When You Realize You Don't Want to Work the Same Way Anymore

I’ve been thinking a lot about something that I don’t hear many people talk about openly, especially at later stages in a career.

What happens when you reach a point where you find yourself thinking, “I don’t really want to work right now,” but you also know that not working isn’t financially realistic?

That’s the space I’ve been in recently.

After leaving a very demanding role as a Dean in a busy and often chaotic academic environment, I transitioned into a new position with only a week in between. At the time, that felt like enough. Looking back, it really wasn’t.

A week gave me distance from the job, but it didn’t give me recovery from what the job required of me over time.

I’m starting to understand that those are two very different things.

What has surprised me is that even in a new role, one that is remote, more flexible, and focused on long-term planning, I still feel this internal pressure to be “on.” I find myself wondering if I should be online during certain hours, if I’m doing enough, if there is some expectation I am missing.

No one has said that to me.

So I’ve had to ask myself where that pressure is actually coming from.

The honest answer is that it is probably not the current role. It is the residue of the last one.

When you spend years in positions where you are constantly responsible, visible, and accountable, it is not something you just turn off. Even when the environment changes, your internal expectations do not immediately follow.

At the same time, I have also been part of a contract project as a subject matter expert that had been delayed for quite some time and was recently restarted. When it came back, it came back with urgency and tight deadlines.

What I noticed in myself was something I did not expect.

I did not want to do it.

Not because I did not care about the work. I have contributed a great deal to that project and value what I have brought to it. But the scope, the timeline, and the way it had stretched out over time no longer felt aligned with where I am right now.

I even committed to a revised deadline after receiving clearer direction.

And then I missed it.

That is not something I take lightly. It is also not typical for me.

But instead of trying to push through and force myself to meet the deadline at the last minute, I had to stop and be honest about something I did not want to admit.

I did not have the energy for it.

More importantly, I did not want to put myself back into that kind of pressure.

That moment was uncomfortable, because it challenged how I see myself professionally. I have always been someone who follows through, delivers, and meets expectations.

But I am also realizing that there is a difference between being reliable and being overextended.

So instead of continuing to delay or deliver something that did not reflect the level of work I expect from myself, I made the decision to step back from that portion of the project.

That was not easy.

There is always a concern about how that might be perceived. You do not want to be seen as someone who does not follow through. You do not want to create more work for others.

But I also had to acknowledge the larger context.

The project itself had experienced delays, gaps in communication, and shifting expectations. It was not a clean, linear process. Stepping back did not create that complexity. It just made me recognize that I did not want to continue operating within it.

What this experience has clarified for me is that the question I have been asking myself is not quite right.

It is not really, “Do I want to work?”

It is more specific than that.

What I am trying to figure out is what kind of work I can do now that does not feel like I am stepping right back into the same level of intensity I just came out of.

For me, what is starting to become clear is that I do not want to return to long, drawn-out, loosely defined projects or roles that carry a constant level of intensity without a clear endpoint.

In my previous role, that intensity showed up in very tangible ways. Being on site and visible every day. Long days that often extended well beyond normal hours. A two-hour roundtrip commute. Managing the ongoing needs and concerns of students, faculty, and staff, often all at once. Navigating operational challenges that rarely had simple or immediate solutions.

What made it even more difficult was that those challenges did not always carry the same level of urgency beyond the campus itself, even though the responsibility for resolving them ultimately rested with me. Over time, it became harder to step away mentally, even at the end of the day.

I do not share that as a complaint. It is simply the reality of the role.

What I am recognizing now is that returning to that level of sustained intensity is not something I am interested in doing again, at least not in the same way.

What does resonate is something different.

Shorter-term work. Clearly defined scope. The ability to contribute expertise in a focused way. Advisory roles, teaching in an asynchronous format, and consulting.

And at least for now, I also know that I need a real break from managing people.

After years of overseeing students, faculty, and staff, and especially the last several years operating in what often felt like constant crisis mode, I do not have the capacity or the desire to step back into that kind of responsibility right now.

That is actually one of the things that appealed to my current role. I can focus on building and planning without being in the middle of daily operational demands. That space matters more than I realized.

So for me, this is not about stepping away from work.

It is about stepping away from a way of working that is no longer sustainable.

And I think that distinction matters.

Because there is often an assumption that if you feel this way, something is wrong. That you have lost your motivation, or your edge, or your commitment.

I do not think that is what this is.

I think sometimes it simply means you have not fully recovered from what you were doing before, and you are being asked, by circumstance or necessity, to move forward anyway.

What I am learning is that if I do not pay attention to that, I will keep saying yes to things that no longer fit, and then feel the tension of trying to live up to expectations that I no longer want to meet in the same way.

If any of this resonates, it might be worth asking a slightly different question than the one we typically ask ourselves.

Not “Do I want to keep working?”

But “What kind of work would I actually be able to sustain right now without ending up back in the same place?”

I do not have a perfectly defined answer yet.

But I know it looks different than it did before.

And for me, that feels like an important place to start.

What I am also beginning to consider is how I might continue contributing in more focused ways through advisory work, teaching, or consulting, where I can apply what I have learned without stepping back into the same level of intensity. I am still shaping what that looks like, but it feels like a more sustainable path forward.