Bored With Your Career or Biz? Should You Leave—or Grow?

Makena: Hi everyone, welcome back.

Gigi: Hello.

Makena: Today we’re talking about Bored With Your Career Or Business? Should You Leave Or Grow? 

So this is one we hear a lot. People say, “I don’t know. I’ve gotten to this point; I’m successful, but I don’t know if I want to make a change. I’m not very excited about what I’m doing anymore.”

Can you talk a little bit more about what you see here, Gigi?

Gigi: Yeah. I think we see that people start to feel dissatisfied with their business and begin to question, “Is this it?” 

When they started out, it was exciting, and they were earning, and then it gets to a point where all of a sudden, it just feels different. It starts to feel like a job. 

Another question is, “Is this the way things are going to keep going? Is this my life? Is this my business?” Because they’re feeling so burned out, and they’re unsure if they want to keep going like this. 

We see this a lot, especially with women. They work so hard at creating and growing a successful business, and then they look around and think, “Where’s my life?”

Makena: And not just businesses—many are in careers. Some of the stories we’re going to share today are about career women. They’re in corporate roles or small businesses, and it’s the same thing: working, working, working, and then one day they think, “Is this it?”

Gigi: Yes, exactly. And what I find is a lot of people don’t know how to tweak things without throwing everything away. 

They think, “I should just quit. I’m done with this business or career, I don’t like this job anymore.” 

We’ve had that happen many times, right, Makena? We can share a couple of stories about that. 

Some say, “I’ll move to a different company,” but then, as we’ll discuss, when we work with them, they start to see something changes. 

So, first of all, why don’t you share a story of someone you’ve worked with who was maybe in this position? What did you see, and how did you navigate this?

Makena: Yes, stories are the best way to illustrate some of these points. So, as you’re listening, you can really see what you can apply to you. 

One of our clients, when she came to us, had been in business for many years, and she had reached a plateau, basically, in her business where she wasn’t really growing much—like a little bit, but not much. And she was super burned out and felt she was having anxiety attacks almost every day.

Similar to my story in that regard. And she really— a part of her wanted to grow her business, but she felt like she didn’t have the energy to really grow or to even see a vision she was excited about. 

When she came in and started working with us, I remember for her, it wasn’t that she had some big vision other than, “Yeah, I’d love to grow my income; I’d love to grow my business.” 

And sometimes we see that—that when people are in this position, they can’t necessarily see a vision because they’re so in the weeds of whatever is going on.

The first thing we really did with her—and this was a few years ago now; she’s still working with us to this day because she’s had such huge changes and transformations and continues to—the first thing we really did was we looked at where were the energy leaks in her life, in her business, and her relationships. 

What were the drains on her energy or her time? And that was a wide variety of different things, right? 

It was everything from she was having conflict in her marriage and arguments with her partner to recurring conflicts there. She had certain pressures or breakdowns with her kids. 

In her business, she was working totally engrossed in the day-to-day of her business, had very little support, and was really just in the doing—like they say, kind of working in the business instead of on the business.

So those are just a few areas. 

We started to really break down each of these pieces and go, “Okay, how do we address these energy leaks?” 

And Gigi, maybe you want to share your approach to this idea around “every pressure needs a system.” We did a podcast episode on this, right?

Gigi: I think because you worked very much with her, you were starting to see where the pressures were. 

It’s always good to go and look to see what stands out the most. Where’s the one that’s really, really pressuring you? And as you said, sometimes that can be personal. 

That’s why we love and work so much with the women in our mastermind. It’s not just about business. It is very holistic—about every aspect of your life.

Because, like for her, I think part of what was happening is she had just kind of numbed herself out. And that’s what happens. That’s when we get bored, right? When we’re so numb. 

So what we start to do is go, “Okay, where’s the most pressure? And then what system would start to alleviate that pressure?” And we work through those, one after another. 

It’s incredible what starts to happen when you begin to get a system for something that is basically running your life. All of a sudden, if you think about it, it frees up time and energy. 

That’s really what we do. And a lot of our women have come back and worked with us for years because they’re ever-evolving and growing. 

We’re always looking to see, “How do you get yourself in that state where you have energy flowing and your frequency is higher and higher?” 

You can do that by starting to set up systems that alleviate the pressure in both your business and your personal life.

Makena: Yeah, it’s kind of the snowball effect. It feels like these are tiny little things, and you think, “What difference would this make?” But each one that you free up—imagine that’s energy. That’s why we call them energy drains or energy leaks; it’s energy that’s been leaking out of you. And then we clean that up, clear it out, and create a system, whatever that might be.

And sometimes, by the way, when we say “system,” that can also mean a communication system. Sometimes that’s teaching a communication skill that people think is so complicated. 

You were just saying that before we got on today, Gigi, like, “Oh, relationships are so complicated.” What did you say about that?

Gigi: I say people think that when they have issues in their relationship, it’s so complex, but the truth is, one simple shift can completely change the dynamic in a relationship—in a couple, in a business relationship, anywhere. And that’s what we show. 

If you’re willing to start by looking at your part in things and then make the change—because remember, we can’t change anyone else, only ourselves—then those small, subtle communication tweaks can open up everything.

Again, we’re talking about energy starting to flow and connections starting to happen again. 

Because I do want to say this: when you have those pressures in your system, they’re not just in the relationship with your partner. They’re filtering down into your business, into the way you show up in your business, the way you show up with your kids and the way you show up in your family. 

That’s why it’s so important to look at your systems as a holistic thing.

Makena: And that’s the course you’re running right now – The Way of Growing Love is really about that. It’s really about communication skills and the systems because that does impact every area of life. So, we’ll link that to the show notes if anybody’s curious about it.

But coming back to this idea of clearing up these energy leaks and then the snowball effect—it’s like, as a snowball rolls down the hill, it gets bigger and bigger, picking up snow along the way. 

It’s like every bit of energy you bring back in is the energy you now have. 

Before, you were feeling drained, bored, and tired because you didn’t have that, right? There were all these different leaks going on, maybe at work—probably—but also most likely in your personal life and in other areas.

And sometimes this is also like old, stuck emotion in people, right? 

So, with this client, we really came across—or we discovered as we were working together—areas where she was holding onto old anger, resentment, or upset. That was really sort of “gunking up the works,” so to speak. 

And we have processes to really lead people through to clear that up and out. Not to go in and just reprocess it and keep recycling the story or whatever happened, but to be able to really move that energy up and out. 

Because that, too, is kind of creating a—well, we don’t use the word “block,” but it’s creating a hold in the energy that we want to free up so that your vitality can come back online again.

Gigi: Yeah, because what happens when you begin to put those systems into place and free yourself up is that inspiration starts to kick in again. 

We saw this too with a woman who works for a company—it’s not her business—but she was feeling very frustrated, a little bored, and questioning if she was in the right place. She wondered if she’d made the right decision.

When we started working with her, we saw that a lot of the pressure was around having a lot of undelivered communications, and she felt like she couldn’t really talk about those. 

The truth is, when she did try, she ended up complaining and blaming, and that didn’t get us very far. But again, she had no idea how to approach it differently.

So, as we worked with her, we really showed her a new pattern of communication where she could share what was going on with her and be curious about what was going on with her boss. 

What happened was, all of a sudden, she had these skills to feel heard without being a victim. 

The change that happened within just a matter of two weeks was incredible because he started to open up to her. He really started to build a bridge with her, and she started feeling inspired by her work. 

And then, of course, money started to move.

It’s such subtle little things. 

Like I said, sometimes we make things so complex. But my experience is that people just don’t know what to do. 

It’s not because they have bad intentions—it’s that most of us weren’t taught how to communicate. We weren’t taught how to say things in a way that’s a win for everybody. 

So, of course, we’re unconscious, and we just blurt things out, creating more mess than harmony.

Makena: And in her case, I think there were certain things in her personal life too, right? 

So it was manifesting partially—or largely—around her career where she was questioning things. But when we dug in deeper, there were also things to address on a personal level.

If you want to touch on that at all, or just share what you often see with people in terms of—maybe not necessarily her, but that there are often things going on in their relationships, or they’re not taking care of themselves. 

What do you see there?

Gigi: Absolutely. If we have a pattern of communication and it’s around blaming or complaining, normally we’re doing it at home and at work, right? 

If we don’t know how to do it at work, we probably don’t know how to do it at home. 

And that was true for her. She was more focused on complaining and not really asking for what she wanted.

As you mentioned, Makena—which I talk about in The Way of Growing Love—a huge part of it was that she wasn’t taking care of herself. 

You must take care of yourself first and fill up your own cup because that really allows you to have energy again and be willing to make changes that will enhance your relationships. 

When we’re drained, frustrated, and bored, we really don’t want to change, right? We feel a little self-pity and think if somebody’s going to change, they should change first.

But again, going back to that, when we fill our own cup and take care of ourselves, then what happens is we have a new kind of energy, and then we can really go out and start to make changes.

Makena: I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and say what I would have said a few years ago. I’m going to pretend I’m one of these women because now I definitely care for myself first.

But I’m going to say, “How am I supposed to take care of myself first, right? I’m so busy. I’m busy at work.” 

And for a lot of these women: “I have kids at home, I have my partner, I’ve got all these different things going on. It’s just not possible. You know, maybe in 10 years, when my kids are out of the house, then I can take care of myself. But it’s really just not possible right now.”

Gigi: Well, I would say this: it’s always possible. If your life depended on it, you would do it. You would find the time. 

And to me, and this is what I share with all the women I work with, your life does depend on it, because you are the battery pack for your family. 

In that way, you’re the most important person in the world.

If you think about it, turn off Facebook, turn off social media for 30 minutes a day, and instead, take that time and focus it on you. Really find a couple of things that truly nourish you, even if that’s going and sitting out on your balcony, drinking a cup of coffee, and not scrolling on your phone—whatever that is. 

Start with little baby steps because those small times will add up to so much time and energy for you.

I’m going to tell you that no matter how busy you are, you absolutely have time to carve out time for yourself. 

It comes down to really committing to do it.

Makena: Yeah, that’s right on. And we see that when women do this, it really makes a shift, right? 

What comes up for me, as I’m role-playing this and being in the energy of this woman, is this feeling of frustration and resentment, of feeling like I give, give, give to so many others in my life.

So, are you saying the key to really shifting that is to start putting myself first? 

It’s almost like I don’t even want to do that because I feel so frustrated and a little resentful.

Gigi: Yeah, and we get caught up in that. When we work with this, we go deeper into it. 

But it’s really about taking a little time—maybe going for a walk in nature every day, or sitting down and journaling in the morning, making sure you’re by yourself for a few minutes. 

What happens is you start to feel your soul—you reconnect to your soul—and that energy starts to build. Then, you can start to see how to navigate if you’re feeling resentful and doing too much.

By first connecting with yourself, you can start to see where those pressures are in your life and find ways to get support, maybe delegate, or eliminate some of the things you’re doing so you have more time for yourself. 

But first, set that time aside and make it for yourself, and you will absolutely be amazed. And keep it consistent.

Makena: Yeah, we had a woman on the mastermind call this morning in the Wealthy World Changers who had this pattern of giving to everybody else, right? Putting everybody else ahead of herself. 

It was interesting because, through the coaching this morning, she really saw that that was a choice she had made. She realized that she was a really powerful woman who, over the years, made this choice to put her family first, to put her partner first, to put everybody else first.

That was great in some ways, but she also overextended and overdid it. But ultimately, it was her choice, and it was really impactful for her to see that. 

She is choosing now to shift that in certain ways and still, of course, be there for her loved ones, but to really prioritize herself.

I really see there’s this “badge of honor,” especially for women, around over-giving and self-sacrificing. 

Is there anything you could speak to there? 

Because I see it with people, and it’s hard to watch. It feels very, I guess, cultural—that’s what’s revered, or maybe what women think is expected of them, or what they should do to be a good person. 

I’m not sure where it comes from, or if that even matters, but it’s just this interesting thing where women think—and maybe others too; we just work primarily with women—but they wear it as a badge of honor that they’re self-sacrificing.

Gigi: Well, one thing is that women love to give. It’s in our nature to care and to care for others. 

When it becomes like that badge of honor, though, it’s when we become important in it. 

What I find sometimes is that women continue to do this because they’re scared to have that space and time—they really don’t know what to do with themselves. 

That’s why we say, look and see what nurtures you and have that thing to do. Because a lot of times, a woman will say, “Well, if I’m not caring for everyone, what do I do with my time?”

And it does make us feel important. It makes us feel like we matter.

Makena: Valued. That’s where a lot of women start to derive their value—from giving to other people. 

But then it gets to be too much, and they start to feel frustrated or resentful underneath. 

They worry, “If I don’t do this, what value do I have?” 

Especially women who aren’t working or something like that. But even women who are working really have this pattern.

Gigi: We could go into a whole thing there, especially around women and motherhood and things like that. 

We feel like if we don’t do it, somehow we’re guilty and not doing what we’re supposed to do for our children. 

And that’s a whole rabbit hole. 

Makena: We’re going to do a whole episode on mom guilt. That one’s coming, so if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “That’s me,” just know that’ll be coming in the next few weeks.

Gigi: But going through all this, I think the best thing is if you’re in this moment right now and you say you have no time, start paying attention to where you waste time. 

Start paying attention to all that time you’re sitting, scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, or all that time you’re cleaning up when you really don’t need to be. 

Then take those times and say, “Wait a minute, tomorrow, this time—this 30 minutes—is going to be for me. I’m going to set my phone off, turn off the TV, and I’m going to do something. I’m going to take that walk in the woods, or I’m going to sit down and read a great book.” 

Like for you, Makena, it’s reading fiction books. So whatever it is for you, you have to see.

Makena: Yeah. And so what starts to happen here as people clear these energy leaks and really start to do more of what nurtures them and care for themselves first—then the energy starts to build. 

Then what do we see happen a lot of the time? I mean, I’ll speak for the one client we were talking about who has her own business. 

She started to have so much more energy, vitality, and vision. She suddenly was seeing, “Oh, this is how I’d love to grow.” 

For her, a big part of it was travel. She really wanted to travel more and spend time abroad with her family or take them on different trips. She’s been able to do that now. 

She’s grown huge since then in her business and is working a tiny fraction of the time she was working before. She has support in her business, she has systems set up, and she continues to just grow and grow. 

Gigi: She doubled her income.

Makena: I think more than doubled. And she’s working half the time from when she started. Now she’s traveling, they’re moving into their dream home—all these things are coming online. 

The other interesting thing with her is that vision started to come through around finding more meaning—like what was really important to her in her personal life, but also through her business and the different ways she wanted to give back. 

That really started to create fulfillment for her.

So even though she didn’t leave her business, she stayed in it and has really grown it. Now, she has such a different feeling around it. 

She’s not bored in her business. She loves what she’s doing. There’s a meaning element, there’s support—so that’s really fulfilling for her.

What do you see in people like the women we’ve talked about who are in more corporate roles? 

We’ve had multiple women who thought maybe they were going to pivot or make a shift, and they ended up realizing, “No, I actually want to double down here and really stay.”

Gigi: What happens is they get a great new opportunity in the business because they shift their attitude—they get promoted. 

Often, they free up time where they can really focus on their relationship – we see that. 

Often, with women who maybe have grown apart from a partner and really want to rebuild their love relationship. So they get to spend more time there. 

Or they get curious, and their mind starts to open up to how they want to grow in a company. And then, all of a sudden, they get seen and they get promoted. 

I’ve seen that happen many, many, many, many times.

Makena: And sometimes a creative project comes along or something they want to do in their personal life. It’s not that they need or want to shift careers—they’re a lot happier and more fulfilled in their work. And then they create things in their personal life that are super fulfilling as well.

I do want to touch on, before we begin to wrap this up, that we’ve talked a lot about people who are bored or unhappy and stay in what they are doing. 

We’ll have other episodes where we go deeper into this. 

But I will say that for some people, you will find that you want to make a change. 

That was really my story—I was bored in my business, and I was unhappy and burning out. Through this process, I really saw, “Actually, yes, I do want to do something different.” 

So that may be the end result.

I don’t know if it’s exactly the same process, but there are still many of the same steps in terms of clearing the energy leaks and starting to move in a direction. 

We talked in the last episode about aliveness, so if you haven’t gone back and listened to that one, that’s a huge piece of the puzzle as well. 

But I just wanted to touch on the fact that for some people, they do see, “Oh, I do want to make a change.”

Gigi: Yeah, because when you do clear those energy leaks, it frees you up. Then, what really begins to happen is clarity dawns. 

You start to see—like the woman you talked about before, one of the clients—she started to see that she really wanted to grow her business, and she saw a new way of doing that. You really helped her with that and helped her organize how to do that and how to put that into action.

So often, someone will say, “I do want to make a shift.” And then they can start to transition, but they transition with clarity instead of going out feeling, “Oh, I hate this. I don’t want to do it anymore.” 

They leave with good energy, in a very conscious manner, and choose the next thing.

I’ve had the same thing happen with people around relationships. 

They’re thinking, “Do I want to stay, or do I want to go?”

I always have them walk through the same thing—clear out those energy leaks, get super, super clear, and do what you really see to do here. 

So, if you decide to leave, there’s no question that you did the most you could to make this work, so they don’t have regret, guilt, or anything like that.

Makena: Something about what we’ve been talking about here is, like you mentioned at the beginning, people don’t know how to make a change without leaving everything or starting over—throwing it all out or throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

That’s something you really walked me through when I was making a shift. Even for the people who decide they’re not going to change, there’s still the step-by-step approach. 

Once you started to see the path, you helped me with the transition—making that plan, taking the steps, and doing it in such a way that I didn’t burn any bridges. I kept great relationships with my clients from my previous business, and some of them even came over to work with me as a coach. 

I was doing marketing with them before; one of our longtime clients in our mastermind was a client of mine in my marketing business. Then she came in, and she’s even referred us to business.

So you helped me do it in a way that I wasn’t throwing out what was working, and I really was able to approach that step-by-step.

So all of this is really leading to this theme we’re talking about right now, which is becoming an unstoppable woman. 

And what does that mean in this context? 

If you’re sitting there feeling bored in your business or in your career, feeling dissatisfied—probably not feeling very unstoppable right at this moment, right? 

So what does it take for you to really step out and into that energy where you’re like, “I am going to create my life the way I want it. I’m going to have a career or a business that I love. I’m going to do whatever it takes, and I’m going to get the support I need.”

A lot of times, we see people hesitate or get stuck. 

Can you talk a little bit about that? We see people kind of take two different paths here: either they really go for it, or… yeah, what do you usually see around that?

Gigi: I mean, there are the women who think, “Oh, when this and this happens, I’ll do it,” you know, and it’s “When my kids are grown, then I’ll finally do it,” or “When I find the time, I’ll finally do it.” 

They have a lot of different excuses versus the ones who say, “No, I’m going to do this now. These years are precious, and I’m going to do this for my kids.” 

Instead of waiting until the kids are grown, they’re saying, “I’m actually going to go for my life for my kids,” because the greatest example in the world is you living your life fully—it gives your children a role model to follow.

And this is what I think women so many times don’t understand. Sitting around and waiting doesn’t give their kids that role model. 

So, you really, really—you’ve got to choose. Which one are you? And whichever one you are, if you want to wait until your kids are grown, that’s perfectly fine. 

But within yourself, make a choice, and then be happy with your choice.

Makena: What if it’s not till their kids are grown? 

I mean, there are other examples, right? So that’s one. 

We see a lot of the time with women – another example would be someone unhappy in their career. 

I’m trying to think what it was for me when I was really sitting there feeling stuck,

Gigi: Figure out how to get out of it. It was a double bind all the time.

Makena: Yeah, I just could not navigate. I could not get clear. 

But also, Even when I did—to your point about becoming an unstoppable woman here and really just going for it—even when I did get clear, I actually tried to start coaching on my own a year before you supported me.

What I really see looking back at that is that it totally flopped. What I really see, looking back, is that I wasn’t fully committed. 

When the going got tough, I thought, “Okay, it must not be it.” 

I had a lot of fear and a lot of reasons, and I was waiting for the universe to show me by lining everything up perfectly, in a sense. 

I was willing to get in there and work, but I was also wanting things to just kind of work on their own.

So this theme we’re talking about around the unstoppable woman is really this piece of, at least for the sake of this podcast episode, if you’re feeling bored, unhappy, or dissatisfied, getting clear on if you’re going to just continue that way for now. 

And if you are, then make that choice, you know, and then see how you can maybe be a little happier in what you’re doing. Focus on what is working, right?

Or are you in a place where you’re like, “No, I want to—” It doesn’t have to mean you’re going to pivot, but you want to make a change. You want to love your day-to-day experience. You want to feel that excitement and passion again, and you want to feel like that unstoppable woman. 

That’s what we’re really speaking about here in terms of where you are right now, really getting clear, and making that choice.

We have a Masterclass coming up—I don’t think we’ve mentioned it yet in this episode—on November 19th, 2024, called The Unstoppable Woman. 

So, if you’re listening to this sometime around that time period, and you’re saying, “No, I’m ready to shift something here. I’m ready to not throw out what’s working, but really see what the evolution will be. I don’t want to wait any longer, and I don’t want to sit in this any longer.”

If that’s you, then come to this free masterclass. 

You can go to wayofthemuse.com/unstoppable. 

We’re really going to walk you through a process to support you in stepping into that version of yourself. So we’d love to see you there.

Gigi: Yeah. So, thank you so much for this topic. It’s a good topic.

Makena: Absolutely. One we hear all the time. I hope it served you, and we look forward to seeing you next time.

Gigi: Thank you, Makena. Bye.