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34. Best Career Advice I Ever Received and How I'm Applying it to my writing

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34. Best Career Advice I Ever Received and How I'm Applying it to my writing

In this episode of 'Mom Writes First,' host Jen shares the most transformative career advice she has ever received: focusing on how you want to feel. Reflecting on a pivotal conversation she had in 2016 while feeling stuck in her career, Jen explains how this advice has profoundly impacted her professional and personal life over the past decade. She discusses the challenges and successes she's experienced, emphasizing the importance of tuning into desired feelings rather than specific goals. Jen now applies this advice to her writing journey in 2025, aiming to create a writing life that feels inspiring, joyful, and fulfilling. Join Jen as she walks you through how you can adopt this mindset to transform your career and life.

00:00 Introduction and Overview

01:26 The Turning Point: Career Stagnation

04:36 The Best Advice Ever Received

07:42 Applying the Advice: Career Transformation

13:06 Focusing on Feelings in Writing

16:39 Conclusion and Final Thoughts



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34. Best Career Advice I Ever Received and How I'm Applying it to my writing

[00:00:00] 

[00:00:00] Introduction and Overview

[00:00:00] Today, I'm sharing with you the best career advice I have ever received. And also how I am now applying that. To my writing.

[00:00:09] You are listening to mom writes first where we're all about inspiring busy moms to make their writing dreams a reality. Let's go. 

[00:00:22] 

[00:00:23] hello writer, and welcome to mom rights first. I'm your host, Jen. And today I'm pulling back the curtain a bit and sharing with you the best career advice I have ever received. 

[00:00:35] And how in 2025, I am applying that to my writing life. We all know there's no shortage of advice out there. Friends, family members, mentors, and, oh yes, of course. Social media. 

[00:00:49] Some of it's gold. And some, well, not so much. But today, your here listening to this podcast and you trusted [00:01:00] your intuition and click on this episode. 

[00:01:01] And that is perfect because the advice that I am about to share with you was a game changer for me. It's also likely the opposite of what you have been taught. I know it was the opposite of everything I had been told before. 

[00:01:16] Before I tell you the exact advice I received. 

[00:01:19] I want to share with you how I ended up actually receiving that life changing advice. 

[00:01:26] The Turning Point: Career Stagnation 

[00:01:26] Let's rewind to 2016. So about nine years ago, almost a decade ago, I was pregnant with my fourth child. I was working. At a law firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, where I had practiced for about the last decade. So almost 10 years. Doing employment and school law. I was also teaching in a doctoral program at that time, too, where I taught a class on school law. 

[00:01:53] On the outside. Everything seemed really, really great. 

[00:01:57] But on the inside. I felt very [00:02:00] stuck. Very stagnant. And I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do professionally, what I wanted to do in my life overallSo I did all the things that we're always told to do. 

[00:02:13] I got in touch with career services at my law school and with my college. 

[00:02:19] I started interviewing. I started networking. I updated my resume.

[00:02:23] I spent all my time. Looking for a different job, trying to figure out what was next exploring options internally with the firm that I was at trying to figure out how I could progress in a way that would work for what I wanted out of life and what my family and I wanted and how we all wanted to balance all that out. I'd been interviewing at firms. Looking at full-time university teaching positions, meeting with other lawyers to talk about possible partnerships. Exploring options for going out on my own. 

[00:02:52] I even thought of doing a complete and total pivot and going back to school for a PhD in education. But with this [00:03:00] myriad of options, right? Nothing. It felt quite right. None of those decisions would have been wrong or bad at the end of the day. But they just did not feel right to me. And I was at a bit of a loss. 

[00:03:13] One of my friends then suggested that I connect with a colleague of hers who had worked in education and leadership, especially because I was thinking about going to get my PhD in education. So we ended up meeting at a coffee shop and during our little coffee chat , I explained to him that I was just feeling. Very stuck. very stagnant and that I didn't know what to do with my life. And especially with my career. 

[00:03:42] . When I shared this with him, he asked me what I wanted to do. And that seems like it should be a very easy and obvious question. So I laid out like 50 options. Well, I could do X or I could do Y or I could open my own law firm [00:04:00] or I could start a nonprofit or. go back to school. 

[00:04:04] So many options, None of them. I felt like something that I was excited to do in the moment. All of them had aspects of things or characteristics that I might want to try or explore. But none were right. 

[00:04:17] And none were presenting themselves to me on silver platters. And since I was several months pregnant, it seemed like it was going to be a very, very long time before any of this got sorted out And so my stuckness that stagnant energy. Was very palpable. And that's when he looked at me. 

[00:04:36] The Best Advice Ever Received

[00:04:36] And he gave me the best advice I ever received. 

[00:04:41] He said. What, if you focused on how you want to feel at work? Focus less on what you are doing, what you could be doing, where you are doing it and who you are doing it with and more. On how you want to feel. 

[00:04:59] [00:05:00] Initially, I was taken aback by this. Advice. Feel, what does that even mean? Focus on what I want to feel. 

[00:05:09] But he explained further. And said you're being so specific. Right now. You have all these specific options that we've discussed. And I could probably tell you about 10 or 15 more and maybe even help you get set up with an interview. But none of them are going to seem right to you. So instead. Try to be more general and less specific because the specifics are going to work themselves out anyway. And he kind of flitted his hand. 

[00:05:40] Like he was dismissively waving away all the specifics. 

[00:05:45] He continued to explain. And he said, you can even think about how you want to feel about your coworkers and your workspace. Think about how you want to feel when you're sitting in your office. And then from there, all the specifics are going to follow. [00:06:00] You imagine how you want to feel. And then as you open yourself up to what that's going to be, like, opportunities are going to present themselves. 

[00:06:10] His message. Really was all about starting with the very general, the feeling, how I wanted to feel at work with my colleagues and in my workspace. He waited. And he took a sip of his coffee. And I sat there. 

[00:06:27] Kind of dumbfounded and I told him, well, I don't know how I want to feel. 

[00:06:32] And he looked back at me and he said, Well, maybe start there then. 

[00:06:38] And that was the end of our conversation. I thanked him for his time. Anything to me for the coffee. And then I didn't see him again for several years.

[00:06:48] In that moment. I really didn't know what to think about what he had said. I certainly did not believe at the time that it was going to be the best advice I've ever received. 

[00:06:57] In fact, I was sorta like, oh, I think I might've wasted my [00:07:00] money and time on this. 

[00:07:01] It sounded frankly like the opposite of everything I'd been told in the past, which was to have a plan. Be specific and precise in your goals. Go after your goals, check off the boxes. 

[00:07:13] Get good grades. Go to a good school. Graduate with honors. Get into a top law school, graduate with honors. 

[00:07:19] Again, get a good law job. Pass the bar. Be a good lawyer. Get married. Get a house. Get a bigger house. Have kids. And so on and so on and so forth. Very specific, very check the box. Never ever. Did someone say to me, But how do you want to feel Jen? 

[00:07:35] Even though, I didn't know. How I felt about his advice to think about how I wanted to feel. 

[00:07:42] Applying the Advice: Career Transformation

[00:07:42] I decided to give it a try. 

[00:07:44] Since I bought him a coffee and since I was feeling stuck and I really had nothing to lose. I decided to apply his advice on the way home. I thought about how I wanted to feel at first, nothing came to me, but I thought [00:08:00] about it over and over again, turning it over in my head over the next several days and weeks that followed. I thought about how I wanted to feel at work excited, curious, valued, respected, and like I was making a difference. 

[00:08:14] And as I did this, as I thought about how I wanted to feel, not just at work, but in life overall, I started to get more clarity on what I wanted. I started to think about like, oh, this is how I want to feel when I'm around my coworkers, this is how I want to feel when I'm in my workspace, this is what I want my workspace to be like. And as I did that, as I got more clarity. Opportunities that I never ever would have considered before, seem to start falling into my lap. 

[00:08:43] Even when I was super pregnant and things in my life really did start to shift. And since then, since I had that conversation with this gentlemen almost a decade ago, I have had tremendous career growth, both financially and [00:09:00] professionally. And the personal growth that I've been through has been, honestly, it's been exponential. 

[00:09:07] I've had the opportunity to experience careers and jobs. I have wanted to try my entire life since like I was a little kid. I've worked with incredible people. I've been in leadership and managerial positions and I've worked all around the country, even the world. Coaching and consulting with clients in India, Australia, Germany, and the UK, 

[00:09:27] As of course, here in the us. And honestly, I can trace every single development. Back to that coffee shop. 

[00:09:36] And back to this man advice to focus on how I want to feel. 

[00:09:41] Now, certainly it's not my intention here to give you a false illusion that everything in my life over the last decade has been rainbows and daisies. Of course it hasn't. Life is 50 50. It's a balance. There have been challenging times. I have stayed in some positions too long. I have forgotten at some point. [00:10:00] The importance of noticing and honoring how I feel. I've had some big financial missteps. 

[00:10:06] For instance, as I was starting this podcast, I took one podcast class that was great. And a steal for the value. But then I took another, that costs 10 times what that first one caused and really was not a good investment on my end at all. But at every single point I have grown. I have experienced a lot. 

[00:10:28] And I wouldn't change it. It has opened my eyes to all that as possible in this magical world, Because for as much as a planner and an achiever, as I have been my entire life since grade school. I never could have imagined. Or planned the life that I have today for myself. I never could have imagined in 2016. The life I have now in 2025, a life that even though it is of course challenging at times. I feel so blessed and grateful to have. [00:11:00] A life that is in so many ways. 

[00:11:02] Absolutely magical. I mean, come on. I have an incredible job that more than pays my bills. I have coached beautiful, smart, incredible women all over the world. As they work to achieve their dream. I get to write and podcast. I'm figuring out how to publish my children's box. I have five incredible, healthy, happy kids. 

[00:11:30] And those kiddos are here even though I had health and fertility challenges with number five. I have a husband who is helping me to grow and who loves me even when I'm not at my best. I have a body that is strong and healthy and getting stronger and healthier every day. I have really beautiful, lovely friendships that I am. Taking time this year to really focus on nurturing. I have time and money to explore my hobbies and passions, and also nurture my childrens and get [00:12:00] this in 2024. My sister moved in next to me. 

[00:12:03] So I get to hang out with her, like all the time. And I'm telling you all this, not to brag or say, Hey, you look at me, but because I want you to understand why this advice about following the feeling was so freaking impactful and amazing. We took this advice in 2020 when the world was shutting down. And we decided to go out on a limb and buy a lake home in addition to our regular home. 

[00:12:32] And we have had so many incredible family memories there as well as a great return. on our investment. 

[00:12:39] I can trace every single development in the last, almost decade of my life, to the advice that I received to follow how I want to feel. The life that I want And that's what makes this advice. Just so incredibly impactful. It is not just the best career advice, but also the best overall life [00:13:00] advice that I have ever received. Which is to focus. On how I want to feel. 

[00:13:06] Focusing on Feelings in Writing

[00:13:06] And this year I am taking that advice and I am applying it to my writing because like I have told you, I have these children's books that I have written that I really want to get out into the world that I think the world needs that I think parents need to sit with their children on their lap and read to them. I really feel that in my heart. That these books are meant to be out into the world and that it's my job to help get them there. 

[00:13:34] So this year, I am taking that advice to focus on how I want to feel. And I am applying it to my writing to these books. This is to me a truly transformative idea. Instead of focusing on a specific writing goal or a routine per se. 

[00:13:53] I want to center my intention on how I want to feel as a writer. Do I want to feel inspired, confident, peaceful. [00:14:00] Am I looking for the feeling of achievement. Or the feeling of having created something, having birthed something and brought it into the world. Or that feeling of being energized? What is it that I am really seeking? Is it the accomplishments? Or is it what the accomplishments will give? 

[00:14:18] It's a reflection of life and a legacy too, that you're creating for the future. Even if you're not someone who's going to share their writing with someone. The writing is bigger than you. 

[00:14:30] Right now I am in an internal process of self-reflection to try to understand and really discover. How does, I want to personally feel as a writer? And then take steps. To really embody that in 2025. 

[00:14:46] What I've learned over the years is that often I know more easily what I don't want in a situation as opposed to what I do want. 

[00:14:54] And of course that makes sense because we are wired neurologically to really focus on the negative and [00:15:00] notice. What we don't want. That's that negativity bias, I know for instance that I don't want my writing to feel like a burden. I don't want it to feel like a chore. I don't want it to be something that I find boring or something that's simply generated by like AI. I don't want it to be stressful. 

[00:15:18] 

[00:15:19] I want my writing. To bring peace to me. I want it to be fun and playful. I want it to be a place for me to explore. I want it to be a place for me to play. I want it to be something that I can complete and finish. Because I love having a tangible item in my hand. And a complete project. 

[00:15:41] And because there's a part of me that is scared that I can't actually finish anything. And that it will never be perfect enough to be done. I want my writing. To be part of a financially abundant life that I've created for myself and my family. And at the same time, I [00:16:00] don't want my writing, especially in these early stages to be burdened by that desire. For financial abundance. 

[00:16:06] It's not ready for that. And neither am I if I'm being completely honest. And so right now I am holding in my heart and in my mind, all the things that I want my writing to be and turning them over in my heart. And in my writing, as I journal each day. Once I know more about how I want to feel. I can then create routines and practices that are going to allow me to feel like that. But really it all begins with the feeling. 

[00:16:33] So my dear beautiful. Creative smart, brilliant writer. 

[00:16:39] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:16:39] It is 2025. How do you want to feel about your writing? There are no wrong answers here. Rest assured that you can't mess this up. I want to know, how do you want to feel about your writing?

[00:16:54] Designing a writing life that feels good starts with tuning in to what truly matters to [00:17:00] you. When you focus on how you want to feel, you're not just writing. You're creating a life where your creativity can flourish. 

[00:17:08] 

[00:17:09] Now remember. In case no one has reminded each day. You are a resourceful, creative, whole human being. 

[00:17:16] You are capable and you are loved. Your ideas, your words and your stories matter. Now let's write. 

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