Career & Business Coaching Blog.
Inspiration and tips for multi-passionate creatives & entrepreneurs.
How to Make a Career Change When You Have Too Many Ideas
You feel it deep in your bones - a career change is on the horizon. The work that once felt exciting, or maybe even stable, now feels like a cage. You’re talented, curious, and full of ideas for what could be your next step, career, or life. In fact, that's the problem. You don't have just one idea; you have a gazillion.
Maybe you dream of being a freelance writer, but you also want to learn ceramics. You think about starting a consulting business, but that podcast idea won't leave you alone. Your brain feels like a web browser with 50 open tabs, and the thought of choosing just one path is paralyzing.
People tell you to "just pick something," but that feels like cutting off a part of yourself. You're not indecisive, that's really not your problem - you're a creative generalist, a multipotentialite, a multi-hyphenate human with many interests and passions. Your unique and wide focus isn't a weakness; it's your superpower. But how do you bundle that superpower to make a career change without feeling completely overwhelmed?
I see you. I was once where you are, like many of my clients. Stuck in a life that looked good on paper but felt hollow inside. It took a massive personal crisis for me to finally ask what I wanted. The journey wasn't easy, but it led me here. And it taught me that making a career change when you're multi-passionate isn't about picking one thing. It's about finding the thread that ties your interests together.
Why Career Change is Different for Creative Generalists
Traditional career advice often fails us. It's built for specialists who climb a linear ladder. But what if your path looks more like a jungle gym or a game of snake (remember that addictive Nokia game from the 90s)?
For multi-passionate people, the standard "follow your passion" advice is a trap. Which one? The one from this morning or the one that will pop up next week? This can lead to a cycle of starting and stopping, feeling like you’re getting nowhere while your peers seem to have it all figured out.
The real challenges you face are unique:
The Fear of Picking the "Wrong" Thing: With so many options, you worry about committing to a path only to realize it's not the right fit, wasting precious time and money.
Analysis Paralysis: The sheer volume of your ideas can be overwhelming, leading to procrastination. You spend so much time thinking about what to do that you never actually do anything.
The Inner Critic: Your mind tells you that you're "all over the place" or "not focused enough" to succeed. This voice can be so loud that it drowns out your intuition.
Pressure to Specialize: Society celebrates experts. You might feel inadequate because you have a breadth of knowledge rather than a single, deep specialization.
Recognizing these struggles is the first step. You're not broken or flaky. You've just been misdiagnosed (as Barbara Sher, the grandmother of the creative generalists, used to say). You're simply operating with a different kind of brain, which requires a different kind of solution.
A 4-Step Framework for Your Multi-Passionate Career Change
Let's forget about the idea that you need to find a single, perfect job title. Instead, we're going to focus on creating a career that has space for your many talents. This is about designing a professional life that feels authentic, fulfilling, and financially sustainable. It's about combining instead of choosing.
Step 1: Gather Your Sparks (Without Judgment)
Before you can find clarity, you need to know what you're working with. Get a notebook or open a new document and give yourself permission to do a "brain dump."
Write down every single interest, idea, and curiosity that comes to mind. Don't filter anything. Yes, this may mean opening up all the notebooks and digital post-its that you already have. That's perfectly fine! I have those too 😄.
Want to learn how to code? Write it down.
Dream of living on a farm? Write it down.
Fascinated by ancient history? Write it down.
Think you’d be a great project manager? You know what to do.
This is a judgment-free zone. No idea is too silly, too impractical, or too random. The goal is not to create a to-do list but to see all the parts of you laid out. You’ll probably notice themes you weren't aware of. This list is your raw material.
Step 2: Find Your "Glue" – The Why That Connects Everything
Now, look at your list. Instead of focusing on what these things are, ask yourself why they interest you. What is the underlying desire or value behind each spark?
For example, let's say your list includes: "start a podcast," "learn public speaking," and "write a book."
The what is media and communication.
The why could be a desire to share important ideas, to connect with people through storytelling, or to give a voice to the unheard.
This "why" is your glue (as I talk about in my book Get Unstuck!). It’s the thread that connects your seemingly random interests. Another person might be drawn to "gardening," "baking," and "interior design." Their glue might be a passion for creating nurturing, beautiful environments.
Finding this common theme is a game-changer. It shifts your focus from choosing a single job to building a career around a central purpose. Suddenly, your many passions don't look so scattered anymore. They look like different expressions of the same core driver.
Step 3: Experiment with Low-Stakes Projects
The fear of making the wrong career change can keep you stuck for years. The antidote is action, but not the "quit your job and drain your savings" kind. We’re talking about small, low-risk experiments (check out my podcast for some ideas).
Think of yourself as a scientist in the lab of your own life. Your ideas are hypotheses, and you need to test them.
Curious about web design? Don't enroll in a $10,000 bootcamp. Take a weekend workshop or an online course for $20. Offer to build a simple website for a friend for free.
Thinking about coaching? Don't launch a full-fledged business. Offer to help a few people in your network for a small fee (or even for a testimonial) to see if you enjoy the process.
Dreaming of being a writer? Don't try to write a novel right away. Start a blog, or commit to writing 500 words a day for two weeks. Pitch a guest post to a site you admire.
The point of these experiments is to gather data. Did you enjoy the work? Did it feel energizing or draining? What parts did you like, and what parts did you hate? This real-world feedback is infinitely more valuable than just thinking about what you might like. It lowers the pressure and allows you to move forward with confidence.
Step 4: Design Your Portfolio Career
For many creative generalists, the answer isn't a single job. It’s a portfolio career: a mix of different part-time jobs, freelance projects, and business ventures that, together, create a fulfilling and financially stable whole.
This is where you get to be truly creative. Your career doesn't have to fit into a pre-made box. You can design your own.
A portfolio career could look like:
A part-time marketing consultant (for stability) + a thriving Etsy shop (for creativity) + teaching a weekly yoga class (for well-being).
A freelance graphic designer for a few anchor clients + writing a paid newsletter + running online workshops on creativity.
An international career coaching business + an AI startup + a writing career + a magical-themes Etsy shop in the making (that would be me).
Notice how each component feeds a different part of you? The portfolio career is the ultimate playground for the multi-passionate person. It allows you to use your many skills, satisfy your curiosity, and create multiple streams of income. It turns your "problem" of having too many interests into your greatest asset.
Being Stuck is a Feeling, Not a Fact
Making a career change can feel lonely, especially when it feels like no one around you "gets it." The questions, the doubts, the fear. They can be overwhelming. But being stuck is a feeling, not a fact. You have everything you need inside you to build a professional life that feels like home.
You're not all over the place; you're expansive. You're not indecisive; you're curious. It's time to stop trying to fit into a box that was never meant for you and start building a career that celebrates every part of who you are.
I believe in you!
Are You Ready for a Career That Fits All Your Interests?
Do you feel overwhelmed by a whirlwind of ideas, unsure where to start? Is your inner critic stopping you from turning your passions into something more?
Discover the confidence and clarity you need to move forward by scheduling your free coaching session today. Together, we'll explore your aspirations, identify barriers, and create powerful steps to help you finally live up to your worth and show it to the world!
Frequently Asked Questions About Career Change for Multi-Passionate Individuals
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Start by identifying the idea that excites you the most or aligns with your current values and needs, such as financial stability or creative fulfillment. Remember, choosing one path doesn’t mean abandoning the others - it’s about taking a step forward for now, not for forever.
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It’s normal for multi-passionate individuals to evolve and grow over time. Instead of viewing it as “losing interest,” see it as completing a chapter. Each experience builds skills and clarity for your next step. You can design your career to have room for flexibility and change.
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Focus on progress, not perfection. Break tasks into smaller, manageable steps, and set realistic deadlines. Accountability partners or a coach can help you stay on track and keep perfectionism at bay while celebrating your wins along the way.
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Yes, absolutely! Many multi-passionate people find their unique “glue” - a common thread that ties their interests together into one cohesive path. By blending your skills strategically, you can craft a career that allows for both creativity and financial stability.
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Understand that there’s no such thing as a wasted effort. Every step provides lessons and insights. Reframe decisions as experiments rather than permanent commitments. This approach takes the pressure off and helps you learn what truly works for you.
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Focus on the strengths and unique perspective your varied experience gives you. Highlight transferable skills, such as adaptability, creativity, and problem-solving. Your multi-passionate background is an asset, showcasing your adaptability and ability to think outside the box.
The Trust Issue That's Keeping You Stuck in Your Career or Business: Attachment Theory and Healing
We all know lack of trust is a huge hurdle in our relationships. But did you know it can have equally detrimental consequences for your career or business?
If you have trust issues, this article will help explain how attachment theory and lack of trust might be keeping your business or career stuck!
Are you able to trust the people you work with quickly? Do you believe a co-worker when she tells you she's got it? Do you trust her to do a good job, or are you micromanaging everything and everyone around you?
Your lack of trust in business might be because you're anxious and don't want to be hurt (again). What has probably been a great, life-saving defense mechanism at some point in your (early) life could be keeping you stuck in a career you don't like or unable to move forward with your business. It might even stop others from entering into business relationships with you.
On the surface, it doesn't seem like trust issues have anything to do with our careers or businesses, but when we dig a little deeper, it's easy to see how this can affect success and why it deserves attention and might even require healing.
Trust issues are often linked to anxious attachment, one of four types of attachment styles. People who have developed an anxious attachment often have a hard time feeling secure in relationships. They lack trust in almost everything, which usually leaves them feeling anxious, scared, or worried.
What is attachment theory?
Psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby was the first to talk about attachment and formalize its theory in the 1950s and 1960s.
Bowlby theorized that attachment is an inbuilt survival instinct that ensures infants seek proximity to their mothers or primary caregivers. If they cannot do so, infants might fall into a state of "distress," determined by a lack of comfort and satisfaction when confronted with anything other than what they need.
Attachment theory, therefore, examines how the caregiver-child bond develops and its impact on significant development. In Bowlby's words: "Attachment is a deep and enduring emotional bond that connects one person to another person across time and space."
According to Bowlby, there are four attachment styles: secure, anxious-ambivalent, disorganized, and avoidant.
Secure Attachment Style
Securely attached children feel safe and comfortable with their primary caregivers. They explore the world around them but return to a secure base when needed. Securely attached people tend to have healthier relationships in adulthood because they feel more confident in their interactions with others and don't experience fear of abandonment.
In their career or as business owners, securely attached adults are more likely to rely on others for help and support because they have a more vital trust. They are also less anxious about their lack of control in work-related situations. Securely attached individuals will have an easier time sticking to a job or business idea, trusting co-workers or business partners and making decisions based on opportunity rather than fear. Especially compared to the avoidant and disorganized attachment types, who often have a more challenging time making decisions, and suffer lasting ambivalent feelings about the choices they eventually make.
Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment Style
Anxious-ambivalent children are more clingy, needy, and lack self-confidence. They get anxious when away from their caregivers and distrust them, leading them to explore their environment with fear rather than excitement.
They constantly seek approval from their caregivers and continuously observe their surroundings out of fear of being abandoned or in danger. This can translate into less ease and more perfectionistic tendencies at work in adulthood because they're constantly dwelling on what could go wrong. The strategic decisions they make can reflect their focus on fear, in which case the results might be missed business opportunities or promotions they want but don't take.
Avoidant Attachment
Avoidant children lack the attachment bond with their caregivers and show very little interest in exploring or trying new things. They seem uninterested, detached, and lack empathy for others. When they explore the world, it's usually to get away from adults rather than meet them; when faced with a challenge that requires help, they avoid seeking support.
They often struggle with expressing their feelings and find it hard to understand emotions - especially their own. As a result, avoidant adults tend to lack trust in people, reflected in their career or business as difficulty to delegate, trying to do it all themselves, failing to ask for support when needed, and often struggling to work with team members or business partners.
Disorganized Attachment Style
Disorganized attachment is a combination of avoidant and anxious attachment caused by various reasons, such as a lack of bonding with the caregivers or frequent changes in caregivers.
Children with a disorganized attachment style often display intense anger and rage, a difficulty to control their emotions that will affect their relationships later on in life. As adults, they avoid trusting others and have little to no self-confidence when facing challenges. This often leads to accepting less than what they are worth at work, doing other people's jobs, accepting without a fight not to be recognized for their accomplishments. In business, it leaves them prey to their customers and service providers and aiming for smaller goals than they could achieve.
Do you lack secure attachment?
Those with an anxious or ambivalent attachment style (well, hello there!) have had this lack of trust ingrained in us since our developmental years. A lack of secure attachments with caretakers during those times affects how your brain develops and responds to interpersonal relationships later in life. The problem is, we're often unaware of how this influences the way we interact with others as adults, let alone the impact it has on our business or at work.
If you're not sure of your attachment style, click here for an assessment that may help.
Lack of trust in your career or business can express itself in various ways, such as:
You're exhausted because you feel you need to do all the things, and the help you're getting is (according to your perfectionistic standards) never up to par.
You're micromanaging everyone's tasks (including your colleagues, business partners, and service providers) because you're not confident they can do the job.
You never ask for help or accept it because whenever someone offers, it makes you suspicious. You wonder what the ulterior motives are, so you say no, even when you need it most.
You're always waiting for the other shoe to drop because you're anxious things won't work out. Everything might look good now, but you don't believe it will stay that way.
You have a hard time making decisions, especially about a career change or new business venture. One day you're ecstatic about the idea; the next, not so much.
To heal your lack of trust, you need to work on healing your attachment wounds. I suggest starting with finding a therapist or coach who knows about attachment theory so they can help guide you through this process.
You may also want to read or research this critical topic to understand it better. Here are a few resources to get started with:
Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the science of adult attachment can help you find - and keep - love by Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel S.F. Heller, M.A.
The Psych Up Podcast.
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
The work of Diane Poole Heller, who devoted her life to helping people find secure attachment.
Is your attachment style keeping you stuck at work or in business?
Anxiously (and ambivalently) attached people are generally preoccupied with thoughts about relationships - whether personal or professional ones. They can be cautious to the point of being fearful and may withdraw from a relationship if they have an uneasy feeling that it's going downhill.
This, of course, is bad for business. A successful career or business requires networking and successfully reaching out and connecting with others.
If you lack trust in your business or work relationships, try the following:
Make sure you're not micromanaging everything and everyone around you. Be a supportive team player instead of always telling others what to do or how they should be doing it. You don't want them feeling like their work is never good enough because this might further complicate your collaboration.
Trust others by giving them more responsibility and let go of the reins a little bit. Your lack of trust will show if you don't delegate some tasks out, so try trusting someone with something small at first and see how they do before handing over more significant projects or responsibilities.
Have a candid conversation with your team, business partner, or service providers and tell them that your attachment style has held you back from trusting them. You don't need to give them the reasons why, but it helps to develop solutions together.
Keep working on developing a more secure attachment. You might never get where someone who naturally trusts others is, but you can get pretty close. It all starts with understanding your style and being willing to work at it.
As people who lack trust in others (or maybe lack it when it comes to the next business or career step to take!), we can't let it hold us back anymore. We have to start healing our lack of trust and release the painful memories from our past and change some thinking patterns. I know because I've been there. And the transformation I've gone through has been magnificent.
If lack of trust has been an issue for you, I hope this article helped you see there's a way out of it. It's going to take some time and work, but it is possible.
You can do this.
Do you have attachment wounds?
If so, I'm here to help. You need to work on healing your lack of trust before you can move forward in your career or with your business. The first step is to find someone who understands attachment therapy and getting the guidance you need. Let me know if I can be that person for you!
It's time to start feeling safe again in relationships and stop being afraid of getting hurt all the time. Let me show you how we can do this together! We'll work on healing what's keeping you stuck so you can reach the next level in your work!