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Feeling Lost in Your Career? Find Your Purpose Through Therapy and Coaching

  • Writer: Elizabeth Ecklund
    Elizabeth Ecklund
  • Nov 21, 2025
  • 8 min read

Welcome to Mindforge Therapy Group, where we understand the unique challenges faced by first responders, law enforcement officers, and healthcare workers who are questioning their career paths. After years of dedicating your life to serving others, it's completely natural to find yourself wondering: "What's next for me?"

If you're feeling stuck, burned out, or simply lost about your professional future, you're not alone. Many strong, capable, and caring individuals in your field reach a point where the career that once felt like a calling no longer aligns with who they've become or where they want to go.

The Hidden Struggle of Career Transitions in Service Professions

Your profession has shaped you in profound ways. The culture of service, the high-stakes decision-making, and the constant exposure to human crisis have given you firsthand knowledge of resilience, compassion, and strength. But these same experiences can also leave you feeling disconnected from your personal identity outside of work.

Research shows that many people who initially feel stuck in their careers experience meaningful improvements in well-being within a few months when they receive structured support such as therapy or professional coaching (Dyrbye et al., 2019; Cannon-Bowers et al., 2023). The key is understanding that feeling lost doesn't mean you're failing: it means you're ready to grow.

How Therapy Helps You Rediscover Your True Self

Many of our clients in law enforcement, emergency services, and healthcare initially resist the idea of therapy for career concerns. "I can handle stress," they often say, "I just need to figure out what I want to do." But here's what we've learned: career confusion is rarely just about jobs: it's about identity, values, and emotional well-being.

Uncovering Your Core Values

Therapy provides a safe space to explore what truly matters to you beyond the uniform, the badge, or the stethoscope. Through guided self-reflection, you'll identify your core values: those fundamental beliefs that should drive your decisions but often get buried under years of institutional expectations and external pressures.

For example, you might discover that while you value helping people, you're burned out on crisis intervention and actually thrive when teaching or mentoring others. Or perhaps you realize that your need for work-life balance has grown stronger as your family situation has changed, leading you toward positions with more predictable schedules.

Processing Career-Related Trauma and Stress

Your years of service have likely exposed you to situations that most people never face. This exposure can create unconscious beliefs about work, success, and self-worth that may be holding you back from pursuing new opportunities. Therapy helps you process these experiences and challenge limiting beliefs like "I'm only valuable in high-stress situations" or "I don't have skills that translate to other fields."

Building Emotional Resilience for Change

Career transitions, especially significant ones, trigger anxiety and uncertainty even in the most resilient individuals. Therapy equips you with emotional regulation tools and stress management strategies that make it easier to navigate the ups and downs of career exploration and change.

The Power of Career Coaching: Turning Insight into Action

While therapy helps you understand yourself better, career coaching translates that self-awareness into concrete action steps. Career coaching focuses on future-oriented goal-setting and practical skill development, creating a customized plan aligned with your newly clarified values and aspirations.

Setting SMART Goals for Your Transition

Career coaches help you establish Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals that bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. This might involve:

  • Identifying transferable skills from your current profession

  • Researching industries that align with your values

  • Creating timelines for education or certification requirements

  • Developing networking strategies within your target field

Accountability and Motivation

One of the most valuable aspects of career coaching is ongoing accountability. Your coach keeps you motivated and on track, helping you overcome obstacles and maintain momentum when the process feels overwhelming.

Randomized trials and meta-analyses find that professional coaching is associated with reduced burnout and improved well-being within the first few months (Dyrbye et al., 2019; Cannon-Bowers et al., 2023; de Haan & Nilsson, 2023). This isn't just about finding a new job: it's about rediscovering enthusiasm for your professional life.

Free and Low-Cost Resources to Support Your Journey

We believe in making career transition support accessible to everyone, especially those who have dedicated their careers to serving others. Here are valuable resources to complement your therapy and coaching work:

Washington Small Business Administration Coaching

If you're considering entrepreneurship or starting your own consulting practice, the Washington Small Business Administration offers free coaching programs specifically designed to help you navigate business planning, funding options, and startup strategies. Their SCORE mentorship program connects you with experienced business professionals who can provide guidance tailored to your unique background and goals (SBA SCORE mentoring: https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance/resource-partners/score-business-mentoring; SCORE Greater Seattle: https://www.score.org/seattle).

NW Business Impact Free Business Coaching

NW Business Impact provides completely free business coaching services to help you explore entrepreneurial opportunities or develop side businesses while transitioning careers (Business Impact NW coaching: https://businessimpactnw.org/grow-your-business/coaching/). Their coaches understand the Pacific Northwest business landscape and can help you leverage your professional experience into new ventures.

Practical Steps to Begin Your Career Discovery Journey

1. Start with Self-Assessment

Begin by honestly evaluating your current satisfaction levels across different areas of your work life. Consider factors like:

  • Alignment with personal values

  • Work-life balance

  • Growth opportunities

  • Compensation and benefits

  • Workplace culture and relationships

2. Explore Your Transferable Skills

First responders, law enforcement, and healthcare workers develop incredibly valuable skills that translate across industries:

  • Crisis management and quick decision-making

  • Strong communication under pressure

  • Leadership and team coordination

  • Attention to detail and protocol adherence

  • Empathy and interpersonal skills

3. Conduct Informational Interviews

Reach out to professionals in fields that interest you. Most people are willing to share their experiences, especially when they learn about your background in service professions. These conversations provide realistic insights into different career paths and help you build networks in new industries.

4. Consider Gradual Transitions

You don't have to make dramatic career changes overnight. Many successful transitions happen gradually through:

  • Part-time roles or consulting in your target field

  • Volunteer work that builds relevant experience

  • Additional education or certification programs

  • Internal transfers within large organizations

[NEW] The Sunk-Cost Fallacy: Making Career Choices for Your Future, Not Just Your Past

The sunk-cost fallacy is the tendency to keep investing in a path because of what you’ve already put in—time, effort, or money—even when that path no longer fits your life or goals (Arkes & Blumer, 1985; Kahneman, 2011). For first responders, law enforcement, and healthcare workers, this pull can feel especially strong: years of training, seniority and pension tracks, tight-knit teams, and an identity built around the culture of service can make changing direction feel like “throwing it all away.”

Here’s the truth: leaving a role that no longer fits does not erase what you’ve invested. You carry forward critical assets—judgment under pressure, leadership, communication, empathy, and a deep sense of purpose—that remain valuable wherever you go. Recognizing the sunk-cost fallacy helps you shift from “I can’t waste what I’ve done” to “What choice best serves my values and goals now?” Decision science consistently shows that future outcomes—not unrecoverable past costs—should guide choices (Arkes & Blumer, 1985). Research on “escalation of commitment” also explains why people double down on an unhelpful path and offers strategies to step back and re-evaluate (Staw, 1976; Sleesman, Conlon, McNamara, & Miles, 2012).

Practical ways therapy and coaching help you move past sunk costs:

  • Ask the future-focused question: “If I were deciding today, knowing what I know now, would I choose this path?” (Arkes & Blumer, 1985).

  • Clarify values and goals so your next step aligns with who you are today, not who you were when you started.

  • Inventory your transferable skills and relationships to see how much you’re actually bringing with you.

  • Set time-bound experiments and clear decision criteria (what success looks like, when to pivot). These tactics reduce escalation-of-commitment pressures (Staw, 1976; Sleesman et al., 2012).

Naming the sunk-cost fallacy doesn’t minimize your service—it honors it by helping you choose your next chapter with clear eyes and a steady hand.

Breaking Down Barriers to Getting Help

We understand that seeking support for career concerns can feel unfamiliar, especially in professions that emphasize self-reliance and strength. At Mindforge Therapy Group, we strive to break down these barriers by creating an environment where therapy doesn't feel like traditional "therapy."

Our approach honors your professional experience while helping you explore new possibilities. Many of our clients find that the skills that made them successful in their service careers: dedication, analytical thinking, and goal-oriented mindset: also serve them well in career transition work.

The Investment in Your Future

Career coaching and therapy represent investments in your long-term well-being and professional fulfillment. Research consistently shows that people who receive professional guidance during career transitions experience (Lent, 2017; Brown, 2012):

  • Increased job satisfaction and engagement

  • Better work-life balance

  • Reduced stress and anxiety

  • Higher confidence in decision-making

  • Stronger sense of purpose and direction

We aim to make therapy accessible and work around our clients' often varying schedules. We also understand that financial concerns may be a barrier, and we're committed to working with you to find solutions that fit your situation.

Taking the Next Step

If you're ready to move from feeling lost to finding your purpose, the combination of therapy and career coaching provides a comprehensive approach to career transition. You don't have to navigate this journey alone, and you don't have to settle for a career that no longer serves you.

Your years of service have prepared you for this next chapter in ways you might not even realize yet. The same dedication and problem-solving skills that made you excellent at serving others can be channeled into creating a fulfilling, purpose-driven career that aligns with who you are today.

Ready to begin exploring your options? Contact Mindforge Therapy Group to schedule your initial consultation, or learn more about our services designed specifically for first responders, law enforcement, and healthcare professionals.

Your next chapter starts with understanding yourself: and we're here to guide you through that discovery process with the respect and expertise your service deserves.

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