When You Stop Editing Yourself, Work Changes: Deirdre’s Midlife Career Redesign

Season 3

21 Jan

Why Being “Professional” Might Be Costing You Fulfillment

Many professionals succeed while only bringing part of themselves to work. The cost isn’t visible—but it’s real. This is what changes when you stop editing yourself.

There’s a particular kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from long hours or heavy workloads.
It comes from editing yourself.

From filtering your curiosity, softening your values, hiding the parts of you that don’t quite fit the job description. From bringing your competence, but not your convictions. Your output, but not your inner truth.

Many professionals become extraordinarily successful this way. And quietly dispirited.

Not because the work is bad—but because it’s incomplete.

The Cost of Partial Presence

When people talk about burnout, they often point to pace or pressure. But there’s another cost that’s harder to name: the emotional tax of fragmentation.

You learn what parts of yourself are “useful.”
You leave the rest at the door.

Your empathy.
Your curiosity about meaning.
Your interest in how people actually experience work.

You still perform. You still deliver. You might even thrive by conventional measures. But something essential is missing.

Not effort.
Not capability.
Congruence.

Alignment Isn’t a Luxury—It’s Structural

Alignment is often framed as a soft concept. A nice-to-have once you’re successful enough to indulge it.

But alignment isn’t about indulgence. It’s about sustainability.

When your values, interests, and way of seeing the world are structurally incompatible with how you work, friction builds. Not all at once—but steadily. Quietly. Invisibly.

The work starts to feel heavier than it should.
Decisions take more energy.
Motivation has to be manufactured instead of accessed.

Alignment isn’t about doing less.
It’s about stopping the internal resistance.

Vulnerability Isn’t the Opposite of Expertise

For many high performers, vulnerability feels dangerous. Especially if your career has been built on being the expert in the room.

Expertise creates authority.
Vulnerability creates connection.

When vulnerability leads, something unexpected happens: resistance drops. Conversations deepen. People stop performing back.

Not because you’ve relinquished competence—but because you’ve stopped using it as armor.

This doesn’t mean oversharing. It means truth-telling. Naming mistakes. Admitting uncertainty. Letting lived experience carry as much weight as credentials.

Ironically, this often strengthens credibility rather than weakening it.

Letting Go of the Scarcity Script

Many people unconsciously treat work as a zero-sum game.

If I win, someone else loses.
If I take space, someone else gets pushed aside.
If I shine, I risk making others uncomfortable.

So they dim themselves. Or over-perform. Or wait their turn.

Abundance thinking isn’t naïve optimism. It’s the recognition that fulfillment isn’t allocated through competition—it’s built through alignment and contribution.

When you stop treating opportunity as scarce, you stop managing yourself so tightly. You put yourself forward more. You experiment. You allow recognition without guilt.

And paradoxically, external validation often follows—without being the point.

What Joy at Work Actually Feels Like

Joy at work isn’t constant happiness.
It isn’t ease without effort.

It’s congruence.

When what you do stimulates both your mind and your emotions.
When task completion and meaning coexist.
When you no longer have to choose between being effective and being yourself.

Joy feels like coherence.
Like your internal and external worlds finally agreeing.

A Quiet Question Worth Asking

Not “Should I leave?”
Not “What’s the next role?”

But:

Where am I still editing myself—and what would change if I didn’t?

That question doesn’t demand a dramatic answer.
Just an honest one.

And honesty, it turns out, is often where better work begins.

Curious What Joy at Work Might Look Like for You?

Whether you’re wrestling with loyalty, craving a change you can’t yet name, or simply wondering if it’s too late to do something more meaningful—this story is proof that clarity is possible.

🔗 Explore how you can begin your own career redesign journey: Work With Lucia

Related:
🔗 Midlife Worklife Satisfaction Report

[00:00:00] When Success Starts Feeling Hollow
Lucia Knight: Hi, I'm Lucia Knight and this is the Joy At Work Podcast. Today I'm joined by one of my former clients, someone who, like so many of us, had a moment of weight. Is this what work is supposed to feel like? And instead of brushing it off and cracking on, they paused and they chose to design their work life differently.
I've asked each guest to share the three most important insights they learned about their future work life that they never ever want to forget. And these aren't just light reflections. They're the result of three, six, or 12 months of deep work together, and now they're in a position to capture those timeless notes to their future self.
For some saying yes to my invitation, took a little bravery and a lot of what I call powerful vulnerability. Some had to dig deep because they really value their privacy. Some said yes because they understood the potential power of having a touch point to return to every year, but mostly they said yes as an act of kindness gifted to me and to you.
Let's dive in.
[00:01:16] Discovering Your Own Inner Truth
Lucia Knight: Deirdre, what is the very first thing that you've discovered about your work life that you never ever want to forget in the future?
Deirdre: Okay. I thought about this, it's two years now since I did the Midlife Unstuck program. And, what I discovered during the process and what has really stuck with me is the whole thing about my own truth.
So it's that whole feeling of being aligned with me. With what I stand for value wise, with what interests me as a person and knowing that about myself, and I know that sounds weird, but think about it, like I've had a 30 year career in project management and IT, and I've always been on the leading edge of stuff and it's all been go, And I've been doing really good work for other people's objectives. And you know, I've tried to bring myself into it when I'm doing it. but over time what I found was if you're working for a profit making company, even though they might be in medicine or they might be in some really good area, their objectives are not necessarily my objectives, have they?
Deal with people or how they run a team is not necessarily the way that feels right to me. Like I'm a person with lots of different interests. I love reading fiction because I can step into people's lives and understand their stories. I love exploring philosophy, exploring the science of happiness.
[00:03:00] The Cost of Only Bringing 30% of Yourself
Deirdre: There's all this stuff, but what I found was that I was only bringing a segment of myself into the workplace. And I was cording off a lot of myself and a lot of the stuff that really was valuable to me. And it was like I was cording off my own inner truth and just bringing 30% my, ability to execute tasks into the workplace.
And I could execute tasks very well, but it just felt dispiriting. So my first resolution is know my own truth. And stay aligned with it. So
Lucia Knight: And bring, yeah, Brilliant. And it feels God, if you were that successful, bringing 30% of Deirdre McCarthy to work. Any wonder if things are blowing up for you now that you're bringing a hundred percent
Deirdre: yeah, look, it is true. I'm more successful, but I probably earn less money
Lucia Knight: so.
far? 'cause it's early days.
Yes.
Deirdre: also the line of chosen means that I'm what would you say? I'm insulated because of good choices I made earlier on,
so you know that's a good thing.
Lucia Knight: Brilliant. So thank you for that one. That makes complete sense to me.
[00:04:16] Vulnerability as a Professional Strength
Lucia Knight: So what is the second thing that you have discovered about your work life that you can never forget in the future?
Deirdre: Okay. Radical shift is the whole power of vulnerability and kindness. So again, I would've been aware of this and in the workplace I would've always been a bit of a blur there and a bit of a connector, but not systematically.
Whereas now I bring vulnerability to the forefront, and I'll often, like I've always dined out on my stories of social ineptitude or the things that went wrong or when I made the mistakes, but now I can build them into a brand.
So I'm building a brand, which is financial education for women.
So I can build my vulnerability and knowing, say about my experience as a single parent while still holding down a professional job, I can bring that forward. But I can also talk about things where I made mistakes. You know, maybe I trusted a tradesman I shouldn't have trusted without doing due diligence.
And I bring my vulnerability and mistakes sometimes forward. And what I find hugely is this is opening doors for me. It's lowering the barriers of resistance in other people. So when I make myself vulnerable and expose something that you know I've done, which maybe wasn't a perfect thing or wasn't my ideal path, other people will often respond by telling, lowering their barriers and telling me a story about their own lives. So it's that whole vulnerability and kindness, and again, it comes back to the truth. You know, if I speak the truth, then people will often respond with the truth.
[00:06:12] Letting Go of Expert-Mode Armor
Lucia Knight: It's a real connector, isn't it? It feels like someone's taken their mask off when they're saying, I made this mistake in the past.
I've learned lessons from it. And then it opens the door to them saying, oh, I made that same mistake, or a different mistake. And then you've created a new relationship, haven't you?
Yes.
Deirdre: And also think about it like my professional career. A lot of that was consultancy. And consultancy is often about leading with being the expert in the room. So it's often about saying this is the way to do it. So I've turned that on its head. 'cause I found that was feeding into a judgmental side of me.
That is not well received and that I don't feel particularly good when I'm being judgmental, so haven't entirely switched off that part of my brain. But if I lead with vulnerability and openness first, then the judgmental thing has a place, has a role to play, but it's further down the line, if It's about evaluating good decisions and advising people what might or might not be a good decision.
But I'm leading from my experience and openness and I think that works quite well, and I think it's just changed the dynamic of my life more than just business life. yeah.
Lucia Knight: Alright.
[00:07:34] Releasing Scarcity and Competition
Lucia Knight: And the final thing. That you never want to forget in your future work life.
Deirdre: so this came from learning, which was while I was doing midlife on stock, and I was also doing other programs like The Artist's Way, and it's that sense that there is enough to go around so that the world isn't necessarily a competitive, one person wins, one person loses type environment. I would've been using that against myself in two ways, both by feeling that sometimes I had to be seen to be the winner, and also by feeling that sometimes I had to stand back and allow somebody else to take the prize.
Because it was only one prize, so I was hiding my own light under a bushel because I didn't want other people to feel uncomfortable or whatever. So now I have this philosophy of there's plenty to go around. There's plenty of prizes for plenty of rewards. And with that attitude, I also find I'm winning awards.
But with that attitude, The world is a better place then for what I put into it and what I seek to get from it. I don't know, like it's hard to explain, but it's, you know, it's like I'm not looking for external validation. but external validation is actually often happening, because I have this belief that it doesn't matter about any one particular competition or it doesn't matter about anyone grant funding or whatever it is that I'm doing in the startup world, there's enough there for all of us.
[00:09:20] What Abundance Changes in Daily Decisions
Lucia Knight: And what difference does that make to
Deirdre: it means I'm actually putting myself forward for more awards, strangely enough. even when I don't feel that I'm fully ready or whatever, because I take the view, there's plenty there, you know?
I may or may not be considered for this. But, equally, if I am considered and I win a prize and I win some funding, it doesn't mean that the next person has been disenfranchised.
Lucia Knight: Yeah. Got
Deirdre: you know, it's just a slightly different way of thinking.

[00:09:55] Redefining Joy at Work as Congruence
Lucia Knight: Deirdre, can you tell me what Joy at work looks like or feels like to you?
Deirdre: Joy at Work feels like I'm bringing my full self. I am doing stuff that stimulates my brain and my emotions, so it's. It's, what's the word, congruent. things are working together. Yeah. And it's not that I have to cho choose between task completion versus emotional satisfaction. It's, I'm able to do a bit of both and that's actually the space I'm inhabiting right now.
I'm going to hackathons. I'm very involved in leading edge tech. And I'm in the startup community and I'm doing a social enterprise. I've founded a social enterprise and that's ticking so many boxes for me. So it's about congruency, I think. I think that's the right word.
Lucia Knight: Deirdre and I work together on a program called The Fierce Emporium. If you are interested in working with me, just scan this show notes, and there is a link to the three programs on offer.