[{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/career-change/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Career-Change"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/categories/come-alive/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Come Alive"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/creativity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Creativity"},{"content":"A few years into my corporate career, something shifted.\nThe work that had once felt interesting started to feel like going through motions. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t burned out, exactly. I was just\u0026hellip; dulled. The days felt long in the wrong way. I was capable and competent, but somewhere along the way, the spark had quietly gone out.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t quit. I didn\u0026rsquo;t make any dramatic moves. Instead, I did something that seemed completely unrelated to the problem.\nI started buying books on photography.\nThe Camera I Didn\u0026rsquo;t Know I Needed #It started small. A few books on composition and light. Then a tripod. Lens filters. Eventually a better camera. I started experimenting on weekends, studying what made a photograph work, practicing techniques I\u0026rsquo;d read about.\nIt had nothing to do with my job. That was, I think, the point.\nWhat I noticed first was small: I started looking forward to something again. The photography gave me a place to be curious, to experiment, to make something without it needing to be useful or efficient or billable. It was purely mine.\nAnd then something unexpected happened. The drudgery at work started to ease.\nNot because anything about the job had changed. But because something in me had.\nWhat Creativity Actually Does #I started to see problems at work differently. What once felt like another obstacle to get through began to feel like a puzzle worth solving. Ideas came more easily. When disagreements came up with colleagues, I found myself genuinely curious about what was behind their thinking, rather than just trying to get past the friction.\nI also started noticing creativity everywhere I hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen it before. In office layouts. In landscaping. In the way someone had arranged a room or designed a piece of signage. It was as if a channel had opened that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t known was closed.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what I came to understand: creativity isn\u0026rsquo;t a talent some people have and others don\u0026rsquo;t. It\u0026rsquo;s a capacity that lives in everyone, and like any capacity, it grows with use and atrophies without it. When I gave mine somewhere to go, it started showing up in places I hadn\u0026rsquo;t invited it.\nCreativity breeds productivity. Not because it\u0026rsquo;s a productivity hack, but because a mind that\u0026rsquo;s alive in one area tends to be more alive everywhere.\nEveryone Is Creative #This is worth saying plainly, because most people don\u0026rsquo;t believe it about themselves.\nAn accountant is creative. A lawyer is creative. A programmer writing clean, elegant code is practicing creativity. So is anyone who figures out a better way to explain something complicated, or finds a new approach to a recurring problem, or designs a process that works better than the one before it.\nCreativity isn\u0026rsquo;t the ability to draw. It\u0026rsquo;s the willingness to make something, solve something, see something differently. It\u0026rsquo;s a way of engaging with whatever is in front of you.\nFor years, I thought of myself as someone who worked in tech, not as someone creative. Then I was asked to oversee my department\u0026rsquo;s web pages. That small added responsibility opened a door I hadn\u0026rsquo;t known was there. I started learning design on my own. Eventually I went back to school for graphic design. I built websites. Created logos. Learned to draw.\nNone of that was in the original plan. It started with a camera and a willingness to follow curiosity somewhere it wanted to go. Creativity isn\u0026rsquo;t the ability to draw. It\u0026rsquo;s the willingness to make something, solve something, see something differently.\nCreativity as a Mindset, Not a Medium #What changed my relationship with work wasn\u0026rsquo;t the photography itself. It was what the photography unlocked.\nI started asking different questions. Not just how do I complete this task, but how could this be better? Not just what\u0026rsquo;s the fastest path through this problem, but what\u0026rsquo;s the most interesting one? Creativity, practiced consistently, changes the lens through which you see everything else.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re a programmer, you\u0026rsquo;re being creative when you find the most elegant solution. If you\u0026rsquo;re a project manager, you\u0026rsquo;re being creative when you design a process that actually works for the people using it. If you\u0026rsquo;re in any role that involves thinking, communicating, or solving, you\u0026rsquo;re already doing creative work. You may just not be naming it that.\nThe question isn\u0026rsquo;t whether you\u0026rsquo;re creative. The question is whether you\u0026rsquo;re giving that part of yourself somewhere to go.\nWhat Happens When You Start #The invitation here is simple, but I don\u0026rsquo;t want to make it sound smaller than it is.\nFind a creative outlet. Not to be productive. Not to build a brand or monetize a skill. Just to practice making something, learning something, exploring something for its own sake.\nIt might be photography. It might be woodworking, writing, cooking, drawing, gardening, playing an instrument, or learning a new design tool just to see what you can do with it. The medium matters less than the practice. What matters is that you\u0026rsquo;re engaging a part of yourself that doesn\u0026rsquo;t get enough room in the ordinary workday.\nReflection What have you always wanted to try or learn but kept putting off? What would you explore if you didn\u0026rsquo;t need a reason?\nStart there. Not because it will fix everything. But because you might be surprised at what else it opens up.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re trying to reconnect with what makes you come alive, the Career Freedom Framework can help you think through what kind of work and life actually fits who you are.\n","date":"30 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/creativity-isnt-a-talent-its-a-practice-that-changes-everything/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Creativity Isn't a Talent. It's a Practice That Changes Everything."},{"content":" Design a life\nthat fits. Help for people who know there's more to life than this.\nWhere to start Read on Substack You've done what you were supposed to do. You've followed the path, put in the years, and checked the boxes. And still, something feels off. Not broken. Not ungrateful. Just… not quite right. Like you're living someone else's version of your life. Most people push that feeling down and keep going.\nYou don't have to. Published on Substack\nEssays on designing a life that actually fits — delivered to your inbox. Read \u0026amp; Subscribe on Substack → Where to Start\n01\nDesign Your Life Frameworks and honest writing on intentional living, purpose, values, and what it means to live fully.\nExplore → 02\nCareer on Your Terms Not advice for climbing the ladder — for people who want off it, or onto a different one entirely.\nExplore → 03\nCome Alive Creativity as a pathway to self-discovery. Experiments and explorations for unlocking what makes you come alive.\nExplore → 04\nGuides \u0026amp; Resources Practical tools to help you take the next step — whatever that step is for you.\nExplore → The Work Behind the Writing\nCarma no longer takes 1:1 coaching clients. But the conversations that shaped that work — what helped people find paths that actually fit them — are what now live on this site, in a different form.\n\"If you're looking for someone who truly understands growth and what it means to design a life that fits, look no further.\"\nKendal Titus Reynolds\nUI/UX \u0026amp; Product Designer\n\"Especially if you're navigating a new or alternate path. Her experience is remarkable, and her guidance is tailored to your unique circumstances.\"\nDipika Naran\nGrowth-Minded Professional \u0026amp; Designer\n\"An outstanding coach with an extensive background across many fields — a natural problem solver, genuinely compassionate about your journey.\"\nBethany Monk\nLanguage Arts Teacher \u0026amp; Writer\nThis site is for you if…\nYou are done following what is expected of you. You've tried it and it's not working. You feel there is more to life, but you're not sure what's next or what that \"more\" even looks like. You want to live fully — in your zone of what makes you come alive. About Carma\nI'm not someone who figured this out at 25. I navigated decades of intentional, unconventional choices — career pivots, single life on my own terms — and the slow, sometimes uncomfortable work of figuring out what I was actually designed for. I lived it through my 30s, 40s, and 50s. That's what makes this different. Read My Story → ","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/","section":"Design a Life That Fits","summary":"","title":"Design a Life That Fits"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/categories/design-your-life/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Design Your Life"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/fear/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Fear"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/identity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Identity"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/intentional-living/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Intentional-Living"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/purpose/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Purpose"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/resilience/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Resilience"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/self-discovery/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Self-Discovery"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/transitions/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Transitions"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/values/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Values"},{"content":"Pay attention to what makes you cry.\nI know that sounds like an unusual place to start a conversation about discovering who you are. But stay with me.\nThink about the last movie that made you cry. Not just watery eyes. The kind of cry that surprised you, that caught you off guard. Why that movie? What specifically happened on screen?\nThink about your five favorite films. What do they have in common? What keeps pulling you back to them?\nThese aren\u0026rsquo;t trivial questions. The things that move us to tears are telling us something real about what we value, what we long for, what we believe about the world.\nWhat My Tears Have Told Me #I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed a pattern in my own emotional responses to film and story.\nI cry when the underdog wins. Secretariat is one of my favorite movies for this reason. Something in me responds viscerally when a creature or a person everyone counted out runs the race of their life.\nI cry when someone overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to live out their calling. Anna and the King. The cost of staying true to yourself in a world that wants you to be something smaller.\nI cry when someone is truly seenhen . When another person looks past what has happened to them, past what others say about them, and recognizes who they actually are. Return to Me does this for me.\nI cry when a twelve-year-old walks onto a stage, opens her mouth, and a voice comes out that shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be possible. Because something buried and real is finally being expressed.\nThe pattern, when I look at it honestly, tells me a great deal about what I care about. Potential. Being seen. Living out what\u0026rsquo;s inside you. The gap between who someone is told they are and who they actually are.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not a coincidence. Those things show up in everything I care about, everything I\u0026rsquo;ve built, everything I want to say. What moves you isn\u0026rsquo;t random. It\u0026rsquo;s a pattern — and that pattern points directly at what you\u0026rsquo;re here to do.\nNow Pay Attention to What Makes You Furious #The other signal is anger.\nNot just an irritation, but the deeper kind. The things that set you on fire inside. That make your blood boil when you encounter them. That you can\u0026rsquo;t stop thinking about or talking about.\nMaybe it\u0026rsquo;s a particular injustice. Domestic violence. People in positions of power running over those around them. Ideas being spread that keep people small and stuck. Children being overlooked or mistreated.\nWhatever it is, don\u0026rsquo;t dismiss it as just a strong reaction. That anger is information.\nThe person who gets furious when children are mistreated becomes an outstanding foster parent. The one whose blood boils at every domestic violence headline opens a safe house for women. The one who can\u0026rsquo;t stand watching capable people be held back by systems or expectations finds a way to help people break free of them.\nThis is, honestly, part of what drove me into coaching and teaching. It made me angry to see another capable person being held back by their circumstances, their surroundings, or the stories others had told them about themselves. That anger had somewhere to go.\nTwo Different Signals, One Direction #Tears and anger look like opposites. One is soft, one is sharp. One pulls you inward, one pushes outward.\nBut they\u0026rsquo;re pointing at the same thing: what you care about enough to feel.\nIn a world that rewards staying measured and professional, we\u0026rsquo;ve gotten very good at managing these responses. Feeling them privately and then getting back to whatever was on the agenda. Not naming them. Not following them.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a loss. Because these emotions are among the most direct signals we have about who we are and what we\u0026rsquo;re here to contribute.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re not random. They repeat. They show up across different stories, different situations, different decades. The things that moved you to tears at twenty still move you at fifty. The injustices that made you furious early in your career still make you furious now.\nThat consistency is the signal. It\u0026rsquo;s not noise. It\u0026rsquo;s you being yourself, clearly, without the usual filters.\nThe Questions Worth Sitting With # Reflection What was the last thing that made you cry, and why that specific thing? What makes you genuinely angry — not annoyed, but lit up with something that feels like it matters? If you look at those two answers together, what do they tell you about what you care about?\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t have to translate this into a career plan today. But you do need to take it seriously. These emotions are not getting in the way of knowing yourself. They are the way.\nLet them tell you something.\nIf you want to go deeper on what your values and strongest instincts are pointing toward, Your Values, Your Season is a good place to start.\n","date":"30 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/what-makes-you-cry-or-furious-is-trying-to-tell-you-something/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"What Makes You Cry (or Furious) Is Trying to Tell You Something"},{"content":"The call came on a Wednesday.\nMy father had entered hospice care. What had been a gradual decline became, in that moment, something immediate and real. I hung up the phone and sat with the knowledge that the ground had just shifted and that life would look different on the other side of this.\nI\u0026rsquo;m not unusual in this. Most of us, if we live long enough, will experience a season when the familiar disappears and we\u0026rsquo;re left standing in the middle of a transition we didn\u0026rsquo;t choose. A job loss. A health diagnosis. A relationship that ends. A role — parent, caregiver, spouse — that suddenly changes shape.\nAnd sometimes, even transitions we do choose feel this way. A career pivot. Moving to a new city. Stepping away from a path you\u0026rsquo;ve been on for decades to try something entirely new.\nIn any of these moments, the question isn\u0026rsquo;t whether the ground will shift. It\u0026rsquo;s what you do when it does.\nStart With What Doesn\u0026rsquo;t Change #The most reliable anchor in any transition is your own sense of who you are.\nNot your title. Not your role. Not the context that just changed. The things underneath that: your values, your strengths, the way you show up when things are hard.\nOne of the most useful things you can do before or during a transition is to get clear on those things — to put them into words you can return to. Ask yourself: What do I know to be true about myself that isn\u0026rsquo;t going anywhere? Write it down. Because when the context shifts, that list becomes a lifeline.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve worked with professionals navigating significant career transitions who found that the act of naming their strengths — not aspirationally, but factually, based on actual evidence — changed how they held the uncertainty.\nThey weren\u0026rsquo;t starting over. They were carrying forward. There\u0026rsquo;s a real difference.\nKeep Your Strengths at the Front #Transitions tend to trigger a kind of amnesia. Suddenly, all the evidence of what you\u0026rsquo;re capable of seems far away, and the uncertainty of the new situation feels very close.\nThis is normal. It\u0026rsquo;s also something you can work against.\nMake a list of what you\u0026rsquo;re genuinely good at. Not what you think you should be good at — what you actually are. The skills that show up reliably. The things people come to you for. The work that energizes rather than drains you.\nThen ask: Where do these strengths apply in the situation I\u0026rsquo;m facing? Almost always, they apply somewhere. The context has changed; you haven\u0026rsquo;t.\nKnow Your Value — and Trust It #One of the quieter fears underneath major transitions is the worry that we won\u0026rsquo;t measure up in whatever comes next. That the value we had in the previous chapter won\u0026rsquo;t transfer.\nIt almost always does.\nThe skills you\u0026rsquo;ve built, the relationships you\u0026rsquo;ve cultivated, the judgment that comes from years of navigating real complexity — these are portable. They travel with you. They show up in new contexts in ways you can\u0026rsquo;t always predict in advance.\nThis doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean every transition is smooth, or that nothing has to be relearned. It means you\u0026rsquo;re not starting from zero. You\u0026rsquo;re starting from somewhere, even if the destination isn\u0026rsquo;t yet clear.\nLet Your Past Remind You What You\u0026rsquo;re Capable Of #When the ground shifts, we forget what we\u0026rsquo;ve already survived.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s worth remembering.\nThink about a time you faced something genuinely hard and found your way through it. Not because the path was obvious, but because you kept going. You adapted. You figured it out.\nThat capacity is still there. The transition you\u0026rsquo;re in right now is hard b,ut you have a track record of navigating hard things. You are not as unprepared as uncertainty makes you feel.\nLean on the People Who Know You #Some of the most useful moments I\u0026rsquo;ve had during difficult seasons came from conversations with people who knew me well enough to say: I see something in you that you\u0026rsquo;re not seeing right now.\nThere is real value in having a trusted circle: people who can speak honestly, ask good questions, and remind you of what you know to be true about yourself when you can\u0026rsquo;t quite access it on your own.\nIf you don\u0026rsquo;t have that circle already, building it is one of the most practical things you can do before the ground shifts. And if you\u0026rsquo;re already in the middle of a transition, it\u0026rsquo;s not too late. Who in your life can hold this with you? Build your circle before the ground shifts. And if you\u0026rsquo;re already in the middle of it, it\u0026rsquo;s not too late.\nKeep the Long Game in Mind #In the middle of a transition, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to overweight the immediate discomfort and underweight what you\u0026rsquo;re actually building toward.\nWhen my father entered hospice, the weeks that followed were hard. But I also knew that being present for that season — even when it required restructuring work, letting some things go, showing up in ways that were costly — was something I would never regret. The long game was clear, even when the days weren\u0026rsquo;t.\nYour transition has a long game too. Not just getting through it, but who you\u0026rsquo;re becoming in the process. What you\u0026rsquo;re building. What you\u0026rsquo;ll be able to say, on the other side, that you did.\nHold that. Especially on the hard days.\nFocus on What You Can Control #One of the most grounding things you can do in a transition is to draw a clean line between what\u0026rsquo;s in your control and what isn\u0026rsquo;t, and then put your energy almost entirely on the former.\nYou can\u0026rsquo;t control the timing of a layoff or the progress of an illness. You can control how you show up, what you prepare, who you reach out to, and what you do today.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not a small thing. The difference between people who move through transitions well and people who get stuck in them often comes down to this: the ones who move focus relentlessly on what they can do, rather than what they can\u0026rsquo;t.\nBe Willing to Bridge the Gap #Sometimes doing what it takes to keep moving forward doesn\u0026rsquo;t look glamorous.\nWhen I needed to keep income coming in during a difficult career transition, I took work that wasn\u0026rsquo;t exactly what I\u0026rsquo;d been doing — some writing, some consulting, some things that didn\u0026rsquo;t fit neatly into my identity at the time. A friend navigating a similar season picked up cabinet-making work, wrote SEO copy, did lawn care. Not because these were the destination, but because they kept things moving while he found his way there.\nRemember this There\u0026rsquo;s no shame in the bridge. The bridge is how you get from where you are to where you\u0026rsquo;re going. What matters is that you keep moving — and that you stay clear on the direction, even when the current step doesn\u0026rsquo;t look like the destination.\nYou Are Not Defined by the Transition #The hardest thing about a major life transition is the way it can temporarily obscure your sense of who you are. The title changes or disappears. The role shifts. The context that gave your days shape is suddenly gone.\nBut you are not your context. You are not your title or your role or your current chapter.\nYou are the person who has navigated hard things before. Who has skills that travel with you. Who has values that don\u0026rsquo;t depend on external circumstances to be true.\nThe ground has shifted. You\u0026rsquo;re still standing on it. And the next chapter, even if you can\u0026rsquo;t quite see it yet, is being built from everything you\u0026rsquo;ve already become.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re navigating a transition and want to get clear on your values and what you actually want on the other side, Your Values, Your Season is a good place to start.\n","date":"30 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/when-the-ground-shifts-how-to-navigate-big-life-transitions/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"When the Ground Shifts: How to Navigate Big Life Transitions"},{"content":"For most of my working life, I could justify my creative work.\nWriting helped job seekers understand their options. Design made complex material accessible. Instructional design gave learners a path through difficult content. Even when I wrote for myself — on Medium, on LinkedIn, in blog posts — I could explain it. It serves the audience. It builds the business. It helps someone.\nThere was always a reason. And as long as there was a reason, I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to sit with the question underneath it all: What if I just want to create?\nWhen the Justification Disappears #Then I stopped working in the traditional sense.\nNo clients. No students. No job seekers or career changers. No deliverables or deadlines. Just time, and the things I\u0026rsquo;d always wanted to do with it.\nWriting. Creating. Designing. The things I\u0026rsquo;d been doing for decades, mostly in service of someone else\u0026rsquo;s goal.\nAnd here\u0026rsquo;s what surprised me: without the justification, the creative work felt wrong. Not wrong in a moral sense, but wrong in the way that anything feels wrong when you can\u0026rsquo;t explain why you\u0026rsquo;re doing it. My husband is supportive, unfailingly so. He would never ask me to put down my work. But the question I couldn\u0026rsquo;t stop asking was my own: Why should I take time away from us to do something that only benefits me?\nIt sounds small. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t. That question quietly stalled me for longer than I\u0026rsquo;d like to admit.\nThe Narrative We Build Around Our Own Desires #Here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve come to understand: the story I was telling myself wasn\u0026rsquo;t really about my husband, or about time, or even about balance.\nIt was about permission.\nI had spent years earning the right to create by making my creativity useful. Teaching made it justified. Coaching made it justified. Writing for an audience made it justified. And somewhere along the way, I had absorbed a belief I\u0026rsquo;d never consciously chosen: that creativity without a purpose outside yourself is indulgent. That doing something just because it\u0026rsquo;s yours is, at some level, selfish.\nThat belief is worth examining. Because it doesn\u0026rsquo;t hold up.\nWhat \u0026ldquo;Selfish\u0026rdquo; Actually Means Here #Selfish, in the way we usually mean it, describes taking something at someone else\u0026rsquo;s expense. Consuming more than your share. Prioritizing your wants in a way that harms the people around you.\nBut creating — writing, painting, designing, building, making something from nothing — doesn\u0026rsquo;t work that way. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t subtract from the people you love. In most cases, it adds to who you are when you\u0026rsquo;re with them. A person who has spent an hour doing work that genuinely matters to them shows up differently than one who has been quietly starving that part of themselves.\nThe \u0026ldquo;selfish\u0026rdquo; label, when we apply it to creative work, is usually not about harm. It\u0026rsquo;s about guilt. And guilt is worth investigating, because it almost always has a source, and the source almost always turns out to be a story, not a fact. Guilt is worth investigating. It almost always has a source — and the source almost always turns out to be a story, not a fact.\nThe Built-In Justification We Miss #What I didn\u0026rsquo;t see clearly, until I stopped working, was how much the structure of work had been doing for me.\nWhen you have a job, or have clients, the justification is built in. You\u0026rsquo;re being paid. There\u0026rsquo;s a product. There\u0026rsquo;s an audience. The creativity happens inside a container that society already approves of, so you never have to defend it.\nWhen that container disappears — when you retire, or step back, or intentionally create space for something new — the approval structure goes with it. And if you\u0026rsquo;ve never learned to create without external justification, you\u0026rsquo;ll find yourself stuck. Not for lack of desire. For lack of permission.\nThe permission that was always yours to give.\nWhat You\u0026rsquo;re Actually Protecting #Here\u0026rsquo;s the question I had to sit with: if I kept talking myself out of the creative work, what was I actually protecting?\nNot my marriage. My husband wasn\u0026rsquo;t asking for that trade.\nNot my time. The hours I wasn\u0026rsquo;t writing weren\u0026rsquo;t going somewhere more valuable. They were just going.\nWhat I was protecting, I think, was the old identity. The one where I was useful. Where my creativity had a destination and a recipient and a reason. Letting go of that meant becoming someone who created for the sake of creating, and that felt more vulnerable than I expected.\nIt also felt more honest.\nDoing It Anyway #I\u0026rsquo;m done constructing reasons.\nNot because the discomfort has fully disappeared, it hasn\u0026rsquo;t. But because I\u0026rsquo;ve looked closely enough at the story to stop believing it. The narrative that my creative work is a theft of time that belongs to someone else is a false one. I made it up. I can put it down.\nYour version of this story might look different. Maybe yours isn\u0026rsquo;t about a partner, or about retirement, or about creative work specifically. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s about the degree you\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking about for a decade. The business you\u0026rsquo;ve outlined and never started. The practice you keep postponing until the right season arrives.\nWorth sitting with The permission you\u0026rsquo;re waiting for isn\u0026rsquo;t coming from outside. It was never going to. The only question is what you\u0026rsquo;ll do now that you know that.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re sitting with something you\u0026rsquo;ve been talking yourself out of, Your Values, Your Season can help you get honest about what you actually want — and what story has been standing in the way.\n","date":"30 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/why-creating-just-for-yourself-feels-selfish-and-why-thats-the-whole-point/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Why Creating Just for Yourself Feels Selfish — And Why That's the Whole Point"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/writing/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Writing"},{"content":"I have been writing for most of my adult life.\nNot always for an audience. Not always with a purpose. Sometimes just to get what was inside of me out onto a page where I could look at it. Blog posts, journal entries, LinkedIn articles, essays, notes to myself that no one was ever meant to read.\nWriting has been a way of thinking for me. When something is too tangled to sort out in my head, putting it into words helps me find the shape of it. When I\u0026rsquo;m restless or unsettled, writing is often the thing that tells me why.\nBut writing is just my practice. Yours might be painting. Photography. Drawing. Playing an instrument. Woodworking. Gardening. Cooking something beautiful from scratch. The medium matters less than most people think. What matters is what the practice does. Every creative practice does more or less the same things.\nThe Seasons I Stepped Away #There were times in my life when difficult things happened and I found myself, as I once described it, wordless. Not without thoughts, but without the capacity to put them into language.\nIn hindsight, those were probably the seasons I most needed it. But I couldn\u0026rsquo;t see that from inside them.\nWhat I know now is that the silence wasn\u0026rsquo;t the problem. The problem was believing I had nothing to say, or that what I had to say wasn\u0026rsquo;t worth the effort. Both turned out to be wrong.\nWhen I started writing again, consistently, the relief was immediate. Not because I produced anything worth sharing. Because I got to hear myself again.\nI hear something similar from people who\u0026rsquo;ve set down a creative practice they once loved. A painter who stopped when life got busy and hasn\u0026rsquo;t picked it back up in years. A photographer who put the camera away after a hard season. Someone who used to draw and somewhere along the way decided it was frivolous. The thing they all miss, once they notice it\u0026rsquo;s gone, is hard to name. But it\u0026rsquo;s real. It\u0026rsquo;s the part of themselves that breathes differently when they\u0026rsquo;re making something. The part of yourself that breathes differently when you\u0026rsquo;re making something — that part doesn\u0026rsquo;t disappear. It just goes quiet until you come back to it.\nWhat a Creative Practice Actually Does #My notes when I started thinking about this were brief. Just a list:\nIt clears your thoughts. It generates ideas. It relieves stress. It\u0026rsquo;s therapy. It\u0026rsquo;s cleansing. It\u0026rsquo;s settling.\nEvery one of those is true regardless of the medium. Let me say what I mean by each.\nA creative practice clears your thoughts because making something forces you to actually look at what\u0026rsquo;s inside you. Vague anxiety lives comfortably in your head. The moment you try to paint it, write it, photograph it, or shape it into something, it has to become specific. And specific things are workable. You can do something with them.\nIt generates ideas because the act of creating opens a channel. One image leads to another. One written sentence leads to a thought you didn\u0026rsquo;t know you had. One photograph teaches you something about how you see. The creative process is generative in a way that passive thinking often isn\u0026rsquo;t.\nYou discover things by making them, not by planning to.\nIt relieves stress because it gives your nervous system somewhere to put what it\u0026rsquo;s been carrying. You don\u0026rsquo;t have to solve anything. You just have to make something. There\u0026rsquo;s a real release in that, one that talking or scrolling or staying busy never quite reaches.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s therapy in the truest sense. It helps you process, integrate, and make sense of your experience. When you paint a feeling you can\u0026rsquo;t name, draw something that\u0026rsquo;s been bothering you, or write toward a question that keeps returning, you\u0026rsquo;re doing real inner work, just in a language the rational mind doesn\u0026rsquo;t always speak.\nAnd the cleansing, the settling — these are harder to explain but instantly recognizable if you\u0026rsquo;ve felt them. There\u0026rsquo;s a quality of stillness that comes after a genuine creative session that didn\u0026rsquo;t exist before. Like something has been drained off, and what\u0026rsquo;s left is clearer.\nYou Don\u0026rsquo;t Have to Be an Artist #You don\u0026rsquo;t have to think of yourself as a creative person to have a creative practice.\nA creative practice isn\u0026rsquo;t about talent, output, or having something to show for your time. It\u0026rsquo;s about the process of making something. Engaging. Experimenting. Following where curiosity leads. The painter who never shows their work is doing real creative practice. So is the writer who never publishes, the photographer who shoots only for themselves, the person who draws badly and keeps drawing anyway.\nThe bar isn\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;be good at it.\u0026rdquo; The bar is to \u0026ldquo;show up.\u0026rdquo; Those are entirely different standards, and the second one is available to everyone.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;ve always wanted to try something — photography, watercolors, pottery, writing, learning an instrument — the fact that you\u0026rsquo;re not yet good at it is not a reason to wait. It\u0026rsquo;s actually the right place to start. Beginners have something experts often lose: pure curiosity, not clouded by expectation.\nWhat Happens When You Make It a Practice #At one point I committed to writing three pages a day. The practice came from Julia Cameron\u0026rsquo;s The Artist\u0026rsquo;s Way, which calls them morning pages. The goal wasn\u0026rsquo;t to produce anything. It was to clear the channel.\nI noticed quickly that the first page or two was usually noise: the to-do list, the lingering worries, the mental clutter I\u0026rsquo;d been carrying without realizing it. But somewhere in the third page, something quieter started to come through. A thought I hadn\u0026rsquo;t had before. A connection I hadn\u0026rsquo;t made. An honest feeling I\u0026rsquo;d been managing around rather than actually feeling.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s the part a consistent creative practice reaches. Not the surface, but what\u0026rsquo;s underneath it.\nThe same thing happens in other forms. A photographer who shoots regularly starts to notice what they\u0026rsquo;re drawn to, and what that reveals about them. A painter who shows up to the canvas consistently begins to develop a visual language that\u0026rsquo;s genuinely their own. A musician who plays for no one but themselves discovers what they actually want to say.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t happen in one session. It happens through the accumulation of showing up.\nA Practice Worth Starting #If there\u0026rsquo;s a creative practice that\u0026rsquo;s been on your mind — something you keep meaning to return to, or something you\u0026rsquo;ve always wanted to try — the invitation is simple:\nThe invitation Just start. Not when you have more time. Not when you feel ready. Not when you can do it well. Now, with whatever you have, for fifteen minutes if that\u0026rsquo;s all you can give it.\nNow. With whatever you have. For fifteen minutes if that\u0026rsquo;s all you can give it.\nGet the notebook. Set up the easel. Pick up the camera. Sit down at the instrument. Make something that doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be good.\nYou may be surprised at what\u0026rsquo;s been waiting for you on the other side of the practice.\nIf you want to think more broadly about what it means to come alive in your work and life, Your Values, Your Season is a good place to start getting honest about what you actually want more of.\n","date":"30 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/writing-is-how-i-think-maybe-its-how-you-do-too/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Writing Is How I Think. Maybe It's How You Do Too."},{"content":"For most of my career, I followed what I\u0026rsquo;d call career logic.\nBuild skills. Stay useful. Keep moving forward. It worked. I had a good career across tech, design, teaching, and consulting. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t stuck. I kept progressing.\nBut somewhere along the way, a quieter question started surfacing. Not what\u0026rsquo;s next for me? but when do I actually feel alive doing this?\nThose aren\u0026rsquo;t the same question. And the gap between them turned out to matter more than I expected.\nTwo Ways of Measuring Work #Writer and social commentator David Brooks describes this gap well. He calls it the difference between career logic and gift logic.\nCareer logic is about achievement, efficiency, advancement. It asks: How do I build? How do I climb? How do I stay relevant? It\u0026rsquo;s the logic most of us are raised inside, and it\u0026rsquo;s genuinely useful. It gets things done.\nGift logic asks something different. It asks: Where do I contribute in a way that feels like it\u0026rsquo;s drawing on something real in me? Where does the work feel less like output and more like expression? Where, as Brooks puts it, do you give yourself to something larger than yourself?\nMost career advice is built entirely on career logic, even when the people receiving it are hungry for something else. The result is that a lot of capable, self-aware professionals spend years optimizing a path that doesn\u0026rsquo;t actually fit who they are.\nThe Signals I Kept Missing #Looking back at my own career, the pattern is obvious now. The work that mattered most was always relational and creative. Teaching in classrooms. Training professionals so they could do their jobs with confidence. Helping people understand something that once felt out of reach. Coaching career changers toward clarity.\nThe roles that looked most impressive on paper, programming, certain instructional design work done in isolation, content produced without real interaction, often felt hollow. Not because the work was bad, but because what mattered most to me was missing.\nThe signal was consistent: I came alive when someone else did. When a concept clicked for a learner. When a career changer\u0026rsquo;s doubt gave way to direction. When a piece of writing or a well-designed lesson helped someone see something they couldn\u0026rsquo;t see before.\nThose were the moments. And for years, I treated them as nice byproducts of the real work rather than the signal they actually were. The moments you treat as nice byproducts of the real work are often the most important signal you have.\nWhy We Miss the Signal #Part of why these signals are so easy to miss is cultural.\nWe live inside a system that rewards achievement, not alignment. From an early age, we\u0026rsquo;re taught to chase grades, titles, promotions. If something can\u0026rsquo;t be measured or put on a resume, it barely counts. So when meaningful signals show up, the energy, the ease, the sense of creative flow, we tend to dismiss them. They don\u0026rsquo;t fit the system. We tell ourselves they\u0026rsquo;re nice but not practical.\nThis is where a lot of people get stuck. Not because they lack options, but because they\u0026rsquo;re asking the wrong questions. They keep running career-logic calculations. What role fits me next? How do I position myself? How do I stay relevant? While the discomfort they\u0026rsquo;re feeling is coming from a deeper place entirely.\nThe creative and relational parts of us don\u0026rsquo;t speak in titles and deliverables. They speak in moments — in energy and the absence of it.\nWhat Creativity Actually Looks Like #Here\u0026rsquo;s something worth saying plainly: creativity isn\u0026rsquo;t just painting or writing.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s making something from nothing. It\u0026rsquo;s taking complexity and finding the shape inside it. It\u0026rsquo;s designing a course that helps someone learn. It\u0026rsquo;s finding the right words for an idea that\u0026rsquo;s been stuck in someone\u0026rsquo;s head. It\u0026rsquo;s building a conversation that opens a door.\nTeaching is a creative act. Coaching is a creative act. Designing something useful is a creative act. So is writing, problem-solving, making something clearer than it was before.\nFor most of my career, I was doing creative work without naming it that. And when I wasn\u0026rsquo;t doing it, when the work was purely technical or isolated or just about output, I could feel the absence. That feeling was information. I just didn\u0026rsquo;t always know how to read it.\nThe Moments That Repeat #Here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;ve come to believe: the moments that make you come alive are not random. They repeat.\nThey show up across different roles, different seasons, different contexts. A pattern runs through them. And that pattern, if you\u0026rsquo;re willing to look at it honestly, points toward something real about who you are and what you\u0026rsquo;re meant to contribute.\nThe question isn\u0026rsquo;t whether those moments exist in your history. They do. The question is whether you\u0026rsquo;ve been paying attention to them, and whether you\u0026rsquo;re willing to trust what they\u0026rsquo;re telling you.\nSo here\u0026rsquo;s what I\u0026rsquo;d ask you to sit with. When in your work do you forget about yourself because someone else is learning, growing, or moving forward? When does the thing you\u0026rsquo;re making feel like more than output? When do you finish a piece of work, whether a lesson, a conversation, a design, a piece of writing, and feel more yourself rather than less?\nThose moments aren\u0026rsquo;t distractions from the real work. They may be the most important information you have.\nWhat I Would Have Done Differently #If I had understood gift logic earlier, not in place of career logic but alongside it, I would have leaned into teaching and training sooner. I would have trusted the signal that showed up every time a learner moved forward. I would have spent less time translating what made me come alive into career-logic terms, trying to make it efficient, scalable, measurable, and more time simply doing the work that lit me up and trusting that it had value.\nI also would have taken my creative work more seriously, not as a tool in service of a job, but as a thing worth doing for its own sake. Writing. Designing. Making things that didn\u0026rsquo;t exist before.\nThe moments that feel meaningful aren\u0026rsquo;t random. They repeat. They show up in different roles and formats and seasons. We\u0026rsquo;re just not taught to see them, or trust them. In a culture obsessed with winning, those signals look small.\nReflection When in your work do you forget about yourself because someone else is learning or moving forward? When do you finish something and feel more yourself rather than less? Those moments aren\u0026rsquo;t distractions. They\u0026rsquo;re the signal.\nThey are not small. They are directional.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re ready to get honest about what makes you come alive and what\u0026rsquo;s been standing in the way, the Career Freedom Framework is a good place to start.\n","date":"30 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/you-already-know-what-makes-you-come-alive-you-just-havent-trusted-it-yet/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"You Already Know What Makes You Come Alive. You Just Haven't Trusted It Yet."},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/categories/career-on-your-terms/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Career On Your Terms"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/seasons-of-life/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Seasons-of-Life"},{"content":"Something feels off. Not wrong, not broken — just not quite right.\nThe job you used to love feels draining now. The path you chose with so much energy and certainty feels like it belongs to someone else. You\u0026rsquo;re not sure if you changed, or if something broke.\nWhat if it\u0026rsquo;s neither?\nWhat if you\u0026rsquo;re simply in a different season — and your career hasn\u0026rsquo;t caught up yet?\nNobody Told Me a Career Could Look Like This #When I graduated from college and entered the corporate world, I had one model for what a career was supposed to look like: start somewhere, work hard, move up. The ladder goes up. You keep climbing.\nNobody told me a career could look any other way.\nMine ended up looking like this:\nIn my 20s, fresh out of college, I wanted a job where I could use my degree and build my skills. Corporate America fit. I even went back for an MBA.\nIn my 30s, I wanted more creativity and the freedom to try different things. I got a degree in multimedia and moved into contract work — by design, for seasons, on my own terms.\nIn my 40s, I wanted more flexibility and the freedom to travel. I started my own business.\nIn my 50s, I worked part-time, entirely remotely.\nNow in my 60s, my priorities, values, and goals look almost nothing like they did at 22.\nEach shift felt significant at the time. Looking back, the pattern is clear:\nMy career didn\u0026rsquo;t lead my life. My life led my career. And that made all the difference.\nThe Pattern I Kept Seeing #Over the years of working with professionals as a career coach, I noticed something that came up again and again.\nPeople let life change them — their values, their priorities, their relationships, their sense of what matters — but they don\u0026rsquo;t let those changes touch their careers.\nSo they stay. In the job. In the role. In the season that expired years ago.\nThe ladder keeps going up. They keep climbing. Nobody stops to ask if it\u0026rsquo;s still the right ladder.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s not that they\u0026rsquo;re lazy or unambitious. It\u0026rsquo;s that they were never given permission to let their career be a reflection of their life — instead of the other way around.\nSeasons Are More Than Age #Here\u0026rsquo;s something worth understanding: seasons of life aren\u0026rsquo;t just about how old you are.\nThey\u0026rsquo;re shaped by family, relationships, health, loss, freedom, and what\u0026rsquo;s happening both around you and within you. A season of caregiving looks different from a season of building. A season of grief looks different from a season of expansion. These aren\u0026rsquo;t phases to push through — they\u0026rsquo;re chapters with their own logic and their own demands.\nEight years ago, my husband and I named a new season for ourselves. We wanted to travel more, have more flexibility, and stay close to family while our parents were aging. Once we named it, the career decisions almost made themselves. I worked remotely. My husband took on work that kept us near family but still allowed us to move when we needed to. The season had a shape, and our work fit inside it — not the other way around.\nThat season had a name. Once we named it, the job decisions made themselves.\nThe shifts didn\u0026rsquo;t always happen quickly. Sometimes I stayed in the wrong season longer than I should have. But once I understood that my career was meant to serve my life — not consume it — I stopped treating every feeling of restlessness as a problem and started treating it as information. Once you understand that your career is meant to serve your life — not consume it — restlessness stops being a problem. It becomes information.\nWhat the Unsettled Feeling Is Telling You #If something feels off right now — in your job, your role, your sense of direction — it might not be a problem to solve.\nIt might be a season asking to be named.\nReflection The question worth sitting with isn\u0026rsquo;t what\u0026rsquo;s wrong with me? It\u0026rsquo;s what does this season of my life actually require? And then, honestly: does my current career fit that?\nYour values at 45 are not your values at 25. Your priorities after raising kids, or losing a parent, or surviving a health scare, or finally paying off debt — those shift in ways that are real and worth honoring. A career built around who you were five years ago may simply no longer fit who you are now.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s not failure. That\u0026rsquo;s growth.\nLetting Your Life Lead #The conventional career model asks you to build toward something external — a title, a salary, a level of achievement — and fit your life around it.\nWhat I\u0026rsquo;ve learned, through my own winding path and through years of working with people navigating theirs, is that the better question runs in the other direction: what does my life need right now, and what kind of work fits inside that?\nThat reframe changes everything. It means a \u0026ldquo;step down\u0026rdquo; might actually be a step toward. It means a pivot isn\u0026rsquo;t a failure — it\u0026rsquo;s a recalibration. It means the career that looks unconventional from the outside might be the most intentional one in the room.\nNobody told me a career could look the way mine did.\nI\u0026rsquo;m telling you now: it can look like yours.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re ready to get honest about what your career needs to look like in this season of your life, the Career Freedom Framework is a good place to start.\n","date":"1 April 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/what-if-your-career-followed-your-life-instead-of-leading-it/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"What If Your Career Followed Your Life Instead of Leading It?"},{"content":"I came across this passage in a novel recently, and it stopped me mid-page:\n\u0026ldquo;Working gives us all a sense of accomplishment. In a way it gives us self-worth and brings balance to our lives… Working is more than labor. It\u0026rsquo;s thought and effort, and reward when you\u0026rsquo;re paid… It\u0026rsquo;s self-reliance. Autonomy. It\u0026rsquo;s a boost to confidence. And sometimes pride.\u0026rdquo; — Lori Foster, The Guest Cottage\nSelf-worth. Autonomy. Pride. Confidence.\nThose aren\u0026rsquo;t corporate words. They\u0026rsquo;re identity words. And reading them, I recognized something I hadn\u0026rsquo;t fully named before. For most of my adult life, I had been looking for all four of them in my work.\nWhat I Watched #I started working at fifteen. Growing up in Iowa in the 1970s, that wasn\u0026rsquo;t unusual. My first job was detasseling corn, riding a machine through the fields pulling tassels before pollination. It was hot, physical, unglamorous work. But it was mine.\nGrowing up in that world also showed me something I absorbed without realizing it. Most of the women around me were assigned to the home: to cooking, to cleaning, to taking care of kids. I didn\u0026rsquo;t want to reject any of that. I just knew, somewhere early on, that I didn\u0026rsquo;t want it to be the only thing I did.\nI wanted to be self-reliant. I wanted to build something. I wanted to be capable in the world, on my own terms. Knowing what you don\u0026rsquo;t want is sometimes where the story of who you are actually begins.\nWhat I Chased #What I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize until much later was that I had been building my entire life in reaction to what I\u0026rsquo;d watched as a girl.\nWithout naming it, without choosing it consciously, I had decided: I would make it. On my own. In the business world. The corporate path didn\u0026rsquo;t last long. I needed to own what I built. So I chased that instead.\nAnd it worked.\nI built a career. A business. A reputation. I was productive, capable, in demand. From the outside, it looked like proof.\nExcept somewhere along the way, I stopped being able to tell where the work ended and I began.\nWhat It Cost #Here\u0026rsquo;s the part that took me a long time to see clearly.\nI thought I was choosing my life. And I was — but I was also running from one. The life I had watched as a girl. The life I had quietly decided I would not have.\nI wasn\u0026rsquo;t just building. I was also escaping. And when your work is partly an escape, it takes on a weight it was never meant to carry. It becomes proof. It becomes the whole story.\nThe words in that novel — self-worth, autonomy, pride, confidence — those are good things. Real things. Work can genuinely offer all of them.\nWhen those things only live in your work, you\u0026rsquo;ve handed your identity to something outside yourself — something that can be taken away.\nI finally turned around and looked at what was chasing me.\nIt was me.\nWhat I Know Now #I still want all of those things. Self-worth. Autonomy. Pride. Confidence.\nI just want them to be mine now, not proof of something, not a reaction to something, not an escape from something. Just mine. Rooted in who I actually am, not in what I\u0026rsquo;ve produced or built or achieved.\nThat\u0026rsquo;s a quieter kind of wanting. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t have the urgency of ambition or the momentum of reaction. But it\u0026rsquo;s more honest. And it holds up better when the work slows down, or changes, or ends. It always eventually does.\nWorth sitting with Ambition looks like a choice. Sometimes it\u0026rsquo;s a reaction. Knowing the difference is worth the time it takes to figure out.\nGetting clear on your values — separate from your work and your roles — is one of the most grounding things you can do. The Your Values, Your Season workbook is a good place to start.\n","date":"20 March 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/when-your-work-becomes-your-identity-and-what-it-costs-you/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"When Your Work Becomes Your Identity — And What It Costs You"},{"content":"There\u0026rsquo;s a particular kind of regret that doesn\u0026rsquo;t announce itself loudly.\nIt doesn\u0026rsquo;t arrive as a dramatic mistake or a door that slammed shut. It arrives quietly, years later, when you look back and realize you talked yourself out of something, not because you failed at it, but because of a phrase you read once that you let settle in your chest like a verdict.\nThis is that story.\nThe Part Where It All Made Sense #As a young professional, I had an unexpected opportunity to teach at a local community college. A professor had an emergency and couldn\u0026rsquo;t finish out his semester. I was thrown into a class already four weeks in, expected to pick up where he left off.\nThe first evening felt like a disaster. The professor\u0026rsquo;s plan: he\u0026rsquo;d teach the first class while I observed, then I\u0026rsquo;d turn around and teach the same material to his second class that same night. I said yes, and walked out convinced I\u0026rsquo;d failed.\nThe professor didn\u0026rsquo;t see it that way. He said I\u0026rsquo;d be fine.\nAnd I was. More than fine, actually. I enjoyed those two evening classes for the rest of the semester. The subject was the same work I was doing in my full-time job, material I knew well and cared about. Something clicked into place that hadn\u0026rsquo;t clicked anywhere else.\nI kept teaching part-time at local community colleges for the next five or six years. I was good at it. Students showed up, engaged, learned. I started seriously pondering a move to full-time instruction. I was good at it. Students showed up, engaged, learned. Sometimes the proof is already in your hands — before you know what to do with it.\nThe Part Where I Let It Win #Then, in year six, I read a phrase in an article that stopped me cold.\nThose who can\u0026rsquo;t, teach.\nIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t directed at me. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t even part of a larger argument. It was an offhand line, cultural static that someone had probably repeated so many times it no longer meant anything to whoever wrote it.\nBut I had never heard it before. And it landed like a slap.\nI didn\u0026rsquo;t want people thinking that of me. I knew I loved teaching. I knew I was good at it. But if that\u0026rsquo;s what others would assume, that I was teaching because I couldn\u0026rsquo;t succeed in the real world, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t bear it. So I stepped back. I let the cliché settle into my thinking. I let it quietly kill the dream.\nInstead of moving toward full-time teaching, I stayed in my profession for the next decade. Work I enjoyed. Work I was skilled at. But part of the reason I stayed was just to prove I could. To prove I wasn\u0026rsquo;t someone who couldn\u0026rsquo;t.\nThe bitter irony? I already had five years of proof that I could teach. Students who showed up and learned. A professor who watched me work and said, without hesitation, that I\u0026rsquo;d be fine.\nOne throwaway phrase carried more weight than years of actual results.\nThe Part Where I Finally Saw It #I didn\u0026rsquo;t pursue teaching and training full-time until I was in my 40s. After going back to school for a degree in digital design, I knew I wanted to train others in the field. I landed a full-time position as a college instructor, and I loved it. The students, the other instructors, the connection to the broader community. It led to a side hustle I\u0026rsquo;d been dreaming about for years.\nEventually I moved into corporate training, which I loved just as much.\nAnd I was grateful. But gratitude has a shadow side. It makes you wonder how much sooner you could have been here.\nCould I have moved into corporate training a decade earlier? Could I have become known for my expertise in a way that compounded over time? Could I have built something — workshops, training programs, a reputation — that took a very different shape?\nMaybe. Probably.\nAt some point, though, you stop counting the cost and start asking how it happened.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what I finally saw: I had spent over ten years proving something to people who never thought about me twice. People who had almost certainly forgotten that phrase the moment it left their mouths. I caught it like a cold, let it settle in, and built a decade of decisions around it.\nThe cliché wasn\u0026rsquo;t wisdom. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t even aimed at me. It was noise that I mistook for truth.\nWhat I Want You to Take From This #You probably have your own version of this story. A phrase someone said, or didn\u0026rsquo;t say. An assumption you absorbed so gradually you can\u0026rsquo;t remember when it arrived. A door you stopped walking toward, not because it was locked, but because someone\u0026rsquo;s offhand comment made you wonder if you deserved to open it.\nHere\u0026rsquo;s what I know now that I wish I\u0026rsquo;d known then:\nOther people\u0026rsquo;s words only have the power you hand them.\nThe delay I experienced wasn\u0026rsquo;t protection. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t wisdom or humility or being realistic. It was just lost time.\nI already had the proof. I already had the experience, the results, the instinct that knew. What I didn\u0026rsquo;t have was the willingness to trust what was already in my hands more than I trusted the noise around me.\nWorth remembering You don\u0026rsquo;t need more credentials. You don\u0026rsquo;t need more proof. You need to trust what\u0026rsquo;s already inside you, more than you trust the crowd, the clichés, and the voices that were never really talking about you in the first place.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re sitting with a dream you\u0026rsquo;ve been talking yourself out of, the Career Freedom Framework is a good place to start getting honest about what you actually want — and what\u0026rsquo;s been standing in the way.\n","date":"15 March 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/the-dream-i-talked-myself-out-of-and-what-it-actually-cost/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"The Dream I Talked Myself Out Of (And What It Actually Cost)"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/career-journey/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Career-Journey"},{"content":"Somewhere along the way, most of us absorbed an idea about careers that goes something like this: figure out where you want to end up, map the steps to get there, and execute the plan.\nDirector. VP. Business owner. Whatever the destination, the goal was to have one, pursue it, and measure your progress against it.\nI followed that model for a while. And then my career started doing something the model didn\u0026rsquo;t account for: it kept changing. Not because I failed, but because I kept growing. And growth, it turns out, rarely travels in a straight line.\nWhat I Thought I Knew at 22 #When I graduated from college, I had a plan. I knew what kind of job I wanted: computer programming felt like the right fit, a skill-based career in a field that was clearly going somewhere.\nWhat I didn\u0026rsquo;t know was what actually working that job would feel like.\nThe role was fine. The work was interesting enough. But I found myself in a basement, literally. In those days, corporations often housed their IT departments in basement offices to keep the big computer machines cool. The programmers went with them.\nIt sounds like a small thing. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t, for me. I needed natural light, movement, interaction. I needed to see that my work connected to something larger than the code on the screen. The basement, day after day, quietly told me something important about who I was and what kind of environment I actually needed to do my best work.\nThat wasn\u0026rsquo;t in the plan. But it was useful information.\nHow the Journey Actually Unfolded #As I understood the business world better, I started to see more options, and to realize I wanted experiences beyond the corporate environment I\u0026rsquo;d started in.\nOne job led to another. Each one taught me something new about what I needed, what I was good at, and what I wanted more of. Over time, the path wound through a community college, a classroom where I discovered I loved teaching, a return to school for a design degree, freelance work, and eventually a business of my own.\nNone of that was in the plan I had at 22. Some of it — owning my own business — I had imagined, but the reality turned out nothing like what I\u0026rsquo;d pictured. Looking back, I\u0026rsquo;m genuinely glad about that.\nThe career wasn\u0026rsquo;t moving toward a destination. It was revealing itself.\nEach step gave me more information about who I was and what kind of work actually fit me, and that information shaped the next step. That\u0026rsquo;s not the same as wandering. It\u0026rsquo;s navigation. But it requires a different mindset than destination-thinking allows.\nThe Problem With Destination Thinking #When you treat your career as a destination, every detour feels like a failure.\nA lateral move looks like a step backward. A pivot into a new field looks like starting over. Taking a contract role instead of a full-time one looks like instability. Going back to school in your 30s looks like falling behind.\nNone of those things are failures. They\u0026rsquo;re information. They\u0026rsquo;re the journey doing what journeys do: teaching you things you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have known before you took the step. None of it is failure. It\u0026rsquo;s the journey doing what journeys do — teaching you things you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have known before you took the step.\nThe professionals I\u0026rsquo;ve worked with over the years who struggled most weren\u0026rsquo;t the ones with the unconventional paths. They were the ones who measured every unconventional step against the straight-line plan they\u0026rsquo;d made years earlier, and found themselves falling short of a destination they\u0026rsquo;d outgrown.\nWhat Journey Thinking Looks Like Instead #Shifting from destination thinking to journey thinking doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean abandoning direction. It means holding your direction loosely enough to let it evolve.\nIn practice, it looks something like this:\nInstead of asking where do I want to end up? — ask what does the next right step look like from here? You don\u0026rsquo;t have to see the whole path. You just have to see far enough to take the next step.\nInstead of measuring progress against a fixed endpoint, measure it against alignment. Are you doing work that fits who you actually are: your values, your strengths, the environment where you come alive? Are you moving toward more of that, or less?\nAnd when something unexpected opens up: a role you didn\u0026rsquo;t plan for, a skill you discover you love, an opportunity that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fit the plan — ask what it\u0026rsquo;s telling you about yourself before you decide whether to take it.\nThe path you couldn\u0026rsquo;t have predicted at 22 is often the one that ends up fitting best.\nThe Career You Couldn\u0026rsquo;t Have Planned #I couldn\u0026rsquo;t have mapped my career from a college graduation stage. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know enough yet. About the working world, about what I needed, about who I actually was.\nNobody does.\nThe twists and turns I didn\u0026rsquo;t expect: the basement that sent me looking for something different, the teaching that clicked in ways nothing else had, the degree I went back for in my late 30s that most people thought was unnecessary — those weren\u0026rsquo;t detours from the real career. They were the real career. They were how it got built.\nYour career isn\u0026rsquo;t a destination you haven\u0026rsquo;t reached yet. It\u0026rsquo;s a journey that\u0026rsquo;s already underway, teaching you things with every step you take.\nA better question The question isn\u0026rsquo;t whether you\u0026rsquo;re on track. The question is whether you\u0026rsquo;re paying attention.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re trying to get clearer on what your next step should look like, the Career Freedom Framework can help you work through it — starting with what actually matters to you, not just what the plan says.\n","date":"10 March 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/your-career-was-never-supposed-to-be-a-straight-line/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Your Career Was Never Supposed to Be a Straight Line"},{"content":"At some point, you look up and realize the people around you seem to be moving. Building something. Serving their community. Documenting purposeful, productive, meaningful moments of their very full lives.\nAnd you\u0026rsquo;re just\u0026hellip; here. Maybe in transition. Maybe in a quiet stretch. Maybe in a season that doesn\u0026rsquo;t have a clear shape yet.\nAnd somewhere in the back of your mind, a question forms: Am I falling behind?\nIt\u0026rsquo;s worth asking a different question entirely.\nLanding Without a Map #A few months ago, my husband and I pulled into Ashland, Oregon — the end of a 10-week road trip that wound through the Florida panhandle, across the Gulf Coast, up through Austin, into Tulsa, then west through Phoenix, then San Diego, and the Bay Area. Behind us: six years of caring for my aging parents in Iowa, and a house we\u0026rsquo;d sold to make the move possible. Ahead of us: a camper van still in Phoenix, Oregon driver\u0026rsquo;s licenses that didn\u0026rsquo;t exist yet, and no permanent address.\nThat first morning in Ashland, I made green tea and sat by the window looking at the mountains. No agenda. No next destination. Just quiet.\nAnd I felt uncomfortable.\nWhich is a strange thing to feel when you\u0026rsquo;re exactly where you chose to be.\nI kept asking myself: Is this okay? As if stillness required justification. As if the absence of a visible goal meant something was wrong.\nIt took me a while to recognize what was actually happening. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t lost. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t behind. I was in a season I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a name for yet. Stillness doesn\u0026rsquo;t require justification. Sometimes you\u0026rsquo;re not lost — you\u0026rsquo;re just in a season you haven\u0026rsquo;t named yet.\nThe World Has No Framework for Quiet #There\u0026rsquo;s a particular kind of discomfort that comes not from struggle, but from stillness.\nNobody prepares you for it. The world has a framework for motion, for grinding toward goals, showing up for others, making yourself useful in ways everyone can see. Even when you\u0026rsquo;re genuinely at peace with your own pace, comparison creeps in quietly. Someone your age is launching something. Someone else is leading a community initiative. Another person\u0026rsquo;s life looks full and purposeful and deliberate from every angle.\nThe problem isn\u0026rsquo;t that you\u0026rsquo;re lost. The problem is that you\u0026rsquo;re in a season the culture doesn\u0026rsquo;t have good language for. And without language, we borrow other people\u0026rsquo;s frameworks. We measure a quiet season against a doing season and decide we\u0026rsquo;re behind.\nBut what if you\u0026rsquo;re not behind? What if you\u0026rsquo;re just in a different chapter?\nEvery Season Has a Name #Here\u0026rsquo;s what nobody tells you: every season has a name. We just stopped learning them.\nWe know the obvious ones. Seasons of building, of raising kids, of working toward something big. But life offers a much wider range than that. Seasons of waiting. Seasons of grief. Seasons of transition, where you\u0026rsquo;re no longer what you were but not yet what you\u0026rsquo;re becoming. Seasons of wandering, sometimes literally, with a camper van in Phoenix and a temporary address in a state you just moved to.\nThe trouble isn\u0026rsquo;t the season. The trouble is arriving in one without recognizing it for what it is. So we do what humans do when something feels unfamiliar: we diagnose it. We call it drift. We call it laziness. We call it falling behind.\nBut what if it\u0026rsquo;s none of those things? What if it\u0026rsquo;s just a season you haven\u0026rsquo;t named yet?\nA named thing is no longer a problem. It\u0026rsquo;s just where you are.\nA Few Seasons Worth Recognizing #Not every season announces itself. Some arrive quietly, without a clear start date or even an obvious shape. But naming them, even loosely, changes how you carry them.\nSeason of Transition You\u0026rsquo;re no longer what you were, but not yet what you\u0026rsquo;re becoming. Everything feels temporary because it is. This season is uncomfortable precisely because it\u0026rsquo;s working. Something is being shed so something else can take shape.\nSeason of Caregiving This one has a particular kind of exhaustion. You show up every day for someone else\u0026rsquo;s life while your own waits quietly in the background. It\u0026rsquo;s relentless and tender and meaningful in ways you only fully recognize once it\u0026rsquo;s over. If you\u0026rsquo;ve lived it, you know. If you\u0026rsquo;re in it, hang on.\nSeason of Belonging The season where people show up. Friendships deepen, community forms around something shared, a work environment becomes a genuine home. These seasons are easy to take for granted until they\u0026rsquo;re over.\nSeason of Grief The weight has a shape. You know what you\u0026rsquo;ve lost: a person, a role, a version of yourself. You just don\u0026rsquo;t know yet what comes next. This season doesn\u0026rsquo;t resolve on a schedule, and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t care about your five-year plan.\nSeason of Stillness This is the one the culture least understands. Nothing dramatic is happening. You\u0026rsquo;re not building or achieving or grinding. You\u0026rsquo;re just present. Quiet. Looking at mountains with green tea in hand. It feels unproductive. It rarely is.\nOne more thing worth knowing: you\u0026rsquo;re rarely in just one season at a time. Grief and transition can occupy the same year. Caregiving and becoming can happen simultaneously. Seasons don\u0026rsquo;t wait their turn.\nName It Anyway #So what do you do with all of this?\nName it. Not for anyone else, not to justify your pace or explain your choices or defend your quiet morning. Just for yourself.\nA named thing is no longer a problem. It\u0026rsquo;s a season. And seasons, by definition, don\u0026rsquo;t last forever. Which is both the comfort and the urgency.\nThe world keeps moving. Someone will always be building something, serving someone, documenting their very full life. That noise doesn\u0026rsquo;t go away.\nA better question You stop asking am I doing enough and start asking is this what this season asks of me? Those are very different questions. One keeps you anxious. The other keeps you honest.\nYou\u0026rsquo;ve lived enough seasons to know they all have something to teach — the loud ones and the quiet ones, the purposeful ones and the ones that looked from the outside like nothing much was happening.\nNone of them were wasted.\nYou might be in one of those seasons right now.\nName it anyway.\nThe Your Values, Your Season workbook is designed to help you identify not just your values, but the season of life you\u0026rsquo;re currently in — and what that season might be asking of you.\n","date":"1 March 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/youre-not-falling-behind-youre-between-chapters/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"You're Not Falling Behind — You're Between Chapters"},{"content":"We tend to think of starting over as something heavy.\nLosing a job, a career, a role you\u0026rsquo;ve held for decades. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel like opportunity. It feels like loss. Like the ground has shifted beneath you and you\u0026rsquo;re not sure where to put your feet.\nI understand that feeling. And I don\u0026rsquo;t want to minimize it.\nBut I also want to offer a different frame. One that I\u0026rsquo;ve seen play out in my own life and in the lives of people I\u0026rsquo;ve watched navigate some significant reinventions. Because sometimes what looks like an ending is actually the beginning of the chapter that fits you best.\nThe Lightness of Being a Beginner Again #There\u0026rsquo;s a quote I keep coming back to: \u0026ldquo;Let the heaviness of being successful be replaced with the lightness of being a beginner again.\u0026rdquo;\nThink about what it felt like as a kid to discover something new for the first time. No pressure to be perfect. No reputation to protect. Just curiosity, and the pure experience of learning. There was a lightness to it, an openness that expertise, over time, tends to close off.\nWe don\u0026rsquo;t usually associate starting over with that feeling. We associate it with failure, with going backward, with having to prove ourselves all over again.\nBut what if that\u0026rsquo;s backwards? What if the beginner\u0026rsquo;s position — uncertain, unproven, wide open — is actually one of the most generative places you can be?\nI got a small taste of this when I shifted from instructional design into writing. I went from being the person who knew how things worked: the systems, the processes, the stakeholders; to staring at a blank page, unsure how to capture attention or tell a story that would hold someone\u0026rsquo;s interest. I was no longer the expert. I was the student.\nIt was uncomfortable. It was also quietly exciting. I didn\u0026rsquo;t have to know everything. I just had to learn.\nWhen the Change Isn\u0026rsquo;t Your Choice #Not every new chapter starts by choice. Sometimes it starts with a pink slip, a diagnosis, a loss, or a life circumstance that rearranges everything.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve watched people I love navigate this.\nMy sister lost her spouse and had to build an entirely new daily life without the person who had shaped so much of it. A friend received a health diagnosis that made full-time work impossible and had to reimagine what meaningful contribution could look like within new constraints. My husband and I restructured our work lives around caring for aging parents: cutting back hours, shifting to remote and contract work, trading the career trajectory we\u0026rsquo;d expected for something slower and more present.\nNone of these were chosen. All of them, in time, opened something.\nThat doesn\u0026rsquo;t make the loss smaller. But it does mean the loss isn\u0026rsquo;t the whole story. The loss isn\u0026rsquo;t the whole story. It never is.\nWorking Within What\u0026rsquo;s Real #One thing worth saying plainly: starting over rarely happens with unlimited options.\nFamily responsibilities shape what\u0026rsquo;s possible. Financial realities narrow the field. Time, health, geography — these are real constraints, not excuses. And the pressure to reinvent yourself as if none of those things exist can make the whole process feel even more impossible than it already is.\nConstraints don\u0026rsquo;t prevent reinvention. They shape it. And sometimes the shape they create is more genuinely you than the wide-open version would have been.\nWhen I restructured my work around caregiving, I didn\u0026rsquo;t get to pursue every opportunity. But I got to be present for something that mattered more. The constraints clarified my priorities in ways that freedom hadn\u0026rsquo;t.\nThe Story That Changed How I Think About This #The example I come back to most when I think about reinvention at midlife is someone close to me — my friend\u0026rsquo;s husband.\nAfter thirty years at the same company, he was asked to resign. Thirty years. The kind of tenure that becomes part of your identity, that shapes how you introduce yourself, that you assume will continue until you decide it doesn\u0026rsquo;t.\nAt sixty-two, he could have decided the story was over. He could have retired before he was ready, or taken the first available thing just to have something. Instead, he gave himself a few months. He explored different industries, tried on different roles, waited for something that actually fit rather than just something that filled the gap.\nIt took three or four months of re-evaluating, trying different things, and sitting with uncertainty.\nAnd then he landed somewhere new — a different field, a different industry, applying skills he\u0026rsquo;d built over thirty years in a context that felt genuinely energizing. At sixty-two.\nHe didn\u0026rsquo;t go back to what he\u0026rsquo;d had. He went forward to something he hadn\u0026rsquo;t expected. And by his own account, he\u0026rsquo;s thriving.\nRemember this At sixty-two, after thirty years, he waited for something that actually fit rather than just something that filled the gap. The story wasn\u0026rsquo;t over. It was just between chapters.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s Next Might Be Better #I don\u0026rsquo;t say this as a platitude. I say it because I\u0026rsquo;ve seen it — in my own life, and in the lives of people who had every reason to believe the best was behind them.\nStarting over is uncomfortable. It asks things of you that staying put never does. It requires tolerating uncertainty, releasing the identity you\u0026rsquo;d built, and trusting that the skills and experiences you carry are portable even when the context changes entirely.\nBut success was never really about holding onto the past. It\u0026rsquo;s about adapting — bringing who you are into what comes next.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re in a transition right now, whether chosen or forced, here\u0026rsquo;s what I want you to hold onto: the story isn\u0026rsquo;t over. You\u0026rsquo;re just in the part where the next chapter is being written.\nWhat\u0026rsquo;s ahead may surprise you.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re navigating a career transition and want a structured way to think through what comes next, the Career Freedom Framework is a good place to start.\n","date":"20 February 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/starting-over-isnt-the-end-of-the-story-its-a-new-chapter/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Starting Over Isn't the End of the Story — It's a New Chapter"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/tags/starting-over/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Starting-Over"},{"content":"Something is stirring inside you.\nMaybe it\u0026rsquo;s been there for a while, a low hum you\u0026rsquo;ve learned to work around. You stay busy. You keep moving. And as long as you keep moving, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to sit with the question underneath it all: what is this actually about?\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been there. Most people who eventually build lives that feel genuinely like their own have been there. The restlessness isn\u0026rsquo;t a problem. It\u0026rsquo;s a signal. And the longer we bury it under busyness, the longer we delay discovering what it\u0026rsquo;s pointing toward.\nHere are ten ways to stop running from the restlessness and start actually listening to it.\n1. Be honest about what you\u0026rsquo;re feeling. #This sounds obvious. It rarely is.\nWhen restlessness shows up, our first instinct is often to explain it away. It\u0026rsquo;s just stress. It\u0026rsquo;s just a hard season. It\u0026rsquo;ll pass. Sometimes that\u0026rsquo;s true. But when the feeling is consistent, recurring, and won\u0026rsquo;t quite leave you alone, it\u0026rsquo;s worth taking seriously.\nStart by asking: What is really bothering me? Write it down. Say it out loud. Don\u0026rsquo;t filter it for reasonableness. Just get honest.\n2. Stop — really stop. #You can\u0026rsquo;t hear what\u0026rsquo;s underneath the restlessness if you never slow down enough to listen.\nStopping looks different for everyone. A long walk. A weekend away. An evening with no phone and no agenda. Whatever it is for you, find it. And protect it. The restlessness often gets louder before it gets clearer, and that requires space you can\u0026rsquo;t find in the middle of a full schedule.\n3. Write without editing. #Get a notebook, not a productivity tool, just a plain notebook, and write. Don\u0026rsquo;t worry about it making sense or being legible or going anywhere. Just write whatever comes to mind.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve found that the first page or two is usually noise: the to-do list, the worries, the mental clutter. But somewhere after that, a quieter voice starts to come through. That voice has things to say that don\u0026rsquo;t surface any other way.\nIf you can, try writing three pages a day for a week. The goal isn\u0026rsquo;t to produce anything. The goal is to clear enough space to hear yourself. The goal isn\u0026rsquo;t to produce anything. The goal is to clear enough space to hear yourself.\n4. Talk to someone who really knows you. #Not someone who will immediately try to fix it. Someone who will listen, ask good questions, and reflect back what they\u0026rsquo;re hearing.\nAsk them: What do you see in me that I might not be seeing in myself right now? Their answer might surprise you. The people closest to us often notice patterns we\u0026rsquo;ve been living inside too long to recognize.\n5. Don\u0026rsquo;t be in a hurry. #The restlessness can create an urgency that pushes us to resolve it quickly: to just decide something, anything, to make the feeling stop.\nResist that. Rushing past the restlessness without understanding it usually just lands you in a different version of the same place a year or two later. Take your time. The unsettledness is doing something. Let it finish.\n6. Embrace it rather than fighting it. #This is a shift in perspective that makes everything else easier.\nInstead of treating the restlessness as something to get rid of, treat it as something that\u0026rsquo;s helping you understand yourself more fully. The things that make us restless: the constraints, the misalignments, the quiet sense that something is off — tell us a great deal about what we actually value and who we actually are.\nThe restlessness isn\u0026rsquo;t the enemy. It\u0026rsquo;s information.\n7. Let yourself feel the frustration. #Sometimes the restlessness builds into something that feels more like frustration or even anger at yourself, at your situation, at how long this has been going on.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t swallow that. Find a safe, private place to let it out. Go for a hard run. Write it out in language you\u0026rsquo;d never publish. Cry if you need to. The frustration often sits right on top of the clarity. Once you move through it, what\u0026rsquo;s underneath tends to become visible.\n8. Let go of \u0026ldquo;normal.\u0026rdquo; #One of the quieter ways we talk ourselves out of listening to restlessness is by comparing ourselves to people who seem to have no restlessness at all. People who seem content with the conventional path, unbothered by the questions that won\u0026rsquo;t leave us alone.\nBut the people who build deeply meaningful lives, who do the work they were made to do, are almost never the people who settled for normal. The restlessness isn\u0026rsquo;t a flaw. It\u0026rsquo;s part of what makes you who you are.\n9. Move your body. #This one is practical and it works.\nExercise releases tension, clears the mental noise, and creates a kind of physical quiet that makes it easier to hear yourself. It doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to be intense: a long walk, a swim, a bike ride. Movement has a way of loosening things that sitting still can\u0026rsquo;t reach.\n10. Stay steady while it works itself out. #The deeper the restlessness, the more tempting it is to make a dramatic move just to feel like something is happening. Quit the job. Move to another city. Blow everything up and start over.\nSometimes those moves are exactly right. But they\u0026rsquo;re most right when they come from clarity, not from desperation. Stay with the process — writing, stopping, talking, listening — until what needs to emerge has actually emerged.\nImportant The decision will still be there when you\u0026rsquo;re ready for it. You\u0026rsquo;ll make it better from a grounded place than from the middle of the storm.\nWhat You Might Find on the Other Side #As you work through these steps (and you may need to circle back through them more than once) what surfaces might surprise you.\nThe restlessness might be about a relationship. A career that has quietly expired. A creative part of you that hasn\u0026rsquo;t had room to breathe. A value you\u0026rsquo;ve been living against without realizing it.\nWhatever it is, it\u0026rsquo;s worth finding. Because what\u0026rsquo;s underneath the restlessness is almost always something essential. Something that, once named and honored, helps you live more fully and more like yourself.\nIf the restlessness you\u0026rsquo;re feeling is connected to your work, the Career Freedom Framework can help you get specific about what you want — and what\u0026rsquo;s been standing in the way. If it feels more like a life question, start with Your Values, Your Season.\n","date":"15 February 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/ten-ways-to-stop-running-from-the-restlessness-and-start-listening/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Ten Ways to Stop Running From the Restlessness and Start Listening"},{"content":"You know the feeling. You\u0026rsquo;re not miserable, but you\u0026rsquo;re not energized either. Going to work feels heavy. The role you\u0026rsquo;re in doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem connected to where you actually want to go, or who you actually are.\nYou\u0026rsquo;re ready for something different. But the timing isn\u0026rsquo;t there yet.\nSo what do you do in the meantime?\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been in that place more than once. And I\u0026rsquo;ve worked with professionals who were stuck there too. Capable. Self-aware. People who had outgrown their current role but couldn\u0026rsquo;t yet make the leap. What I\u0026rsquo;ve found, both personally and through coaching others, is that even a job that no longer fits has something left to give.\nThe question is whether you\u0026rsquo;re looking for it.\nThe Client Who Couldn\u0026rsquo;t Find the Point #A few years ago I worked with a client who had completely lost meaning in his day-to-day work. Going to the office each morning felt heavy. He couldn\u0026rsquo;t see any connection between what he did every day and what he actually wanted to do with his life.\nAfter several weeks of working together, we came to an honest conclusion: his ideal career path probably had very little to do with his current job. The work itself wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to become meaningful in the way he was hoping.\nBut here\u0026rsquo;s what we also found: by exploring his values and priorities carefully, we were able to identify what I started calling \u0026ldquo;nuggets\u0026rdquo;: specific aspects of his current role that could serve him well if he approached them intentionally. Skills he could develop. Situations he could learn from. Relationships he could build. Ways he could use this stop on the journey to prepare himself for the destination.\nNothing changed about his job. What changed was his perspective on it. Instead of a dead end, it became a waypoint.\nThat shift made it possible for him to show up differently. Not with manufactured enthusiasm, but with genuine purpose: the purpose of someone using their time well.\nWhat Your Current Job Is Still Teaching You #One of the most useful questions I\u0026rsquo;ve ever asked myself, especially in roles I was ready to leave, is this: What am I learning about myself here that I didn\u0026rsquo;t know before?\nIt sounds simple. But it reorients everything.\nEvery job, even one you\u0026rsquo;ve outgrown, is giving you information. About the kind of work that energizes you and the kind that drains you. About the environments where you do your best thinking and the ones where you go quiet. About the people you work well alongside and the dynamics that bring out the worst in you.\nNone of that is wasted, if you\u0026rsquo;re paying attention.\nHere are some questions worth sitting with:\nWhere am I using my strengths in this role, even in small ways? Where could I be using them more?\nWhat is this job teaching me about the kind of work environment I actually need?\nWhat skills am I developing here — even inadvertently — that will matter in what comes next?\nWhat have I learned about the kind of people I work best with, or the leadership styles I thrive under?\nWhat would I do differently in my next role, based on what I\u0026rsquo;ve experienced here?\nStart a running document. Call it your Career Path file and write down what you\u0026rsquo;re learning. Not complaints. Discoveries. There\u0026rsquo;s a difference, and the discipline of looking for discoveries rather than just cataloguing frustrations will change how you experience the work.\nStaying Grounded While You Wait #The other thing that helped me most during seasons when I was ready for what was next but couldn\u0026rsquo;t yet get there was something I started calling mantras. Short, honest reminders of who I was and where I was headed.\nNot hollow affirmations, repeat-until-you-believe-it sense. More like anchors. Phrases that kept me tethered to my own sense of direction when the day-to-day felt disconnected from it.\nFor me it was things like make the most of today or a brief statement of what I was working toward and why. Two or three sentences, read aloud every morning as part of my routine. It sounds small. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t.\nWhen you\u0026rsquo;re in a role that doesn\u0026rsquo;t fully fit, it\u0026rsquo;s easy to let the job define how you feel about yourself. The mantras were a way of reminding myself that the job wasn\u0026rsquo;t the whole story. I knew who I was and where I was going, even when the current chapter didn\u0026rsquo;t reflect it yet.\nTry This What would your mantra be? What do you need to remind yourself of on the days when the work feels pointless? Write two or three sentences. Read them aloud tomorrow morning.\nWrite them down. Put them somewhere you\u0026rsquo;ll see them. Let them do their work.\nMaking the Most of the Stop You\u0026rsquo;re At #Here\u0026rsquo;s the reframe that helped my client most, and that I\u0026rsquo;ve come back to many times since: every job is a stop on a longer journey. The stop you\u0026rsquo;re at right now, even if it\u0026rsquo;s not where you want to be, has something to offer if you\u0026rsquo;re willing to look for it.\nSkills to develop. Situations to learn from. Clarity about what you want more of and what you want less of. A track record that tells the next chapter\u0026rsquo;s story. Time to prepare while you wait for the right door to open.\nYou don\u0026rsquo;t have to love where you are to use it well.\nAnd using it well, showing up with intention, extracting what\u0026rsquo;s there, building toward what\u0026rsquo;s next — is one of the most underrated forms of momentum there is. Using a stop on the journey well — showing up with intention, building toward what\u0026rsquo;s next — is one of the most underrated forms of momentum there is.\nIf you\u0026rsquo;re ready to get clear on what \u0026ldquo;what\u0026rsquo;s next\u0026rdquo; actually looks like for you, the Career Freedom Framework is designed to walk you through exactly that — starting with your values and ending with a concrete picture of the career that actually fits.\n","date":"10 February 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/how-to-find-purpose-in-a-job-that-no-longer-fits/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"How to Find Purpose in a Job That No Longer Fits"},{"content":"Most people don\u0026rsquo;t wake up one day and suddenly realize something is wrong.\nIt shows up slowly. A restlessness that comes and goes. A low-grade irritation that doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem to belong anywhere specific. A thought you brush aside because it feels ungrateful or inconvenient: There has to be something more than this.\nSometimes it turns into resentment. Toward a person, or a path, or advice you once trusted and followed in good faith. You don\u0026rsquo;t make a big deal of it. You keep going.\nBecause on the surface, things look fine.\nA Life That Looks Fine #I know this place well.\nFor a long time, my life followed a clear and reasonable path. College. Graduation. Job. Each step made sense at the time. It fit the expectations around me, and for a while, it fit me too.\nUntil it didn\u0026rsquo;t.\nNothing fell apart. There was no dramatic turning point. I simply began to notice a quiet dissatisfaction. A question kept surfacing, not loud or urgent, just persistent: Is this really it?\nUp until then, the next step had always been defined for me. There was comfort in that. When that clarity disappeared, I felt something I hadn\u0026rsquo;t been prepared for. I didn\u0026rsquo;t know what came next, and more unsettling, I wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure how to decide.\nThat was the moment I began to realize how little I actually knew about myself.\nWhen Certainty Runs Out #Many of us are taught how to move forward, how to succeed, how to meet expectations. We are far less practiced at listening inward.\nSo when something starts to feel off, we tend to treat it as a problem to fix rather than a signal to understand. We call it a phase. Or burnout. Or stress. We wait for it to pass.\nBut discomfort is often trying to tell us something. And paying attention, really paying attention, can be profoundly clarifying.\nI\u0026rsquo;ve had seasons where my work felt genuinely meaningful, and other seasons where my life felt crowded in the wrong way. During one stretch, there was little time or energy left for friendships, rest, or simply being. The work wasn\u0026rsquo;t bad. But too much of my life had been consumed by it. Something in me knew a change was needed, even before I could name what kind of change.\nAt another point, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand why work that once engaged me had become draining. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t especially difficult. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t even unpleasant. It was simply repetitive, and left almost no room for creativity. When I finally recognized how essential creativity was to me, the dissatisfaction made complete sense. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t failing. I wasn\u0026rsquo;t burnt out. I was misaligned.\nThe Cost of Misalignment #That distinction matters.\nWhen we confuse misalignment with failure, we try to fix the wrong thing. We push harder. We tell ourselves to be grateful. We wonder what\u0026rsquo;s wrong with us.\nWhen parts of our lives no longer line up with what actually matters to us, a quiet restlessness begins to take hold. Gradually it becomes hard to ignore. That restlessness is not a flaw in your character. It is your own inner wisdom trying to get your attention.\nThere is a wisdom inside us that doesn\u0026rsquo;t demand attention. It waits. It nudges. It speaks softly in a world that is already loud.\nLearning to Hear It Again #Hearing that inner voice again usually requires space. Not a vacation or a weekend away (although those can help), but small, intentional acts of slowing down.\nSpace to write without an agenda. Space to walk without distraction. Space to make something for no other reason than it feels right.\nThe clues are often smaller than we expect. The things we\u0026rsquo;re drawn to. The environments that calm us. The conversations that light us up and the ones that quietly drain us. These aren\u0026rsquo;t trivial preferences. They are data.\nOur emotional reactions are data too. What makes us angry? What moves us unexpectedly to tears? What do we keep thinking about long after we\u0026rsquo;ve read or watched or heard it? These reactions point toward what matters to us, even when we haven\u0026rsquo;t yet named it.\nNoticing who we admire can also be instructive, not so much their accomplishments, but the qualities they embody. Their way of being in the world. Often, what we admire in others reflects something we long to express ourselves.\nAnd sometimes, we need another person to walk alongside us for a while. Someone who can gently reflect back what they see, or help us notice what we\u0026rsquo;ve been living with but not fully acknowledging. What we admire in others is often a reflection of something we long to express in ourselves.\nNot Lost — Just Disconnected # Worth knowing Most people in this place aren\u0026rsquo;t lost. They\u0026rsquo;re disconnected — from what actually matters to them, from the thread of who they were made to be.\nThe restlessness you feel isn\u0026rsquo;t a problem to push through or a phase to wait out. It may be an invitation to slow down, to pay attention, to listen more closely.\nAnd in the listening, to discover the direction you need to go.\nIf this resonates, a good place to start is getting clear on your values — not the values you\u0026rsquo;ve inherited or performed, but the ones that are genuinely yours. The Your Values, Your Season workbook is designed for exactly that.\n","date":"1 February 2026","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/posts/when-life-looks-fine-but-feels-all-wrong/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"When Life Looks Fine But Feels All Wrong"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/products/","section":"Products","summary":"","title":"Products"},{"content":"test product description goes here\n","date":"31 January 2024","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/product/test-product/","section":"Products","summary":"","title":"Test product"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/categories/uncategorized/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Uncategorized"},{"content":"Create a winning resume as a career changer going into UX/UI\n","date":"20 September 2023","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/product/resume-writing-workshop/","section":"Products","summary":"","title":"Resume Writing Workshop"},{"content":"You have less than 5 minutes to capture their attention. How does your online portfolio hold up?\nIn addition to showcasing your best work and the value you bring, your portfolio is your opportunity to display your style and brand.\nThis review will answer the following questions:\nIs your portfolio relevant, up-to-date, and does it showcase your skills and abilities effectively? Is your role and the problem you are solving obvious in your case studies? Does your portfolio show iterations of your design/work, and explain why? Is your style and brand on display in your portfolio? In addition, your portfolio will be evaluated on content, design, organization, and case studies/projects.\nI will email you feedback and actionable steps to make your portfolio stand out even more! Allow 2-5 business days for the review.\nNOTE: This is not a live collaborative process. There are no phone calls or video chats. You are welcome to add any questions or comments about your online portfolio when you order this service. Plus, you can respond via email with any questions you have after receiving my feedback. If your resume is a part of your online portfolio and you want your resume reviewed, please purchase a Resume Review.\n","date":"11 February 2023","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/product/portfolio-review/","section":"Products","summary":"","title":"Portfolio Review"},{"content":"Land your next UX/UI job by showcasing a strong LinkedIn profile.\nDoes your LinkedIn profile highlight your skills and experience as it relates to your next job?\nAre you sharing the relevant experience and value you bring to the table? Are recruiters reaching out to you?\nLet\u0026rsquo;s make your LinkedIn profile shine!\nI will evaluate your LinkedIn profile and provide personalized, actionable tips to optimize your LinkedIn profile. This includes evaluating each section, including:\nBanner Headline Contact Info About Feature Section Experience Education Recommendations Expect my review to be in your inbox in 2-5 business days.\nNOTE: This is not a live collaborative process. There are no phone calls or video chats. You are welcome to add any questions or comments about your LinkedIn profile when you order this service. Plus, you can respond via email with any questions you have after receiving my feedback.\n","date":"11 February 2023","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/product/linkedin-profile-review/","section":"Products","summary":"","title":"LinkedIn Profile Review"},{"content":"Is your resume being noticed? Are you getting interviews? Let\u0026rsquo;s make it happen!\nSubmit your resume just like you were applying for a job. I will review it as if I\u0026rsquo;m the recruiter. Having evaluated hundreds of resumes, I understand what\u0026rsquo;s needed to stand out from the crowd.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll assess your resume as it pertains to the job you are targeting. (You must include a job posting that best matches your desired position.)\nYou\u0026rsquo;ll not only get my feedback, but you\u0026rsquo;ll also gain clarity on your skills and value. You\u0026rsquo;ll better understand what you bring to the table.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll evaluate your resume on:\nalignment to the position you are seeking content overall effectiveness I will email you to let you know what you did well, what can be improved upon, and actionable suggestions to improve your resume. Allow 2-5 business days for the review.\nNOTE: This is not a live collaborative process. There are no phone calls or video chats. You are welcome to add any questions or comments about your resume when you order this service. Plus, you can respond via email with any questions you have after receiving my feedback.\n","date":"11 February 2023","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/product/resume-review/","section":"Products","summary":"","title":"Resume Review"},{"content":" About Carma\nI didn't figure this out at 25.\nThat's what makes it useful. I spent my 30s, 40s, and 50s making deliberate, unconventional choices — navigating career pivots, creative detours, and the slow work of figuring out what I was actually designed for.\nMost of what you read about careers and purpose is written by people who figured it out early and packaged it neatly. That's not my story. Mine took longer, wandered more, and cost more to learn.\nI've been an employee, a contractor, a freelancer, and a business owner. I've worked in tech, design, education, and consulting. I've had roles that looked impressive on paper and felt hollow inside them — and roles that looked modest and lit me up. Over time I got better at telling the difference, and at understanding why.\nThe question that changed everything for me wasn't \"what's next?\" It was \"when do I actually feel alive doing this?\" Those aren't the same question. And the gap between them turned out to matter more than I expected.\nThis site is where I share what I've learned — not from a position of \"here's the system that worked for me,\" but from a position of honest reflection. What I got right. What I avoided too long. What the restlessness was actually trying to tell me, and what I wish I'd understood sooner.\nI write about designing a life that fits — intentionally, on your own terms — with your creativity and your actual values as the compass, not someone else's idea of what success looks like.\nA few things worth knowing\nI learned to snowboard at 45 — with my twin nieces when they turned 14. Some things are worth starting late. I'm a chai enthusiast in a world of coffee drinkers. I've converted more than a few friends. My husband and I cycled 462 miles across Iowa in seven days as part of RAGBRAI with 18,000 other riders. I lived in Colorado for over 20 years. There is nothing quite like being surrounded by mountains. Now, my husband and I are enjoying the mountains in Oregon. I've traveled to Mexico (seven months), China, Hong Kong, Europe, Africa, and South Korea. I've been writing for most of my adult life. It's how I think, how I process, and how I make sense of things. If you've landed here because something feels off — not broken, just not quite right — you're in the right place. This site isn't about fixing yourself. It's about paying closer attention to what's already there.\nThe life you want isn't as far away as it feels. It usually just requires a different set of questions.\nThe best place to start is wherever the restlessness is loudest. Pick the category that feels most relevant right now.\nStart reading → ","date":"1 January 0001","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/about-carma/","section":"Pages","summary":"","title":"About"},{"content":"","date":"1 January 0001","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/all/","section":"Design a Life That Fits","summary":"archives","title":"All"},{"content":"I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you. Whether you have a question, want to work together, or just want to say hello — reach out using the form below.\nName Email Message Send Message ","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/contact/","section":"Pages","summary":"","title":"Contact"},{"content":"These are practical tools for people in the middle of a real question — about their career, their values, or whether the life they\u0026rsquo;re living is actually theirs.\nSome are free. All of them are designed to be used, not just read.\nStart here — free\nNew here? These are the best place to begin. Both are short, honest, and free.\nFree\nWhat Does It Mean to Live Life by Your Design? A short piece for anyone who's started to wonder if the life they're living was actually chosen — or just inherited. Read it in under 15 minutes.\nDownload free Free\nHow to Stop Living Someone Else's Life For the person who followed all the rules and still ended up somewhere that doesn't feel like theirs. Four questions. Four practices. A real place to start.\nDownload free Workbooks\nStandalone tools you can use on their own — or alongside the Career Freedom Framework series.\n$7\nYour Values, Your Season A step-by-step workbook for identifying your top five core values for the season of life you're actually in. Designed to be revisited every time something shifts.\nGet the workbook $9\nCareer Change Navigator A five-part workbook that takes you from \"I know something has to change\" to a clear direction and first steps. Not a resume exercise. A real process for finding work that fits.\nGet the workbook Career Freedom Framework\nA four-step series for finding a career that fits — on your terms. Start free, go at your own pace, or get the full bundle.\nFree — Step 1\nKnow Your Values The first step to finding a career that fits isn't your resume. Three exercises to surface and rank the values that should drive your next move.\nDownload free $7 — Step 2\nKnow Where You Stand Hold your values up against your current reality. A clear-eyed look at where you are now — and small adjustments that can shift things before you make any big moves.\nGet the guide $9 — Step 3\nDesign Your Next Chapter Build your own ideal job description — a real, personal picture of what your working life should look like, built from who you are and how you work best.\nGet the guide $9 — Step 4\nClose the Gap \u0026 Take Action Map what stands between where you are and where you want to be. Name the bold move. Build a real plan for moving forward.\nGet the guide $19 — Complete Series Bundle\nCareer Freedom Framework: All Four Guides The full Career Freedom Framework in one place. Steps 1–4 together — the best value for readers who are ready to go all in.\nGet the bundle ","date":"1 January 0001","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/guides-and-resources/","section":"Pages","summary":"","title":"Guides \u0026 Resources"},{"content":"","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/pages/","section":"Pages","summary":"","title":"Pages"},{"content":"Who We Are #Our website address is: https://carmabaughman.com.\nWhat Personal Data We Collect and Why #Contact Forms #When you submit a contact form on this site, your name, email address, and message are collected solely for the purpose of responding to your inquiry. We do not save or share this information beyond that communication.\nComments #When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor\u0026rsquo;s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.\nCookies #If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies for your convenience. These cookies will last for one year.\nAnalytics #We use Google Analytics to track visitor information on this site. You can review their privacy policy at https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/.\nEmbedded Content from Other Websites #Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website directly. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content.\nWho We Share Your Data With #We do not share your personal data with any third-party providers, except as required for analytics (Google Analytics) and spam detection services.\nHow Long We Retain Your Data #If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically.\nWhat Rights You Have Over Your Data #If you have left comments or submitted a contact form, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, or request that we erase it. This does not include data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.\nWhere We Send Your Data #Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Contact form submissions are processed through Formspree.\nContact Information #If you have any questions about this privacy policy, please contact us at carma(at)carmabaughman(dot)com.\n","date":null,"permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/privacy-policy/","section":"Pages","summary":"","title":"Privacy Policy"},{"content":"","date":"1 January 0001","permalink":"https://carmabaughman.com/search/","section":"Design a Life That Fits","summary":"Search","title":"Search"}]