Career pivots for moms: why your "wrong" moves are working for you
You've done a lot of things, some make sense together and others absolutely do not — at least not on paper, and definitely not in a LinkedIn bio.
Maybe you went back to school for something you never used. Maybe you took a job in a totally different field because it just felt right. Maybe you moved somewhere unexpected, said yes to something you had no business saying yes to, and somehow ended up here — with a career that looks like a scribble instead of a straight line.
And somewhere along the way, someone made you feel like that was a problem, when actually it’s not.
You can't actually plan your future
And that’s the best news you’ll hear today. Probably every time you've sat down to map out the next five years, life has had other plans. A baby. A move. A layoff. A door that opened from a direction you weren't even facing.
And that's just how life is actually supposed to unfold.
What you can do is plan your next step with intention.
Ask yourself: Where are your interests pointing you right now? What feels like a yes, even if it's a small one? That's enough. The through line has a way of showing up later, when you have enough distance to look back and see it.
The thing you did "for no reason" is probably your superpower
The experiences you have lived have a habit of becoming the exact thing that sets you apart. That volunteer trip you took. The job that had nothing to do with your degree. The year you spent doing something that made people raise their eyebrows
They migh not look impressive on a resume, but they built something in you that no course or credential could replicate. Cultural fluency. Adaptability. The ability to walk into an unfamiliar room and figure it out.
The skills that feel hardest to explain are often the ones that matter most. Someone, somewhere, will recognize them — and they'll tell you that everything else can be taught.
Not figuring it out is not the same as being lost
There's a particular kind of pressure that high-achievers carry — this belief that by a certain age, things should be figured out. Career sorted. Identity locked in. Purpose located and filed neatly away.
But knowing yourself is not a destination. It's a practice. One that takes decades, requires wrong turns, and never really ends, which sounds exhausting until you realize it also means you're never done becoming.
The most interesting people you know are still figuring it out. That's not a flaw. That's the whole point.
Stop asking your kids what they want to be
The question we've been asking children forever — what do you want to be when you grow up? — puts all the pressure on an outcome nobody can predict, least of all a 16-year-old.
A better question is: who are you becoming?
Watch what your kid gravitates toward when nobody is pushing them. Notice what they do for fun, what they stick with, what they keep coming back to even when you're not reminding them. Then find small, low-stakes ways for them to pursue it — a community center class, a weekend job, a team that does the thing they love.
You're not planning their future, instead you're helping them collect information about themselves. And that information will serve them for the rest of their lives far more than any perfectly chosen university program will.
The wrong move is almost always just the next move in disguise
Here's the thing about the career pivots that felt like mistakes, the seasons that felt wasted, the years that didn't seem to lead anywhere obvious: they were leading somewhere. You just couldn't see it yet.
The gap year becomes the reason you get hired. The toxic job becomes the workshop you pitch on a whim. The science degree you failed becomes the signal that redirects your entire life.
Nothing is wasted. It's all information. And eventually, if you keep saying yes to the things that genuinely interest you — even when they don't make sense, even when other people don't get it — you end up somewhere extraordinary.
Want to hear this whole story in real time?
This post was inspired by my episode with Tasneem Damji, academic and career coach for high school students and their families. We talked about leaving a science degree behind, moving to Tajikistan with a two-year-old, saying yes to a workshop she had no idea how to run, and what it actually means to raise kids who know themselves. It's one of those conversations that will make you look at your own messy path very differently.