Andrew Carruthers, life coach, founder of The Journeyist, and Culture Ambassador for Sam Villa.
What happens when our passion begins to dissipate? The work we have always loved seems monotonous, clients start to get on our nerves, and we start to wonder if this career is still our calling! Everyone will experience momentary seasons of burnout, overwhelm, or boredom… that’s natural. But how do we know the difference between these short-term valleys in our path versus the moment when the path must take a huge turn or end completely? That’s what we are here to look at together.
In my 22 years of hairdressing, I had many seasonal moments of burnout and some of those almost became termination points in my career. One of those happened around 2008/2009 when I had been trying to balance full-time work at the chair with my position as Artistic Director for Paul Mitchell Advanced Education. I found myself resisting going to the salon and “just getting through” the day. I quit my position with PMAE and started looking at new avenues to pursue in the workforce.
With the support of my brilliant Life Coach Lyn Christian, I recognized that becoming a Life Coach myself was a natural evolution of everything I had been doing and paired well with many of my natural strengths. While I continued to maintain my hair clientele, I got my first certifications and started taking a few coaching clients on the side. This fed me something fresh that was nourishing to my soul and the side effect was it was a breath of life back into my love for hair!
This energy supported me for years after and each time I felt the dullness of burnout start to creep back in, I knew it was time to evolve again. I tried salon management, ownership, and eventually stepped back into the education world with my amazing friends Sam Villa and Geneva Cowen.
I owe my long career to this mindset of constantly crafting new versions of myself within the industry. It served me well… until it didn’t. Around 2019, I was once again feeling the love for hair drifting away, but this time was different. There was an intuitive sense that this was deeper than just needing fresh inspiration. I tried one last big shift in my role as Education Director for Sam Villa in 2020 but there was nothing bringing back that old feeling of connection to the craft of hairdressing… it was gone. At the end of 2020, I resigned from Sam Villa and packed up my shears for good in order to focus on my coaching company, The Journeyist.
Here is what I can share with you as I reflect on the learning from all of these experiences and the observations I’ve had as I’ve coached many others through these transitions:
- Slow down and give it some time! It can feel extremely urgent to make a decision in these moments… they are emotionally and energetically painful and we want relief from that pain.
- Try something new! Anything! I’ve seen simple scheduling changes take people from the edge of resignation back to happy and thriving. And if the first thing you try doesn’t work, try something else. This is why point #1 is so important. We need time to explore and discover what is at the root of our experience.
- Work with a coach or therapist who can help deconstruct the thoughts, energies, emotions, and stories. I’ve been a coach for 15 years and I still need other coaches to support me on my journey.
- Build a more trusting relationship with your inner wisdom and intuition. The analytical head brain can get very lost in facts, information, and stories. This is when reaching inward to a greater source of knowing is essential.
- Give yourself some SPACE. Most cases of burnout are at least partially due to overworking and deprioritizing our own needs. A short sabbatical, vacation, retreat, etc… can offer fresh perspective that we may not find if we continue to subject ourselves to the same schedule and environment that potentially caused the problem in the first place.
If we take the time to explore, do our inner work, and recharge but everything within us still tells us it’s time to depart; we now have a substantial base to make this life changing decision from. That doesn’t mean it will be comfortable, but the clarity can provide the courage needed to alter our trajectory.
Most importantly, know you are not alone in these experiences and it’s all part of the journey we get to walk as human beings.
I see you!
– Andrew
P.S. If you come to the decision that it’s time to make a change, I highly recommend a book called Working Identity written by Herminia Ibarra. It is a beautiful guide to how others have successfully navigated these transitions from simple shifts to complete departures.
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