My Career Crisis Toolkit

I’ve had lots of ups and downs over my career and these are some activities that have helped me when I’m stuck to gain clarity about what it is I want

Hi there,

So this post started out as a pity piece. You see, I go through phases of feeling really confused and down about my career and then feeling really good about my career - constantly oscillating between these two states. I’m currently in a confused and down phase and I started writing all this really negative stuff. And whilst it felt good to get off my chest, I thought, ‘save that for your diary/career coach, Hannah!’ In this newsletter, which you have signed up for, I assume, because you like my work and want to support and hear more from me, I want to be honest and real with you, yes, but I also don’t want to be an absolute bummer and bring you down with me.

The thing is, over the many years I have been doing this sex educator/content creator job I have had many moments where I have wanted to quit, but I never have because something has always drawn me back in or I’ve been able to rediscover the spark inside me that helps me to keep going and find the joy in what I do.

So in order to motivate myself but also to maybe inspire you, I wanted to share some of the things over the years that I have done in various attempts to varying degrees of success to tune into what it is I want out of my career and life.

(You may need to click “view entire message” at the bottom if the email gets cut off in your inbox!)

Peer Coaching - there’s different names for this and over the years it has taken different forms in my life. From monthly “mastermind” calls with creator friends to now quarterly “Banging Business Club” days to one-off “let’s sort out our shit” days. These have always been incredibly useful to me. Having the support and insights from people doing similar things to you in an industry that often feels very lonely is amazing and these sessions have always brought so much value to my work. Whether that be help untangling a specific problem, advice on content strategy or simply just asking me the right questions to help me gain clarity on an issue.

Keeping an “I need a break” diary - during 2020 I was feeling especially low about my career and I was really struggling (as were a lot of us deep in the pandemic). Instead of making any rash decisions whilst the world was literally on pause instead I decided to just keep track of all the times I felt like I’d had enough. I started a spreadsheet where I would write the date, how I was feeling, what I think triggered it and then what actions I took (if any). It was helpful to feel like I was doing something with those uncomfortable feelings instead of just letting them fester inside me and it also helped me see a pattern of how often I felt that way and what was causing it.

Thinking really really big picture and doing it more than once - sometimes it has helped me gain clarity when doing thought exercises like - what do you want written on your gravestone? or what do you want written in the achievements section of your Wikipedia page? Sometimes it can be really telling what you come up with. But the trick is to do it more than once because how you’re feeling on a particular day can influence your answers.

Evaluating all my projects - this is something my career coach had me do. I listed out all my current existing projects and potential future projects on a spreadsheet, from the youtube channels to the podcast to a potential future book club etc. Then I had my personal criteria of the costs/rewards associated. So costs were things like - money, time, energy and any aspects involved in projects that drained me. Rewards were things like - money, fun, collaboration, positive impact on others, personal growth/learning and other things that are important to me in finding joy and meaning in my work. Then I rated each thing from low to high (1-3) in terms of the costs and rewards and then added it all up and did some spreadsheet maths. This was a really eye opening exercise for me in terms of really seeing with stark numbers in front of me the things that were draining me and I was getting very little back from vs the things that really lit a fire in my belly and were worth the costs.

So those are some of the tools I’ve gathered over the years and still use to help me figure my shit out when I need to. Let me know if you’ve tried any of them or something similar. How do you claw your way through a crisis?

🎙️ Doing It Podcast Season 7 - production is underway! We have started recording interviews for the first episode in this new format of a series. Feels so weird to be back to recording podcasts again because even though we last released an episode in March this year, those were all recorded in 2022 so I haven’t recorded any podcast episodes this year… until now! It’s a very different kind of interview though knowing that the conversation is going to be a lot more chopped up and edited amongst other interviews rather than one whole episode being one interview. Definitely a challenge and a big learning curve but we have officially started!

If you didn’t know, season 7 of the podcast will be 5 episodes each exploring a different theme around sex and relationships. There’s going to be lots of behind the scenes and bonus content over on Patreon as part of this series as the reason I’m able to try something different and take my time with this is because of patrons’ support, so thank you!

🫂 Couples Therapy - this is a Showtime TV doc that in the UK is on the BBC. Season 3 just dropped and I’ve already made a serious dent in it. It’s just so good! You’re getting a real look into people’s relationship therapy sessions, you see their love, their pain, their frustrations, their resentment, their realisations etc. It’s such an insightful show into human emotions, relations, needs and the stories we tell ourselves. I also love the component in the series where we see the therapist, Orna, talking with her clinical supervisor and her fellow therapist peers to discuss cases and get advice and support on how she can best approach her clients’ problems. Would recommend.

From anonymous: “Not really a sex fact but it makes me laugh and is in the realm of sex and relationships! The founder of match.com, Gary Kremen, lost his girlfriend to a man she met on match.com 😂 “

Oh the irony…

If you’d like to submit your own sex fact for the group in our sexy show and tell then you can submit here!

💗 Barbie! - I took a couple hours off work to sneak out to the cinema and see the new Barbie film and it was EXCELLENT. I laughed so much, it was so clever and funny, and I love that it is making conservatives angry. I have more thoughts about the feminist/consumerist/capitalist aspect of it but I'm just going to take my feminist goggles off for a moment and just bask in the JOY ✨💗

I shared a realistic monthly reading vlog as my reading habits have changed since having a baby and we took a tour of some of the sex objects in the British Museum!

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If you'd like to support what I do, get early access to content, a private community discord server and a secret playlist of over 100 old cringey videos then check out The Common Room over on Patreon!

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Thanks for reading, hope you're well!

All the best,

Hannah xxx