting. And I was kind of trying to pivot to do something different. And what I found was that it was just not engaging to me at all. It felt very corporate, which is not my style.

Scott Anthony Barlow 11:23

I want to highlight one of Kate's most powerful insights here– your job, your career, doesn't have to be completely terrible to not be the right fit. This is such an important lesson. And we tend to think, "Well, my situation is not completely horrible. There's actually a lot of great things here. Is it just me? And we tend to go through that emotional turmoil. But you don't need a horrible situation to justify making a change that even great jobs with good elements can still be wrong for you.

Kate Gleason Bachman 11:58

And I just felt like I kind of felt trapped there, too, to be honest. You know, I felt like I wasn't doing the advocacy that I wanted, and I was kind of stuck in, you know, I had swung very far from a quite chaotic environment to an environment in which I felt like I had no flexibility to kind of meet the patient needs in the way that I wanted to. And so that was almost more frustrating than the situation I had been in.

Scott Anthony Barlow 12:25

Yeah, I could definitely see that really infringing upon that strong value of advocacy for you.

Kate Gleason Bachman 12:31

Yes, it was a challenge. I felt like I felt my hands were kind of tied in terms of doing what I wanted to do for the patients. So I didn't. I actually stayed at that job for less than a year, and then went back into a very similar role as a nurse in a different nonprofit in the city, which is the job that I was in when I sought your help. So, and that job was great in many ways, too, you know. There are so many things about it that were wonderful and it was still not a good fit, you know. And I think in terms of thinking about the kind of lessons learned from this process, another thing that really stuck out to me as I was reflecting on the past year since beginning this process is, you know, something doesn't have to be all bad in order for it to not be the right thing for you. And you know that I think was partly what was keeping me in those positions. There were a lot of things I loved about them, and it was not a great fit for my skill set and kind of the balance that I needed in my life. But I kept trying to do that because there were things that I was getting out of it, of course. And you know, it was fulfilling, and I felt like I was making a difference, and I had patience that I loved, and a great team, you know, all these things were wonderful about it, and it was still not a good fit. So that was a difficult and important lesson.

Scott Anthony Barlow 13:59

As you can imagine, this conflicted pretty heavily with Kate's strong value of advocacy. I mentioned the identity obstacle earlier in the episode. We see career changers run into this repeatedly, and we don't think it's going to be that difficult, but it's especially true for professionals who have invested significant time or significant energy into their career path. For Kate, the struggle wasn't just about changing jobs, it was about who she thought she was. I found that without external perspective, this kind of identity conflict can keep people stuck for years or even decades or further than their entire life.

Kate Gleason Bachman 14:37

I think especially when you're, kind of, you're in your own situation, you know, it's difficult to kind of see yourself in an objective way. It's very difficult. And so I think what I was looking for was that kind of external view of someone to be able to analyze and understand what was happening, who wasn't me, who wasn't in the middle of it. And kind of hearing you talk a little bit about that challenge that people have with moving away from something that has some good components, I think for me, it was even more difficult because my identity was so enmeshed with being a nurse. You know, nursing had not been an easy journey for me. I had to work hard to find my place in nursing, and so much of my identity was caught up in being a nurse. You know, I'm a nurse. I help people. This is a passion of mine, and I really care about it. And so to even consider that that wasn't the right thing for me after having, you know, it's like a sunk cost fallacy, where I have done this for so many years, and how do I walk away from it. And my identity is so part of this. And so that made it even more difficult, and that was also why I felt like, you know, I need another person who's able to really look at all the pieces of this and help me kind of figure out what it all means. Because in the end, you know, what my coach, Alistair, really helped me to do, you know, the pieces of it were all there. It was a matter of putting it together, you know, like, your puzzle thing, and thinking about, "How do I think about this in a way that I can understand it and then make a change from it that, you know, is a change that will work for me?"

Scott Anthony Barlow 16:33

Here's another common misconception about meaningful work, or about career change to something that actually fits. People feel like that breakthrough moment is going to happen when you've stumbled upon this brand new career that you've never considered before. But the reality is that true breakthroughs almost always happen when you dig in, you get crystal clear about what matters to you, and then you go and test it out. So for Kate, creating what we call an Ideal Career Profile was a very pivotal moment, and this is a tool that we use with all our clients to help articulate what they truly want, rather than what they think they should want. And I've seen this process transform people's entire approach to their careers. It gives them a decision filter to operate from.

Kate Gleason Bachman 17:20

The thing that really launched the change process was the Ideal Career Profile and developing that. And, you know, I worked with my coach on that for so long, it was really difficult for me to get it going. You know, I was doing, you know, there are multiple exercises and ways to kind of approach it and think about it that you provide. And I was doing all of those things, and I felt like I was hitting a wall, and I was really, really struggling to create something that felt right to me. And so a piece of it was, you know, looking at my strengths, and that was illuminating and very helpful. And I just was having the hardest time, kind of, creating something cohesive. And I think in the end, when I finally got there, that was a launching point for everything. And within that process was the realization that I was able to come through with my coach, that I actually did not want to be a nurse. You know, I did not want to. I still am a nurse, but you can see I still have my identity. But I did not want to be a frontline healthcare worker every single day, and that was very hard to accept. And at first I was saying to my coach, "You know, this is important to me. You know, my identity as a nurse is important to me." And so he was reflecting that back to me, and that kept feeling wrong to me, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. And finally, through this process of talking it out, I remember he said to me, like, "It sounds like you don't actually want to be doing this type of nursing work." And it took me a little while to sit with it, but once I was able to incorporate that and realize that was actually true, my Ideal Career Profile came together. Like that, I had a piece in there that was not meant to be in there that I was reluctant to let go of. And so once I was able to, I just had the best time writing that thing. You know, once I got there, I just remember spending so much time on it, and it was feeling, you know, I was truly in a flow state. Things were coming out, I knew what I wanted.

Scott Anthony Barlow 19:45

Sometimes, life forces our hands in ways that we don't expect. I've seen this happen with many of our clients over the years, where you have a dramatic event, it becomes the catalyst that finally pushes them to make the change that they've been contemplating. Now for Kate, a workplace tragedy accelerated her decision to leave her job. While these events are painful, they often create the clarity and urgency needed to finally take action.

Kate Gleason Bachman 20:11

So, you know, to give some background information, I, you know, I had started thinking about, you know, I knew I wanted to make a career change. There were a number of reasons I wanted to do it, and I was kind of on this journey. And, you know, I won't go deep into all the things that were happening at the organization where I was, but there were some safety concerns. And at that organization, we had an act of violence, an active shooter event in which a colleague was killed. So it's pretty much the most horrible and dramatic thing that can happen in any workplace. And you know, I'm sure, unfortunately, you know, other people have had similar experiences, the violence in the workplace, and I just know the impact it's had on me. And so I just, you know, I just want to say to those folks, you know, it stays with you. And that's, you know, one of the things that I think I have learned, and I'll, you know, talk a little bit more about kind of how that altered my trajectory in this path. But, you know, that was a huge loss, and, you know, a loss of human life, but it also made me... It accelerated my career change process in a lot of ways. And looking back on it and thinking about that loss and the other things that I lost in leaving that job in a faster way than I anticipated that I would, is that part of the change process, I think, is loss.

Scott Anthony Barlow 21:47

Here's a simple truth. What stops most people from being able to live the life that they actually want is giving themselves permission to articulate what they truly want. There's something powerful about having the courage to declare your desires, even when they seem impossible. For Kate, this man asking for a combination of what seemed outlandish, but as it turns out, articulating the direction she wanted to go was the first step to making it happen.

Kate Gleason Bachman 22:13

I think the final lesson that I'll say, and I've talked about it a little bit, but for me, the thing that I learned was just, even if it feels kind of audacious and out there is to really kind of say what it is that you want and that can be, for me, it was very difficult. It felt like I was asking for so much, and I hesitated to even say it. And finally, you know, in my example, my ideal thing was to find a job where I could work four days a week, and I could have one day to volunteer or work as a nurse in my community. And that just felt crazy. Like, how am I going to find this job? You know, how is this going to happen? And it felt outlandish, even saying that. I mean, outlandish, just saying I'm going to run an ultra marathon, in some ways, but I put it out there, and I really think that allowed me, it kind of opened my eyes to see opportunities in a different way. And what ended up happening is a former colleague of mine, who had started working for the company that I now work for, emailed me and just said, "Hey, we're having trouble filling this position, you know. Do you know anyone who would be a good fit?" And it was my job. Just looked at it and said, "This is for me. I'm not going to share this with anyone. This, you know, I'm going to apply to this job." And I think I had mentioned, you know, where I work now is also a training and technical assistance organization, very similar to where I had worked before. And I think had I not done the work that I did, I wouldn't have seen that as the opportunity that it was. But it was amazing that it came across through my email inbox and it was four days a week. And the reason was, you know, so that I, as a clinician, could have a clinical practice one day a week in my community. And so it has happened. You know, I said this thing that felt so outlandish, like, who is going to give me a job for four days a week so I can work as a nurse one day? And I now do. So I, you know, I started the job with four days a week. And actually, only very recently, in the past couple months did I find the right fit for that fifth day. And I'm working in my local Health Care for the Homeless Health Center, which is amazing. Yeah, it just felt like the most wild thing to wish for. But it happened.

Scott Anthony Barlow 24:48

Career fulfillment doesn't have to come from a single source, and this is one of the most liberating realizations that a person can have. For Kate, discovering she could separate her different needs, having her intellectual work and her nursing practice in different places, this was the breakthrough that allowed her to create the perfect combination for her.

Kate Gleason Bachman 25:09

Yeah, it's amazing. I really am loving what I'm doing now, and it's been great. And you know, in hearing you say that, the other thing it makes me think of that I think I learned through the process, is you don't have to meet all your needs in one place. And that was a lesson I learned from the Happen To Your Career, your career process. And that, I think, was also what allowed me to kind of put that goal out there. You know, I wasn't going to find a job that had all of the kind of intellectual pursuits and writing and research and synthesis of information and being a nurse, you know, in the same place. And by being able to separate those, I was able to make it happen. And so that kind of idea of, you know, you don't get everything from one place necessarily, was kind of freeing to me to say, like, "Okay, I don't have to find something that has every single thing on this checklist. You know, the perfect job could be a component of this, and it could still be the best fit for my life."

Scott Anthony Barlow 26:12

Meaningful career change, it's not about leaving everything behind. Sometimes it's about reconfiguring your professional life to honor all the parts of who you are. Now, just to recap, here's what I love about what Kate did. When she had the courage to declare exactly what she wanted, which is not easy, in fact, it seemed impossible at the time, she created a unique path that perfectly supports her values, her strengths and her lifestyle needs. So remember, if you're gonna make a change in your life, whether it's a job change, career change, whatever, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It never has to be. Usually there's a lot of room in between all or nothing. By separating her identity from her career and recognizing that she could use her nursing skills in a new way, Kate created something far better than what would have been possible through that conventional thinking. I don't want you to settle for what's expected. You can intentionally design a work life that truly fits who you are. If you're at the point where you're ready to make your own career change and find a career that fits you, we'd love to help. Just drop me an email, Scott@happentoyourcareer.com put 'Conversation' in the subject line, and I'll connect you with the right person on our team. They'll be able to have a conversation with you and understand the very best ways that we can support you in your situation. That's Scott@happentoyourcareer.com. And if you're absolutely loving these tips, these strategies, these stories, take a moment right now, hit the subscribe or follow button, and that way, every time we release an episode, you're going to get notified.

Scott Anthony Barlow 27:45

All right, here's what's coming up on the very next episode of Happen To Your Career.

Speaker 3 27:50

So that's when I started feeling that my soul was being crushed, and there was no more room for growth for me there. And that's where I felt... And it becomes the guilt part because I had a good job, I had a healthy environment, I was not in a toxic relationship at work, I had the flexibility, which was my top, my number one priority, and so I knew I had the job that allowed me to do the things that were important to me. So why was I so unhappy? I could not point it out.