This is the second post on navigating mid-career. Read the first post on finding (and keeping) focus here https://laura-cockram.co.uk/2026/01/16/navigating-mid-career-focus/
Creating space to think
Here’s an experiment: Count how many times in a week people respond with “oh, busy, busy” when you ask “how are you?”.
What do you notice? What does that tell you?
I’ve had a lot of coaching conversations with women (and men) who reflect that they are so busy they have little time to think. I’ve been in that situation too, busy juggling responsibilities and meeting needs; putting out fires and solving problems. It was really hard to find headspace.
Creating space to think is a habit, and habits take practice and time to build. Approaching habit building with a good dose of self-compassion really helps – both as you inevitably leave it for a week and feel bad about that, and as you respond to what comes up. I’ll say more about self-compassion in the next post.
If you haven’t done this before, here are some prompts to get you started. You could pick one of these, come up with your own, or try free-writing. 5 minutes each day is a fine place to start.
- What do I notice?
- What do I wonder?
- How am I in this moment?
- What am I learning about myself?
- What am I grateful for today?
- What brought me joy today?
Journalling isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s ok. You can do this in whatever way works for you – simply taking a moment to become more aware and then letting go of that thought, using pen and paper, voice notes, notes on your phone – the key is bringing things into awareness and getting things which are not serving you out of your head.
Giving voice to you inner mentor
Another book I really like (recommended to me by my coach) is Playing Big, by Tara Mohr. She writes about having an ‘inner mentor’.
We all have inner critics – often vocal and vicious. This exercise is about visualising your inner mentor – a wise and centred being, which could be a future version of you, and having a conversation with them.
There is a guided exercise to do this in the book. Once you have your inner mentor, they are always with you as a guide. You can ask yourself “what would my inner mentor say / do / write in this situation?”
I’ve found this really useful as a way to explore a more confident perspective on challenges. And to remind myself that I do know the answers, even if I think I don’t.
Coaching during mid-career
I coach women who want to feel the joy (again!) in their work. Maybe…
- You are looking for support to meet a particular challenge in your current role.
- You have fallen out of love with what you do and want to find your spark again, or you are considering a change and exploring new possibilities.
- You are leading a team and looking for support to co-create a positive and empowering team culture.
If you’d like a chat to explore how coaching might resource you, get in touch.
Book time with me: https://calendly.com/laura-jarque-cockram/30min
Email: hello@laura-cockram.co.uk
This post is based on a presentation for Flexible Working Scotland. Thank you to FWS for the opportunity to share as part of their webinar series https://events.humanitix.com/host/flexibleworkingscotland
Image credit: Davies Designs Studios, Unsplash
