A pivot is really just deciding what gets to come first

My best friend from high school texted to cancel our girls’ trip only a few weeks before we were set to all meet up in Virginia. Her dad went on hospice, and none of us know how much time he has left.

So the group chat conspired without her and decided to cancel this year’s trip and just bring the trip to her. I drove 12 hours to sit in her living room and hug her.

Not once did I check whether the drive was a good use of my time. No metric made hugging my best friend the smart play. And that’s exactly the point I want to sit with you on today.

A pivot is a decision about what gets to come first. That’s the whole thing. And you make that decision every week, usually without noticing.

People think that decision lives in their career. It shows up way earlier than that. It shows up in whether you answer the email or answer the call from someone who needs you. It shows up in the 12-hour drive you take or the one you talk yourself out of.

When someone comes to me stuck in a job that’s wearing them down, they picture the pivot as one giant future event. The new title. The clean exit that finally starts once they’ve got it all figured out.

So they wait. And while they wait, work wins by default. The deadline, then whatever’s on fire next, and the thing they’d actually regret missing gets whatever’s left over, which is usually nothing.

One of my clients called it living for the weekend every single day. That’s not a scheduling problem. That’s a whole season of your life going to the wrong thing.

Here’s the reason you let it happen. You feel guilty putting the real thing first. Like choosing it means you’re not serious, or you’re letting people down, or you’re being selfish for wanting your life back before you’ve earned it.

So this week, do one thing anyway. Pick the person or the moment you’d hate to look back on and realize you skipped. Put it on the calendar before you fill the calendar with everything else. Not after work settles down, because it won’t. Before.

You don’t have to quit anything to do this. You don’t need the pivot mapped out. You just need to let one real thing go first, once, and notice how it feels to be the person who chose it.

My friend’s dad may not have long. We really don’t know because he’s a true medical marvel. I have zero regret about those 12 hours, and I’d drive them again tomorrow.

You’re allowed to build a life where the drive comes first.

If this is the season you stop waiting to figure it all out and actually start planning your pivot, this is your invitation to consider the Career Pivot Lock In Cohort. It opens in September, and it’s the room where we get clear on what comes first and build the exit around it.

The waitlist is open now, and that’s where I’ll send the details before anyone else.

Work will always ask for more. Decide what gets to go first anyway.

Take care,

Tara