Welcome back to Lunch Break, a weekly newsletter to help you create a work life that works for you. Brought to you by the Pivot With Purpose framework.
If someone forwarded you this email, go on and subscribe!
“I feel trapped. I have to get out.”
Eight painful words in one charged sentiment. It was earlier this week, on a kickoff call with a new coaching client, and my heart sank as I heard her sigh on the other side of the screen.
Isn't feeling trapped one of the most defeating feelings in the world? The term implies a lack of freedom, opportunities, or choices.
You might come to feel trapped slowly, in a job that was right for your younger self, but now you’ve outgrown. Maybe the walls gradually closed in on you, so you didn’t notice it until you couldn’t move.
Or perhaps you realized almost immediately that you’d fallen through a trapdoor, made the wrong choice and felt instant regret.
Regardless of how it happened, here’s what you do when you feel trapped: You build a door.
Doors you can build in your career:
Reignite your network to get conversations going (start here)
Start bolstering your personal brand to attract new opportunities
Hire a career coach (I know a gal)
Find energizing ways to monetize your side projects
Confide in a mentor (here’s how I did it)
Doors you can build in your personal life:
Start an honest, respectful conversation
Outline a new savings and budgeting plan
Set a Zillow alert for homes in a new area
Schedule a consultation with a therapist
In my client’s case, we came up with a three-part plan to get her back in control:
Sending a few targeting networking emails to specific well-connected people
Narrowing down the first part of her Personal Pivot Blueprint (a custom framework we use in PWP)
Sprucing up her resume with a template in our PWP resource library
The door you build at first might be narrow, one that you can just inch out of, but it’s there.
Or the door might swing wide open the moment you set it in motion.
Either way, you have everything you need to get started right now.
What kind of door are you ready to build for yourself?
Janel Abrahami, Career Coach
📲 Screenshot & share your favorite part of this issue and tag @lunchbreak.letter and @janelabrahami
🍿 SNICKY-SNACKS (more from Janel + team)
🍱 IN THE LUNCHBOX (curated recommendations)
BUY- MAYBE? Keyboard Vacuum
I can’t believe I’m considering this, but I’m so tempted. As someone with a dusty-pawed cat who traipses across my keyboard multiple times a day, I’m actually surprised it’s taken me this long to *add to cart.* If you use a keyboard vacuum, would you recommend it?! Leave a comment on this newsletter with your thoughts, this is very serious.
READ: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink
Our lives are a never-ending stream of “when” decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork. Timing, it's often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science.
REFLECT: “If your career could talk, what would it say?”
📌 COOL JOB
Title: Talent Brand Specialist
Company: Ontra
Location: US Remote + Hong Kong, Singapore, UK
Description: The Talent Brand Specialist role at Ontra is a great opportunity for an organized and solutions-driven creative to join a high-performance Talent team at a hyperscaling technology company. This role offers an incredible opportunity to work both autonomously and collaboratively on creative initiatives to attract top candidates to work at Ontra. If you are goal oriented and have a passion for working on brand projects we’d love to get to know you!
*Thanks to reader Chrya for sharing this opening!
Want to support this movement?
📲 Screenshot your favorite part & share on IG stories or TikTok tagging @janelabrahami
💌 Forward this letter to a friend!
☕ If you’re feeling super generous, you can buy the team a coffee!
#takeyourlunchbreak 💚