How to make a career pivot when grief, motherhood, and ambition all hit at once
You had a plan and life just decided to happen.
Maybe it was a baby. Maybe it was a loss. Maybe it was both at the same time. Whatever it was, the career path you had mapped out suddenly stopped making sense, and you've been trying to figure out what comes next ever since.
But the pivot doesn't have to be perfectly planned, because sometimes the messiest seasons are the ones that build the most solid foundations.
Test before you leap
One of the biggest mistakes working parents make when considering a career change is going all in before they know if they actually like the thing. Before quitting, before announcing, before building the website, test it.
Take on one small project. Say yes to one freelance client. Offer your skill to someone in your network. The goal isn't to build a business overnight, is to find out whether you actually like doing this work when nobody else is selling it for you and you're the one who has to show up for it.
That small test does two things: it tells you whether the work is a fit, and it quietly builds the confidence you need to go further. You might discover you love it or you might not, and going back to a traditional role is a completely valid, noble outcome. Either way, you'll know.
Treat entrepreneurship like the mental game it is
If you're considering starting a business, the skill set required is about 20% technical and 80% mental. You will question yourself constantly. You will feel like it could all disappear tomorrow. You will be the worst boss you've ever had.
Take it from me! I’m worse than the worst boss I had while I was in corporate.
The difference between people who make it work and people who don't, it's the ability to keep going through the uncertainty without someone else telling you what to do next.
That's the part worth preparing for before you make the leap.
Give yourself permission to grieve and build at the same time
Loss doesn't follow a convenient timeline and it doesn't wait until you've figured out your next career move or until your kid is out of the hard phase or until you feel ready to deal with it. And contrary to what productivity culture might suggest, you don't have to have processed your grief before you're allowed to move forward.
Sometimes you build through it, sometimes the work is what carries you. You’re on full on survival mode. And eventually, when you've built enough ground underneath you, you'll have the space to actually sit with it.
Give yourself that grace and time. Everyone processes grief in their own way.
Stop asking yourself if you're sure
Working parents, especially moms, field an exhausting number of opinions about the choices they make. How many kids to have. Whether to go back to work. Whether to stay home. Whether to start a business. The questions are endless and they usually come wrapped in concern that's really just discomfort with someone else's different choice.
Here's what actually works: get firm. Because when you stop leaving cracks in your answer, people stop looking for openings. The moment you waver, you invite the unsolicited advice you never asked for.
You are allowed to want what you want without a full explanation attached to it.
On that note… You're allowed to redo a goal
Reaching a milestone and realizing it's not what you actually wanted doesn't mean you failed, you just have more information now. And with that information, you're allowed to start over — more intentionally, more aligned with what you actually care about.
That might look like leaving a career that looked great on paper. It might look like scrapping a project and rebuilding it from scratch. It might look like deciding the goal you reached wasn't the right goal, and setting a better one.
Progress doesn't have to be linear. It just has to be yours.
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This post was inspired by my episode with Tianna Mamalick, digital strategist, small business marketing expert, and soon-to-be author of The Magic of Search Marketing. We talked about grief, career pivots, the one-child decision, and what it takes to build something from scratch.