Every December I pause and gather the threads of my year.

It’s a lovely ritual, and I’m noticing I start earlier and earlier - maybe because the rush of Christmas can quickly give way to ‘back to work’, or because it feels so dark so early, or simply because it’s a nice thing to do.

It’s absolutely not about looking ahead yet, or creating goals or resolutions - it’s about looking back to see the journey.

In previous years I’ve focused a lot on finding the story of it - looking fully at the ups, the downs, the learning, the insights, the implications.

This year I’m appreciating how powerful it is to simply look back and see what happened, from the start to right now.

So much happens each day, but it’s easy to lose track of how it all adds up when we’re in it.

When I look back at my career timeline it looks seamless.

I’ve transitioned between different companies, industries, roles, labels, ways of working - and I can clearly see the thread that links them.

At the time? At each of those crossroads? Not so much!

At each of those points I was full of confusion. It’s a tricky time. Knowing that something has come to an end, but not what will start up next.

What I did know was what I didn’t want.

I love this picture.

It represents the fun of being up high, the joy of early dog ownership, the beauty of seeing the landscape spread out down below.

It was taken on holiday in West Wales back in 2018. Freddie and I are at the top of Mwnt, while my husband and children are on the beach down below.

They were happy doing, and I was happy being and seeing them.

Seeing our lives from above like this can be both calming and grounding. Things really do look different, and feel different, when we look down on our lives rather than being in them.

It gives us a moment to pause, to see the bigger picture, to put things in context.

…when you don’t know exactly what you want to do next.

Many of us dread being asked the question - where do you want to be in 5 years?

We simply can’t tell you the role we want to be in, or where we want to be. We don’t know.

And that’s absolutely fine.

Except… it can be really hard when other people know their answer, and it feels that we should too.

So, we default to the response we feel we ‘should’ give, or leave it wide open - neither of which feel right.

But there is a different way to have a useful career conversation.