Rethinking Career: Why Your Career Needs an Existential Awakening

What if your career isn’t a ladder to climb but a life you are continually creating? Britt Mari Sykes challenges the conventional rules around ambition, purpose and professional success.

By Mark Sephton.

In the modern professional landscape, we are often taught to see our careers as a series of strategic steps and manoeuvres, polishing our skills, optimising our resumes, and progressing up a linear ladder, toward an idealised version of success. Yet for many high-achieving women, reaching the top of that ladder results in a paradox: feeling successful on paper but empty inside or disconnected from their careers.

Britt Mari Sykes, a researcher, lecturer, career counsellor, and the founder of Canvas Career Counselling, maintains that this emptiness stems from a fundamental disconnect between professional narratives and our human experiences. With a deep background in existential psychology, philosophy and career development, Britt Mari invites professionals to move beyond conventional approaches to career and instead view their work and career lives through a broader experiential lens. 

From Business Models to Career Lives

One of the most significant barriers to discovering and experiencing professional fulfilment is the tendency to treat a career like a business strategy. We look for formulas, five-step plans, and predictable structures, but Britt Mari suggests that "career lives" are not business models. A “career life” encompasses experiences, engagement, active choices and decisions, movement and change. A “career life” is fluid, circuitous, and reflects the multiple contexts in which our existence is embedded. Our working lives are a significant part of how we participate in and contribute to the world, and the meaning work and career hold for us continually evolve and shift. 

"When you shift the focus to a 'career life', you acknowledge the experiences you have of work, something you are actively engaged in and continuously creating, something that moves and changes as much as you move and change," Britt Mari explains. This shift in mindset from "climbing" to "creating" opens space for a professional journey that aligns more with our experiential selves and the realities of the world around us. 

The Atrophy of Reflection

In a world obsessed with productivity and busyness, our ability to pause and reflect has become a neglected skill. Britt Mari notes that our inherently human "reflective muscles" are effectively atrophying, and we have begun to "outsource" our internal processing to external narratives and societal expectations. We often internalise broader cultural narratives about what a career should look like, how it should unfold, and what constitutes a “successful” career, while losing touch with our personal experiences.

To counter this, she advocates regular reflective practice. This isn't about finding a better strategy; it is about gathering information with "compassionate curiosity". By spending 10 to 15 minutes at the end of a workday asking, "How did I experience this day?", we begin to reclaim our agency.

Exercising Your Reflective Muscles

To strengthen these muscles, Britt Mari suggests asking ourselves questions and being very descriptive with our responses rather than looking for quick fixes:

• What kind of attitude did I bring into this day? How did it feel to carry that attitude all day? How did that attitude influence my day?
• What stands out from this day that felt joyous, and that I can celebrate? How did I respond? 
• Which moments in this day were challenging, boring, or tedious? How did I respond?
• How did I engage and interact with my colleagues??
• How motivated and engaged was I? When did I notice my motivation dip?

Most of our days are a mix of these feelings; they are rarely entirely joyful or entirely challenging. By being aware of and acknowledging the full spectrum of experiences in our daily lives, we create space for different approaches and choices and see our aspirations from new perspectives.

Meaning vs Purpose: Shifting the Goalposts

We often obsess over finding a singular "calling" or "purpose” to our careers, treating it like a hidden treasure or a formula to be solved. Britt Mari offers a more organic alternative: staying open and receptive to discovering multiple meanings in our career lives through active engagement.

Meanings are discovered when we actively participate and contribute to the world. It is not a single, strategically constructed thing that makes everything perfect once found; rather, it is our openness to the world around us that helps us discover meaningful moments, experiences, and stages throughout our lives. By engaging with life, staying open to our experiences, and actively participating—an idea rooted in existential psychology—we understand that purpose is something we continually create and have a choice in, not merely something we find on a career ladder.

Navigating the “Middle Space” of Change

For the leader who feels stuck in a role that no longer "lights her up," initiating change can also seem like a frightening void. We often resist change in our careers because they are so deeply connected to our identity, status, expectations, and ideas of success.

However, movement and change are inherent parts of human life. Britt Mari encourages those experiencing a transition to sit with the "awkwardness" of the middle space in a supportive, safe conversational setting. Instead of rushing to the next job title, she recommends exploring the internal feelings of the shift.

• What would a change feel like? What possibilities would change open up?
• When did you notice a shift, or a receptive shift towards change?
• What are you hesitant to let go of? 
• How have you reacted to movement and change in the past? When have you embraced and chosen change? When have you resisted change?

Being open to and reflecting on such questions shifts us from passively accepting our circumstances to being active “authors” of our own lives.

A Final Contemplation

If you are feeling the weight of professional expectations or the cost of a career that doesn't feed your soul, Britt Mari leaves you with one simple yet complex contemplation to help expand the horizon of what is possible:

"What does your career life mean to you today?"

She encourages you not to keep the answer in your head but to write it down and be as descriptive as possible. By looking inward and training those reflective muscles, you can start to build a professional life that isn't just successful on paper but also soulful, holistic, and meaningful in practice.

To learn more about Britt Mari Sykes and her work, visit Canvas Career Counselling at mycareercanvas.co or contact her directly at hello@mycareercanvas.co

This article accompanies The Myth of the Career Ladder: Why Success Feels Empty with Britt Mari Sykes from The Female CEO Podcast – Don’t forget to subscribe!

Mark Sephton has helped numerous high-level thought leaders and creatives unveil their story, voice, and visibility so they, too, can make their mark on the world. He creates a safe space for aspiring thought leaders to feel heard, find confidence, and ignite their impact. He does this by increasing their visibility and rapport through storytelling, interviews, content creation, and media presence. In fact, he has conducted over 5,000 life-changing interviews with thought leaders and creatives, and is often referred to as the ‘King of Conversation’.

Mark has shared his life experiences as an author of three books on the subject of personal development: Inside Job, Plot Twist & Mark of a Man. He’s recognised for his contribution as an inspiring storyteller who provides positive exposure and opportunities for others who have a great purpose and passion to make their mark in their own distinctive way.

Find out more about Mark and his work at marksephton.com