Have you ever found yourself not burned out... but just oddly flat at work?

In this episode, I respond to a listener who described a creeping sense of detachment and apathy in their work life—and the dread of staying stuck that way for the next 15 years. I share my own tipping point story from a Tuesday night in October (complete with toddler bedtime chaos and an empty interview with a man I can’t even remember), and how that night became the moment I decided to change everything.

If you're feeling like your career has lost its spark but you're not ready to throw it all away, this one's for you. I also share a 6-step “quest” plan to move from flat-lining to future-forward—including what I wish I’d done sooner, and a few ideas to get you experimenting again.

✨ Mentioned in this episode:

• Midlife Career Kiss of Life article
• How to Choose a Career Coach
• Join the Midlife Unstuck Community
• 43 Experiments to Help You Enjoy Work Again

🎧 Ready to start your quest? Let’s begin your unstucking.

I am Lucia Knight and this is the Joy At Work Podcast.

Here's our listener question this week.

I've been feeling unusually flat at work lately.

Not burned out or overstressed, just disconnected and flatlining.

This detachment is new and a bit concerning.

With 15 more working years ahead, supporting kids through uni and

adding to the retirement fund.

The thought of continuing like this feels pretty bleak.

Any advice?

Based on my work over the last nine years to feel good at

work, it needs to be enjoyable and satisfying at least 50% of the time.

That doesn't mean it has to be sunshine and applause every day.

Of course, we can all do hard things.

But if the next 15 years look like a long gray slog, that's a

tough sell to ourselves, to our coworkers, and to our families.

I liken it to a slow, steady drip of dissatisfaction.

Drip, drip, drip.

If you're strong, healthy and tenacious.

You can endure it for years, but eventually the flood barriers give way.

Sometimes it's a big external shot that cracks them open.

A personal health scare, a sick family member, or some

other big emotional hurricane.

At other times it's just the erosion, slow and steady that causes you to burst.

And by burst, I mean hitting your personal tipping point.

My personal tipping point happened in 2014.

It was a Tuesday night in October around my 42nd birthday.

I'd had a long day commuting in and out of London, leaving our beloved

nanny at 7:00 AM and returning home at 7:00 PM to tuck in two little girls.

Our nanny was practically family.

We even made her one of our girls godparents.

But even with that quality of support, it was hard.

It was hard to make it all work.

I'd squeezed in a 7:30 PM interview for a finance director

role I was running a search for.

That gave me less than 30 minutes to reconnect with my daughter.

Speed, read a bedtime story, and then rushed back downstairs

to professionally impress.

But the girls didn't get why we were hurrying.

Why mommy, who had been at work all day, still needed to do more work.

I lost my patience.

I shouted.

I gave each of them a cursory kiss and then whiz downstairs, turned on

my interview face and talked to a man whose name I can't even remember.

He was a great fit for the role.

But when that call ended, I sat with my head in my hands and

asked, is this the life I want?

What will be the cost if I continue this way for another

year or another five years?

Do I care enough about this kind of work to make those kinds of sacrifices?

The truth was I just didn't, my work was at best dull.

I'd been doing more or less the same things for two decades.

Albeit at more and more senior levels, but ultimately the same things, and the

cost of sticking with those same things for another decade was just too high.

I'd become the kind of mom I never wanted to be.

The kind of exhausted, not much fun wife I never imagined I'd be.

And the kind of disengaged, disconnected worker I never meant to be.

That night I didn't even speak to my husband about it when he got

home after his commute and long day at work, I was bone tired, but I'd

made a decision and that was one of the best decisions of my life.

I decided that this time next year.

I'll be somewhere different doing different work.

And of course, now I'd made that decision.

It meant I had to actually do something different Immediately.

I stopped watching Netflix every evening and instead went to bed early watching

Ted talks to find people who actually enthusiastically loved their work.

I started asking people who enjoyed their jobs, why, and how they made that happen.

I accepted calls from competitors for the very first time in my career,

not because I was job hunting, but to investigate is the problem me

or is it the company or the job?

No surprises.

It was me.

I was at the center of this problem and for the first time in years,

I started learning new things.

Little things.

At first, I bought books on topics I was curious about.

I learned how to sleep better, and boy, that was an investment in learning that I

continue to benefit from to this day and will benefit from for the rest of my life.

I ditched Friday night blowouts that masked my stress by numbing myself.

After the work week, I created space for thinking and research.

We also tightened the family finances, less expensive holidays,

less thoughtless spending in the UK's most expensive supermarket and

more savvy and mindful spending.

I say we for that one because making big changes after a 20 year career

isn't just a personal decision, it's a family one, and all of us got involved.

And then I began experimenting, small experiments, fun things, things that were

totally invisible to anyone except me.

They gave me the courage to try bigger experiments.

And I documented these experiments, or many of them

in an article with photographs to remind me how far I've come.

I've included a link in the show notes if you're curious to that article.

I called it, "How I gave my midlife the kiss of life".

To our listener who asked this week's question, my sense is you haven't hit

your tipping point just yet, but the fact that you're asking the question

means that you're heading towards it.

So here's what I'd suggest, a little six point plan.

Number one, remember today, write down today's date and the date

exactly 12 months from today.

It's important that you keep this somewhere prominent.

Front of your diary wallpaper on your phone, a sticky note on the fridge.

This is your personal commitment.

You are giving yourself a year to figure out what's next.

Number two, start a research project with people.

Talk to anyone who enjoys their work from any field asked How did that happen?

When did that happen?

What's the very best day of your week or month?

And why.

Ask how they minimize the badge or the flat or the blur days.

Three, spot your clues.

What topics do you love learning about?

What are you reading about when you fall down those rabbit holes?

What were you doing the last time you felt truly engaged at work?

When does time fly for you at work?

Write them down.

Follow those clues.

Four.

Run tiny experiments.

Try new things at work, outside work anywhere just to see what lights you up.

This is not about giant leaps.

It's about teeny tiny pieces of data gathering for your future self.

If you want ideas on experiments, there are 24 tiny episodes in Season two of

The Joy At Work Podcast each with one recommendation for a 10 minute experiment.

Do one of those a day, and that's nearly a month's worth of experiments.

Number five, give your year a name.

I love the word quest.

You are now officially on a quest.

A quest for energy, for meaning, for joy, for fun, for spark, glimmers of hope.

Keep treating it like the important quest that it is.

Go bravely through your quest year.

Learning, discovering, experimenting, playing.

Following clues, making decisions, opening doors, closing doors, digging

out new opportunities, meeting new people, and recording your progress

in a way that is just right for you.

Once you set out on this quest, you are no longer stuck.

Sure you don't know your direction yet, and you haven't got all the answers,

and that might be uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but you're no longer stuck.

You're on the move.

You have begun your quest.

Finally, number six, get help.

When you get stuck, what I know for sure is that if I was at the

start of my quest again, I'd have asked for help way before I did.

I was busy pushing square wheels uphill inside my head and wasting precious time.

There weren't many people I could go to back then for help, but there are now that

said, you need to find the right person for you, and it's a minefield out there.

Everyone and their dog has called themselves a career expert, so I'll

include a link in the show notes to an article I wrote, and it's called

How to Choose the Right Career Consultant for Your Situation, even

if you're not sure you need one yet.

Flat Lining at work for a day or two, that's totally normal.

Feeling that way for months or years.

Mm-hmm.

That deserves your attention, especially if you plan to work

for another decade or two.

Enjoyment at work isn't guaranteed for any of us, but it can happen.

And the chances of it happening vastly increase when you design it on purpose.

When you deliberately decide to make your next decade of work your best yet.