Oops, you did it again

Oops, you did it again.

You left a job you hated, took the first thing that looked different, and three months in you’re sitting there thinking… I think this is the same thing in a different building.

You didn’t make a bad decision. You made a blind one.

You committed to the 48-pack without ever tasting it.

Think about it. The entire Costco sample model exists because people make better decisions when they try something small before committing to the big version. Nobody grabs a 48-count case of something they’ve never tasted.

But when it comes to your career? You do it constantly. You take the job based on the description on the box. And six months in, you’re stuck with a pantry full of something you don’t even like.

You’ve been burned out now for a year, maybe longer. You finally hit the wall. And instead of testing what’s next, you grab the first thing that feels different from what you have now and call it a fresh start.

I’ll come back to what actually works in a minute, but first it’s worth understanding why you keep landing here.

The research on this is pretty telling. When people gather real information before making a career move, even small things like conversations or side projects, their confidence goes up and they run into way fewer surprises after they commit. People who got some hands-on experience before switching were happier with where they landed and way more likely to say they’d make the same choice again.

The difference was simple. They had data before they had to decide.

You skip that step for three reasons.

Burnout makes everything urgent. Those Sunday scaries get so loud that it overrides the part of your brain that knows you should be gathering information first. When you’ve been miserable long enough, any exit looks like the right one.

On top of that, we’ve all been trained to treat careers like commitments, not experiments. Pick a major. Stack the internships. Climb the ladder.

The whole system is set up like you’re supposed to know the answer before you’ve tried anything. And it’s why so many people end up in roles that look impressive on paper and feel hollow.

And then there’s sunk cost. You’ve already spent years building expertise, a reputation, and an identity in this space. The longer you’ve been in it, the more leaving feels like erasing everything you built. So instead of testing something new, you keep doubling down on what you already have. Even when it stopped working a long time ago. Even when your body’s been telling you for months.

And every time you grab the next thing without testing it first, the story gets louder. Maybe I’m just not someone who gets to enjoy work.

That story is wrong. But it gets more convincing every time you blindly commit.

So here’s what I want you to try instead.

Talk to three people doing work you’re curious about. This isn’t networking. You’re not asking for a job. You’re just asking what their Tuesday afternoon actually looks like. What drains them. What they’d change. I promise you’ll learn more in 30 minutes of honest conversation than six months of scrolling job boards at midnight.

Then pick one thing and give it a small test run. A freelance project. A short course. Maybe a volunteer gig in a space that intrigues you. You’re not quitting your job. You’re just running a small experiment to find out if this thing that sounds good on paper actually feels good in practice. That’s information you can’t get from a job description.

And while you’re doing all of this, pay attention to your body. When you’re exploring something that actually fits, you’ll notice. Your energy shifts. You stop watching the clock. You start asking questions because you genuinely want the answers. That’s data.

One of my clients was stuck in this exact loop. Grabbed the wrong thing twice before she finally started sampling. Three conversations last month with people doing work she was curious about. A small side project testing something she’d been wondering about for years. She told me last week it was the first time in two years she felt like herself. All she did was stop guessing.

You don’t need to have it all figured out before you make a move. You just need to stop treating your career like a multiple choice test where you only get one shot.

And if you want help figuring out what to sample, that’s what we work through in a Career Reboot Strategy Session.

In those two hours, we map your burnout drivers, audit what’s actually worked and what hasn’t, and brainstorm real career directions across four categories so you leave with something concrete to test.

A plan, not just ideas.

Next time, try the sample first.

Take care,

Tara