What if you didn’t wait until work got really bad before you started changing it?

Lucia Knight is back for Season 4 of Joy at Work with the same philosophy that has always been at the heart of the show: small changes made sooner can make work—and life—a whole lot lighter.

With more than 120 conversations to explore, Joy at Work tackles the things that can make work harder when life gets complicated, shares real stories from people who have deliberately redesigned their working lives, and explores alternative ways of working that challenge the idea that we all have to follow the same career path until retirement.

If you’ve been wondering:

• How do I make work fit better without changing everything overnight?
• What happens when divorce, grief, aging parents, health or other parts of life start affecting work?
• Is it actually possible to design a different way of working in midlife?
• What if I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up?
• How have other people created more joy at work without the Cinderella career-change story?

Season 4 will keep exploring those questions, including the psychology of money and work-life changes, identity after leaving corporate life, the physical impact of desk-based work, divorce and work performance, and more tiny conversations with people who have deliberately designed their work lives to suit them better.

Because you don’t need to have the whole future figured out. Sometimes you just need to know where to start.

Ready to find your starting point? Take the Joy at Work Quiz to discover your Joy at Work potential score, the easiest place to make some tweaks, and the blind spot that may be getting in your way. - https://lucia-trqb5gnw.scoreapp.com/

Have a question for Lucia?

Is there something about work, career change or midlife stuckness you’d love Lucia to explore? Submit your question here: https://midlifeunstuck.activehosted.com/f/38

Lucia Knight: Since I was last in your ear holes, I've become bionic.

I've got a new hip, age 53, and honestly, I wish I'd done it sooner.

And that's the philosophy that's sewn into this podcast.

I'm here to encourage you to make little changes at work before things

get too bad, because change is easier and lighter the sooner we do it.

Hello, and welcome back to season four of The Joy at Work podcast.

I'm Lucia Knight, and you are in the right place if you want to design work you enjoy

so much that you want to do it forever.

Since I was last in your ear holes, I've become bionic.

I've got a new hip, age 53, and honestly, I wish I'd done it sooner.

And that's the philosophy that's sewn into this podcast.

I'm here to encourage you to make little changes at work before things

get too bad, because change is easier and lighter the sooner we do it.

Let's dive in to what's ahead for season four.

Before I tell you what's coming, I want you to know what's already there.

There are 120-ish episodes waiting for you, and broadly

they fit into three buckets.

Bucket one, the stuff that no one else says aloud: ageism in job searching, how

not to become office gossip after you announce your divorce, aging parents,

grief, body parts seizing up, insomnia, imposter syndrome, health anxiety, and

the emotional anatomy of a redundancy.

If work has ever felt hard because life got hard, that's the bucket for you.

Bucket two, proof it's possible.

Not Cinderella career change stories.

I cannot stand those.

Real conversations with former clients sharing the three things

they never want to forget.

Scott, Jill, Laura, Lester, and dozens more.

If you've ever doubted whether joy at work is possible for

someone like you, start there.

Bucket three, alternative ways of working, because working like our

parents worked until we retire is not how we're gonna do work.

Episodes on building a fierce freedom fund, taking a midlife sabbatical, going

back to uni, working four days a week, getting paid five, deep work, choosing

the right volunteer opportunities, and one of my favorites in this

bucket is called Misery Loves Company.

Go and steal that idea.

120 episodes free.

Go grab them

Now, what's coming this season?

Identity and friendship loss after you leave corporate life.

The if I'm not that, what am I?

Scary ego shift.

We kick off next time with the psychology of money and work-life

changes with Barney Witter, otherwise known as The Escape Artist.

Our conversation was so good, we recorded two episodes for you.

What else?

How not to wreck your body when your job has you chained to a desk.

The work performance dip that happens when you're divorcing.

No one talks about that enough.

In this season, we do.

And we've got more episodes on the question I get asked more than any

What do I do if I still haven't decided what I want to be when I grow up?

There are several episodes on that one.

And back by popular demand, more tiny conversations with former clients.

I didn't expect this segment to land the way it has.

It turns out you love hearing the three things those who have deliberately

designed their work lives to suit them better never want to forget.

Honestly, so do I. Oh, if you watch on YouTube, you'll see me

grinning like an eager puppy the whole way through those episodes.

Actually, maybe just listen along to those ones.

And I'm still taking your questions.

There will be a link in the show notes.

Send me a question that you've been pondering for a while, and

I'll answer it in an episode

Tune into any of these episodes, and when you're ready for more, the best place to

start is to take the Joy at Work quiz.

When you answer my questions, you'll receive your Joy at Work potential score.

It shows you your easiest place to make some tweaks to bring you more joy

at work and your biggest blind spot.

When you know those two things, you can get started designing

work you might do forever.