Reclaiming Career Purpose in a Transitional Season
Monique Farmer, APR, is the founder of Avant Solutions, a PR and communications consultancy that helps nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and small businesses elevate their messaging and build stronger connections with their audiences. She created Anvil Ready, an online communication strategy builder that aids the communication professional in creating communication plans.
There comes a point in a woman’s career when everything may still look polished from the outside. When her title still sounds impressive. The résumé still tells a powerful story. The calendar is still full. Her LinkedIn profile still looks like success.
But somewhere deep inside, a quiet voice begins to whisper, “This no longer fits.”
Maybe that whisper showed up after a promotion that should have felt like a celebration. Maybe it came after a layoff, a business pivot, a health scare or a caregiving season. Maybe it came in one of those still, honest moments when you realize the work you once prayed for now feels too small for the woman you have become.
Let me say this plainly: that moment is information, not a failure.
For many women in mid-career and later-career seasons, purpose is no longer about proving they belong. They’ve already done that. They’ve earned the degrees, led the teams, solved the problems, carried the load, stayed late, showed up early and made hard things look easy.
The deeper question becomes, “Does this work still belong to me?”
Research on meaningful work confirms what many women already know in their bones: purpose is tied to well-being. A 2023 longitudinal study found that meaningful work predicted later mental well-being, especially for women and white-collar workers. Let’s be clear, the issue isn’t a lack of ambition. McKinsey has found that seven in ten women still want a promotion, the same as men.
So, no, women aren’t losing their drive. Many are simply becoming more honest about alignment.
The shift: From achievement to alignment
Early in a career, ambition often asks, “How far can I go?” That question has its place. It helps us stretch and build. It helps us discover what we’re capable of.
But in a transitional season, ambition matures. It stops chasing every shiny opportunity and starts asking deeper, wiser questions:
What do I value now?
What kind of work gives me energy rather than just status?
Which part of my experience is ready to have an impact?
What am I no longer willing to trade for success?
That is not a soft conversation. Purpose-driven career evolution isn’t about throwing away everything you have built. It’s about sorting the treasure from the weight. Some skills still serve you, and some roles have expired. Some relationships need to shift, and some dreams need new language.
Some ladders, if we are honest, are leaning against walls we no longer want to climb.
The reclaim framework
When women are navigating career transitions, I recommend a four-part reset. Think of it as cleaning out the professional closet. Not everything has to go, but everything deserves to be examined.
1. Revisit your values
Start by listing your top five values in this season of life. Not the values that impressed other people or the ones that helped you survive. Not the values you inherited from a job description, a family expectation or a former version of yourself.
Name the values that reflect who you are becoming. Then ask yourself, “Does my current work allow me to live these values regularly?”
A woman who values creativity but spends every day buried in bureaucracy will eventually feel boxed in. Working in a culture of constant control will make a woman who values autonomy feel invisible. A woman who values service but finds herself trapped in performative work may feel disconnected from her own gifts.
Purpose often fades when values are repeatedly violated. That doesn’t mean you need to burn it all down tomorrow. But it means you need to tell yourself the truth.
2. Read your energy
Your calendar tells the truth before your mouth does.
For three weeks, track what gives you energy and what drains it. Pay attention to meetings, projects, clients, leadership spaces, conversations and tasks.
Where do you feel alive?
Where do you feel resentful?
Where do you feel useful?
Where do you feel like you are shrinking?
Patterns will emerge. Energy isn’t everything, but it is evidence. The report highlights career crafting as a promising approach. In plain language, that means you may be able to begin reshaping your work through tasks, relationships, learning and visibility before making a dramatic exit.
Sometimes the first step is redesigning, not quitting.
3. Translate your experience
Under-naming what they know is one of the worst mistakes women in transition make. You may call it “just managing people.” It may be executive leadership. You may call it “helping the team.” It may be culture strategy. You may call it “figuring things out.” It may actually be crisis management, change leadership and operational intelligence.
Please stop shrinking your language to make other people comfortable. A transitional season requires a new leadership narrative, not a résumé recap. A story that has value.
Your experience is not old news. It’s data. It’s discernment. It’s wisdom with receipts.
4. Test before you leap
Purpose doesn’t always arrive like a lightning bolt. Sometimes it walks in more quietly as a pilot project.
Teach the class. Take the consulting client. Serve on the board. Lead the workshop. Explore the certification. Accept the stretch assignment. Build the prototype.
Micro-experiments help women move from confusion to clarity without betting the whole farm on one emotional decision.
You don’t have to know the entire staircase before you take the next step. You just need enough light for the step in front of you.
The truth about reinvention
Reinvention is not becoming someone else. It’s finally allowing your next self to have room.
For women in transitional seasons, the work is not to chase every opportunity. The work is to discern which opportunities reflect your purpose, protect your well-being and honor your lived wisdom.
You are not behind. You are becoming more precise. Sometimes the most powerful career move is not climbing the next ladder. It’s asking whether the ladder is still leaning against the right wall.
Read more from Monique Farmer
Monique Farmer, PR & Communications Consultant
Monique Farmer, APR, runs a PR/Communication Consultancy, Avant Solutions, and is the creator of Anvil Ready, an online communication strategy builder that aids the communication professional in creating communication plans. She teaches at the University of Texas at Austin. Farmer spent 12 years working in the federal government prior to working in corporate communications for ConAgra Foods (now ConAgra Brands), then leading communication strategy for Nebraska’s largest school district. In March 2024, she published her first book, Chart Your Path: A 9-step Method to Getting Unstuck.
