Take the time to figure out what’s right for you.

For over 20 years I’ve worked with people, often at a crossroads.

Sometimes it’s their business, sometimes it’s their career, and sometimes something just doesn’t feel right within themselves.

At times like this, the temptation is to try to make that uncomfortable feeling go away. The instinct can be to move on from whatever isn’t working, or to put our heads down and keep fighting, and keep plugging away.

But what I’ve learnt is that before we decide whether to go or stay, or what needs to change, we first need to understand why something isn’t working in the first place.

Without that understanding, we can end up jumping from the frying pan into the fire, or staying somewhere we really should be moving on from.

That can be a genuinely hard place to be, because often there isn’t a clear right answer.

For so many of us, we’ve been taught that giving up is a sign of failure. So we stay, we push and we endeavour.

But there’s a fine line between resilience that eventually works out, and resilience that leaves us so depleted it can take a long, long time to recover from.

And I don’t think a lot of people realise just how fine that line can be.

I’ve committed a couple of decades to supporting people as they navigate these chapters, because they are confusing and they often need a different approach.

Personally, it hurts when I see good, genuine people carrying the disappointment of thinking there’s something wrong with them, when often it’s simply a mismatch between what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and what actually suits them.

If I can encourage someone to slow down for a minute, take stock and figure out what’s genuinely right for them, then I feel I’ve at least offered a positive contribution during what can be a very challenging chapter in a person’s life.

And I think that’s where self-respect comes in. Giving ourselves enough time and consideration to work out what’s actually right for us.

But of course, this can be its own challenge when so many of us feel short of time already.