Of all the things I could be writing here, what I should be writing more of is words on the process of shifting careers.

I’m practically overflowing with experience in that lately. *sigh*

It’s funny, actually. I am sitting here in the sun of a cafe patio sipping my morning coffee and staring blankly at a keyboard. I was trying to prompt myself into writing something meaningful because the last twenty four hours has been something of a crest of yet another existential crisis dealing with parenting transitions and a funeral and a hundred other little quirks of reality. I was trying to write something meaningful because it feels like a day for meaningful things. Instead, I was reading through my old writings.

Twenty-three months ago I quit my government job. About once a month now I seriously look at that decision and wonder if it was the right one—then quickly remind myself to read back through my letters to myself or catch a glimpse of the beurocratic trenches that burned me out and remember that quitting was the good decision. The tough decision. But the right decision.

Existential crisis stand by.

My old writings are in themselves grounding. If you ever decide to shift careers, or just quit a toxic career and look for a better reality I have only one piece of advice: journal the fuck out of that thing.

A month. A year. A decade. However long it takes to shift. Just write and write and write. Keep track of the ups and downs. Plot the moments. Grasp the emotional state of each moment and put it into words.

And then… go back and read it on occasion.

Two years feels like forever and simultaneously feels like a blink of the eyes. That sounds incredibly cliche, but cliches are cliches for a reason, right?

My journey over the last two years has been one of a hundred different mental states, from sinking into the depths of desperate projects to flying on the wings of new prospects. I don’t need to inventory here everything that I have dabbled in this past stretch of time, hobbies and habits, meditation and milage, part time work and unpaid pondering, and heck knows that if you told me that I’d be writing something like these words and staring down the metaphorical gate leading into year three of this process I may have reconsidered the whole damn thing, but then that’s why the words have been so important. That’s where the writing has grounded the ride.

Want some tips? Here are five starting points for reflective journalling:

1. Write yourself a letter describing your day. Date it. Be blunt. Why do you feel the way you feel right now, what’s driving you up the walls, how are you coping and how does it make you want to react?

2. Write your backstory. Pick a logical point in time and explain like you were writing a memoir how you got from that point to now. Maybe you explain the course of your education. Maybe you lay out the path of your employment history. Maybe you detail the people and conversations that led you here. I dunno. But you do.

3. Layout the events of the week. Do it narrative style. You are allowed to be the main character for a few minutes. Like, look back on the last seven days and explain how you spent them, the highs and lows, the blahs, the conversations that made your day or had you tugging your hair out by the roots.

4. Explain where you think you are going. No one really knows for sure. We’re all making this shit up as we go, to be honest. But unless you’re sitting perfectly still you’re heading in some direction and you must have a destination. What do you expect to find there.

5. Admit a misconception. None of us are perfect. We make assumptions and misunderstand things all the time. Own up to yourself in your journal. Write what you got wrong, why you thought one way when it was actually another, and call out the moment.

Existential crisis be damned.