Signs of a Mismatched Career (with Sarah JanTausch)

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First aired January 12, 2025

Ever stood on a chair in your office just to see out the window, and realized the view looked suspiciously like prison bars? That was me, years ago, in a job I could do but loathed. If you keep telling yourself the next promotion, the next raise, the next big win will finally make you happy (spoiler: it moves), you may be staring at the signs of a mismatched career.

My guest Sarah JanTausch knows this road personally. She rose fast in a government career, built her whole life around one value (achievement) and rode it straight into burnout while looking wildly successful from the outside. Now, as founder of SRJ Coaching and Consulting and creator of the Value-Based Career Method, she helps people figure out what they actually value before they leap into the next wrong job.

We compare our “wrong major, wrong job” battle scars and map out how to tell whether you’re mismatched or just tired, why a small experiment beats a blind leap of faith, and what you loved before age 10 that’s still trying to tell you something.

Watch this episode

In this episode

  • How to recognize the signs of a mismatched career — the stress, exhaustion, and “I just need a break” feeling that mean something deeper is off
  • Why building your whole life around one value (like achievement) leads straight to burnout, even when you look successful from the outside
  • A simple values card sort exercise you can use to identify your true top five values
  • Why running a small, low-stakes experiment beats a blind leap when you’re exploring a new direction
  • How healthy boundaries protect you from burning out on work you actually love, not just work you hate
  • The “what did you love before age 10” exercise for uncovering clues to your ideal career path

Timestamps

  • (00:41) Meet Sarah JanTausch, founder of SRJ Coaching and Consulting and creator of the Value-Based Career Method
  • (01:13) Sarah’s fast rise in a government career — and believing the next promotion would finally make her happy
  • (02:37) Building her whole life around one value, achievement, and how that led to burnout
  • (04:59) What a career mismatch actually feels like: stress, exhaustion, and wanting to “run away”
  • (07:51) Dana’s own mismatch story — standing on a chair to look out a “prison” window during a testing job
  • (11:12) The values card sort exercise Sarah uses to help clients find their true top five values
  • (14:50) Why running a small experiment beats a blind leap of faith
  • (16:28) How boundaries kept Sarah from burning out on a business she loves
  • (18:24) Dana’s physical therapy detour — and the lesson of watching the clock
  • (20:36) Balancing logical facts with gut-level “subjective judgment” when evaluating a job
  • (25:35) The real signs it’s time for a career change
  • (28:20) The “what did you love before age 10” exercise for finding career clues
  • (31:15) Where to find Sarah and her free monthly events

About Sarah JanTausch

Sarah JanTausch is the founder of SRJ Coaching and Consulting and creator of the Value-Based Career Method, which helps professionals unlock the hidden job market and ditch burnout by building a career move rooted in core values, ideal work style, and goals. Connect with her at valuesbasedcareers.com, where she hosts free monthly events, or find her on LinkedIn.

Pull quotes

“When we have all these aching feelings, it usually means we’re not living out the values that we truly have inside of us.” — Sarah JanTausch

“I remember distinctly feeling like I was in prison. Like I was looking through the bars of a prison.” — Dana Skaggs

Resources mentioned

  • Sarah JanTausch’s website — valuesbasedcareers.com (free monthly events on values-based career change)
  • A values card sort exercise, which Sarah uses with clients to identify their top five values
  • The Pathway Planner assessment from Wiley
  • Other assessments Sarah mentioned using over the years: DISC, Myers-Briggs, and StrengthsFinder

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Read the full transcript

Dana Skaggs (00:01)
Welcome friends. Whether you’re out on a walk, running errands, or relaxing at home, it’s wonderful to connect with you. Joining us today is Sarah JanTausch. Now Sarah is the founder of SRJ Coaching and Consulting and creator of the Value-Based Career Method. This method helps individuals to unlock the hidden job market and ditch burnout. while creating a career move that is rooted in core values, ideal work style, and goals. Sarah, welcome to Phoenix in Flame.

Sarah JanTausch (00:41)
Thanks so much for bringing me on. It’s great to be here today with you.

Dana Skaggs (00:44)
This is wonderful. Now you had mentioned before as well about being a high performing perfectionist and becoming deeply unhappy and completely burned out. Just tell us your story. Start wherever you’re most comfortable and just kind of weave us around and tell us what happened. Where were you and what was it like being a perfectionist? How did you get burned out? How did you come out of that? All the things.

Sarah JanTausch (01:13)
Absolutely. I started my career after finishing my undergraduate degree in politics and government, and I dove headfirst into a career in government, which was really fascinating and interesting on many levels. But as we’ll get to, I’m sure, in a little bit, I eventually found that some things were mismatched. And so I started, worked my way up. had some incredible opportunities, positions, had a lot of fun, ran programs, got to work for the governor in my state and did some really cool things. And in a short period of time, really climbed the ladder successfully. And I always thought that next promotion, that next thing is gonna make me happy. And so I would take on more at work and more at work and I would stay late and do overtime and take on outside projects and work on campaigns and serve on committees. And I just kept adding more and more and more. And you can probably see where this is going. It led to burnout because as I would add more and more, what would happen? I would kind of push something else out and push something else out. And before I knew it, my life was my career, my extracurricular volunteer activities, which were supporting my career. I had a relationship at the time, but started to get deeply unhappy because this promotion after.

Dana Skaggs (02:12)
Yes.

Sarah JanTausch (02:37)
wasn’t solving the root problem. And I was designing my entire life and career at this point around one value that I perceived was the most important, which was the value of achievement. And so I just kept going and going and putting so much pressure on myself to do everything perfectly without taking a step back. And so the burnout happened pretty quickly, even though I had reached a level of success that I was happy with, my family was impressed by, and It wasn’t until I had a point where we were term limited. So my job was ending because the new governor after the election brings on a whole new team. So my job, I know my job is ending way in advance. It’s luxury to have that kind of notice, right? So I started evaluating, what do I want to do next? And I had no idea because I had built this career, doing all of these things, getting to a senior staff level in my early to mid twenties, all on achievement and cutting other things out.

Sarah JanTausch (03:36)
And so I dove into networking and trying to figure out what my next options were. And that’s what eventually led me to where I am today. So it’s a, it’s a winding story, but.

Dana Skaggs (03:47)
It’s so interesting and I it’s so relatable to I feel like as I’m listening to you that there’s going to be a lot of listeners that are on that path that are just thinking if I can just get to that next level if I can just make X amount of dollars if I can just get so and so letters after my name if I can just get that next promotion then I’m going to be happy and you mentioned something earlier on that I wanted to to kind of go back and scoop up a little bit and get more of your wisdom on you mentioned

Dana Skaggs (04:18)
mentioned a mismatch. Help me and my listeners kind of understand what was your experience with a mismatch and if I have a listener now that’s thinking that maybe they’re mismatched but they don’t know how did you know it was a mismatch what were the signs what signs would somebody look for

Sarah JanTausch (04:20)
Mm-hmm.

Dana Skaggs (04:40)
They might be feeling some different things, but they don’t know what it means. And so how do we know when what we’re actually feeling is the result of a mismatch? We are not in the right job or the right role. For you, was that mismatch experience like?

Sarah JanTausch (04:59)
For me, it started out as general stress. And then it built to this kind of burnout feeling where I was exhausted all the time. And so I would go to work, I would do my job, I would stay late to finish up extra projects, I would go home. And then my time during the evenings and the weekends, all of it was just to decompress and become okay again before I had to go to work again. And so I had no life. And so I didn’t really know what was going on at first. It took me years to figure this out. But some of the things that might be going on are things like you’re feeling burned out or you think you’re burned out or you say you’re burned out. You might be thinking you can’t stand anyone around you or at work. It might not be that you can’t stand anyone. It might be that there’s this stress that’s grating on you so much that something is out of alignment. What I talk about in my work is values alignment, so I’ll get to that in a second, but I started to have this stress which led to burnout, and then I had this aching inside of me that just started really small, and then I got bigger and bigger and bigger, and it was this, for me personally, and it might be different for your listeners, it was this feeling of, need a break. And I would take time off, or I’d take a vacation, or I’d go on a trip or something, or I’d take a long weekend, and it didn’t solve the problem, and it just had turned my head, turned into, I need a break. And eventually I thought it was a career break or I thought it was like taking a sabbatical or taking three months off for travel. But in my view of work and where I come from, that was not really a normal thing. I didn’t take a gap year like some people, which I’m a big fan of gap years now, especially between high school and college, especially if you use it right. But I just felt like I needed this break and it was just this feeling of I wanted to run away. And it was very confusing because I was successful in my career. I was making good money. I was doing the thing that I had studied in undergraduate work and been working in for years. And my family was really proud of me. So on the outside, everything was working. And all of that’s to say, there were things about that career that I loved, public service, other things like that, but there was a values mismatch. And when we have all these aching feelings, it usually means we’re not living out the values that we truly have inside of us. It might be a value that we think we have based on what our families told us or family expectations, or it could be a value that we think we align with. Achievement, that’s one of that I talked about. Service is another. After I dug in and figured out what my values really were, I started to redefine success for myself. But it’s this feeling, it’s kind of like this aching, gnawing thing. And you might complain to your friends or family, but they don’t really help you solve it. It’s because it’s bigger than that. It’s usually a mismatch that is rooted in values.

Dana Skaggs (07:51)
That makes a lot of sense. And I want to talk to you more here in a few moments about what values mean. I can as I’m listening to you talk, I’m remembering a time before I went into private practice, which I absolutely adore. I who I’m one of these blessed individuals that I would do it for free. mean, I just I adore the therapy, the, you know, just the private practice is just amazing. It really aligns and resonates with

Sarah JanTausch (08:13)
And.

Dana Skaggs (08:21)
who I am as a person. But before I got to that place, you know, we have to learn our lessons and we don’t know, right, we have to just throw the spaghetti on the wall and see what happens. And so I remember one time I was doing a job that involved a lot of testing. In my field, we can do IQ testing, achievement testing, projective testing, you know, all these different kinds of testing that different entities might want to know about their clients. So they would send the them to us to do the testing. This one was involving some disability type testing and they’d want to know all of these things. I still remember to this day the office that I was in. They had windows that were very high on the wall. And I remember literally when I had someone that didn’t show and I had some extra time, I was all caught up, which was strange. But I remember standing in my chair to reach to be able to look out the window. And I looked out the window and I remember distinctly feeling like I was in prison. Like I was looking through the bars of a prison. I had to have a job and that was the job that I had at the time and I was and I was doing it. I could do it. But I loathed it and it was just it was the most horrible feeling. I just to be able to look out the window, I would stand up in my chair and I would kind of grasp this windowsill and just stare out at the buildings and the people that were walking around feeling as if I was in prison. I will never forget that moment.

Dana Skaggs (09:59)
You know, I think when we’re talking about values and finding the right kind of job, you know, so when you talk about values, if someone happens to be in that kind of a situation, how do they know? How do they figure out what what do they need to do? I mean, they know they’re not happy like with my example and your example as well. You know, you’re not happy. People might even kind of dip down into depression. They might start experiencing symptoms of depression. They might even go to their doctor and end up taking, you know, antidepressant medication because I feel like, you know, what’s going on with me? I don’t have any energy. I just don’t have any, uh, just energy for life. Just there’s no, there’s a sense of hopelessness. Sleeping is messed up. Eating is messed up. Concentration is messed up. All the things. So what, how do they begin to figure out? They know they’re in a tough situation.

Dana Skaggs (10:57)
So if I have some listeners that are struggling with that right now listening to you, how do they figure out what their values are to be able to make better choices to get into a better position with their jobs?

Sarah JanTausch (11:12)
One of the things you said a couple minutes ago was that you, when you found what you loved, that was a value set that you enjoyed, you would do it for free. You loved it so much. I personally resonate with that because that’s exactly how I feel when I’m coaching my clients. And in the beginning, when I piloted, I did a free pilot to figure that out, but there’s that gap piece between that. How do I get from this pain to, my gosh, I found it and I love it. First thing that I would do, is identify what your core values are. And sometimes if you’re in a negative enough headspace that you can’t sit down and do a values exercise, it might take getting outside, going for a walk, finding a place where you feel comfortable and safe, and really getting into a mindset where you are open-minded to the feeling of curiosity. Because if you’re in a feeling of an emotive curiosity, this is going to work a thousand times better than if you are coming from a place of judgment. So If you are somebody that, let’s say, so many people work from home these days, if you work from home and say you’re at home all the time, I would recommend getting out of the house to do this, but there are activities called a values card sort. There’s one that I use with my clients, but there are tons of them out there. You can Google this. And the one that I use with my clients, it has a number of cards that we cut out. We can do this virtually. So you can find anyone online. And it has a number of values and then free spaces to add values. And so we go through this exercise and I have them rank them in terms of aligned with me, not aligned with me. And then we dive down deeper and they eventually pick their top five values that align with who they are, what they feel internally and their life experience. And this is really, really, really hard for people. And it sounds really simple on the surface, but usually when I have somebody do this, it takes them several hours. And they don’t know this going into it and they come back and they go, Oh my gosh, that took me so long. And it was really hard, but it was so clarified. And so these activities are really important because if you have those top five values in rank order, you can start to say, um, where in my life have these values been lived out already? Where have they not and where is there a mismatch today? And so you can start to have these pinpoints of spaces. Now doing this activity on your own, sometimes it’s hard to then make a big life change or kind of start to pack away at things. So asking other people for help is a key part of this. That could be a mental health professional if something else is going on as well, like what you mentioned, depression or anxiety or something like that. It could be asking support from a particular person, maybe like a career coach, or it could be a trusted friend or a family member. who might be able to express and kind of, if you share this with them, kind of say, oh, well, here I saw you do this. Maybe this is helpful. Or remember that one time that you volunteered that organization where you’re helping plan a fundraiser and you’re the happiest you’ve ever been. Somebody they can help you see outside of yourself. So there are different layers of help that we can access. But having that outside perspective is going to be key if you feel really, really stuck and burnt out. My goal with my work is to have people go through this process much shorter than my process. My process took years and it took a long time, right? I had no idea what I wanted to do. I went through a whole exploration process and started my first business and it didn’t work out the way I wanted and it really wasn’t what the work for me. And so having some of these supports outside can really help. And the first thing after that is come up with an experiment.

Dana Skaggs (14:29)
Thank

Sarah JanTausch (14:50)
Let’s say you’re working with a mental health professional or a friend and they say like, hey, you really liked this, or you think you like this. I always suggest running an experiment. And that can look like volunteering for an organization around a task or a career field you might be interested in. It could mean maybe when you were a kid, you loved to throw pottery on the wheel like I did and hadn’t done it in 20 years. And I needed to bring that back into my life because As we start out, one of the things I love to do with people is go through the life wheel. And the life wheel is literally just all of the categories of life, like friends, family, relationships, career, play. As adults, we don’t play, right? And going through all those things and saying like, which elements of these, where are you? Which ones do want to improve? Because the career piece from my lens is frequently what happens is people like me will put so much into their careers. that they won’t have any space for anything else. And that’s not a solution. Like you can find the thing and then go burn out on your passion. That’s not the goal either. So having a holistic.

Dana Skaggs (15:53)
You know, I want to jump in here just real quick because you said and I would like to hear you kind of like dive down a little bit with this. I’m hearing you talk about boundaries and that even though you might find something that you love and you’re passionate about if you don’t set healthy boundaries, then even that you can even get burned out on something you actually love.

Sarah JanTausch (16:06)
Mm. Yeah.

Dana Skaggs (16:17)
Would you mind taking just a couple of minutes and just sharing with us how boundaries helped you in your experience and also kind of what you’re describing right now?

Sarah JanTausch (16:28)
Absolutely. When I piloted this business, I did a three month pilot, worked with clients, they met their goals, and then I launched this business and have built it. And I realized that I love the work that I do. Loved it so much. I want to grow this and build this. And I found myself in the first year or so working 10, 11, 12, sometimes longer hour days. And I’m going, wait, wait, wait, this isn’t healthy. And I started to feel negativity about my business. And I was like, wait a second, something’s not right. And so at that point, I’ve had this experience in the past, right, with my other career and going the lens of working too much. And so I had to pump the brakes and do a holistic view of like, where am I? What are I value in life? What are my passions outside of my work? Where do I want to serve? What’s important around my family? And started putting in structure in my life of like,

Sarah JanTausch (17:28)
this Sunday every month, like this is what I’m going to do with family. And for me, I mentioned wheel-based pottery, creative stuff, bringing that back in, which might mean one evening or one day I work less because I can go to that pottery class. And so I noticed it in myself, but it was a lot easier to spot the second time around to be able to bring in those structures and put bounds on it. And the other thing, too, is once you find your thing, finding this work, building a business, the work that you do, if it’s really engaging and challenging and a good fit, you can’t finish your entire job in a day or a week. And realizing that it’s a longer, bigger pursuit that’s going to take a long time, or having a mission that’s so big that it takes more than a decade, for me at least, it’s allowed me to take a stop and say, hey, you know what? I can wrap up before a little early today and go on a walk before dinner with my family.

Dana Skaggs (18:24)
Love it, love it. And as I’m listening. and the path that you walked. I’m remembering kind of looking back, it’s humorous, but I started out in physical therapy and I was pursuing physical therapy because it was a very good work choice and I still stand by that to this day. It is a very good work choice and I was determined, I’m quite hard-headed, And this was when I was in college and I’m like, I’m going to do this, come hell or high water. And I won’t go into all the funny stories about me being in science classes. Oh, I could, some really funny stories about that. But I’m like, okay, I’m going to do this. But I would go volunteering. You had mentioned that earlier, know, volunteer at something, see how you like it if you don’t like it. I totally ignored the fact that when I would go volunteer to do physical therapy, I would stare at the clock. I could not wait.

Sarah JanTausch (19:17)
Yeah.

Dana Skaggs (19:29)
for my time to be done. I wanted out of there. It bored me to death. I think physical therapy is a wonderful, wonderful job. I have some good friends and family that are physical therapists. It’s amazing. But for me as an individual, when I was there doing the volunteer time, I was not excited. It’s not like I couldn’t wait to get there to learn how to do the new tens unit. I couldn’t wait to leave. I kept looking at the clock. Is it time to go? Is it time to go?

Sarah JanTausch (19:53)
Yeah.

Dana Skaggs (19:59)
I could have saved myself so much agony if I had just paid attention then that look Dana you don’t like this this is not for you but I wasn’t listening to that I was like this is what I’m gonna do and this is a good choice and that’s it and so it was it was a rough road trying to find my way back around to what I’m made to do but to your point I think if someone’s doing that they really need to pay attention do you like when you’re volunteering, are you enjoying it? Are you like, is it time to go yet? Do we get to go yet? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it’s time to go home already. So much time has flown by. Or were you like me staring at the clock thinking, oh my gosh, it feels like it’s been five hours and it’s only been two minutes.

Sarah JanTausch (20:36)
Yes. I love that you bring this up because what you’re talking about is two different sets of data points. And I have an assessment that I use and like on one side you got the Sheldon who like looks at, know, the sun is shining. I’ve eaten a good breakfast. It’s a great day. I have a good job. Everything’s great. And on the other side, the subjective judgment piece, which is more feeling based and intuitive and both sets of data are important, right? How I feel after a networking chat. with somebody who I admire that led me bored to tears might mean like you and your volunteering activity that maybe this isn’t the route I want to go, but this other logical side is like, there’s money there and there’s prestige. Maybe I do. And so it’s balancing both sets of data. And some of that is notifications internally and we ignore them. That’s the hard part, I think, to listen to.

Dana Skaggs (21:39)
Mm-hmm. It absolutely… When I had to go back to school while I was in college and I was trying to, had to change my major, but I didn’t know because I actually applied to PT school and got rejected appropriately so. But that killed me because I had never, I’d always been told, oh, if you try your best, then you can do whatever you want. That’s baloney. I’m here to say that is 100% baloney. because I did my very best, but I wasn’t good enough because that wasn’t for me. And so I felt like a huge failure, cried and I’m not a crier, don’t like to cry, but I was crying. felt what am I going to do? And then when I ended up thinking about what classes did I actually enjoy, what classes were so easy for me that it was like somebody says, how do you spell cat? I’m like, uh-huh, CAT. That’s what psychology courses were like for me. They were, I understood them intuitively so quickly and so easily, it was just very simple because I aligned with that. And so that would, but that whole process, if I had listened to myself, it would have been very different.

Sarah JanTausch (22:46)
Yeah, oh absolutely. It’s easier said than done though.

Dana Skaggs (22:51)
Yes, yeah, because you know, like you said, you have to look at different because I still say a physical therapist is a wonderful job to have. It’s very versatile. You can do it from cradle to grave. You know, you can do it any all these different landscapes and places to do it. I just think it’s a wonderful choice. just wasn’t my brain was going. I don’t think so. We’re not we’re not going to do that. So just for levity.

Sarah JanTausch (23:00)
It is.

Dana Skaggs (23:20)
I’m going to tell one brief story about science. just can’t get, can’t, this keeps coming to my mind. I was going to one anatomy course, anatomy and physiology, and walking down the formaldehyde smelling hallways. And I would go into the class, well, there was a chair sitting in the hallway next to an open window, which I thought, that’s strange. Well, I found out why that chair is sitting there, because we were doing a, doing a blood. where we would break up into partners and we would take each other’s blood and put it in a centrifuge to pull out the blood cells and all this. Oh, I about passed out, okay. And that’s when my partner said, you look terrible. You need to go to the professor. So I walked up to the professor and I said, something’s wrong. And he goes, you need to go get in that chair. And so that’s how I found out what that chair sitting in the hallway next to the open window was for people like me who couldn’t. We’re gonna pass out because we didn’t want our blood taken and put in a centrifuge. Somebody should have said, Dana, hello, hello, knock, knock, knock. You’re in the wrong major, but I would not listen. I would not listen. I’m like, I’m doing this come hell or high water, but I think the work that you’re doing is amazing because it really helps people to find.

Sarah JanTausch (24:23)
Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Dana Skaggs (24:40)
what they’re aligned to do, what they’re created to do. I really believe in my soul that everyone is created to do something and we it’s our job to kind of figure out what that is and I think we don’t know how. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know that I wasn’t listening. I thought I was being resolute and disciplined by sticking with physical therapy and ignoring the fact that I about passed out and got put in the chair of shame in the hallway but you know it happened so it’s kind of like

Sarah JanTausch (24:47)
Absolutely.

Dana Skaggs (25:08)
I’m very glad that you’re doing what you’re doing.

Sarah JanTausch (25:11)
Thank you. It’s fun work.

Dana Skaggs (25:15)
Now I’ve got a few questions here that I’m interested in your answers and I’m sure that my listeners are going to want to know. So one of them is what are the signs that it’s time for a career change and how do I make that leap?

Sarah JanTausch (25:35)
The first one is identifying, can you learn or grow in your current position? And if the answer is no, and you ask yourself also, do I like what I’m doing? Do I want to stay here? Do I like the people I’m around, the organization, the boss, et cetera, and I want to stay. If the answer is also no, it’s probably time. That could mean a lateral seeking a promotion, leaving and doing something similar at another organization or making a huge career pivot. If you know the work that you’re doing is kind of close or spot on, maybe a big career pivot’s not right for you. And so it might be looking at a competitor or another organization or thinking about what’s adjacent, but thinking about what do want to learn? know, values around work and what we like to do and what we’re motivated by can be varied within who we are, but also generationally. So thinking about what your motivations are. and thinking about what’s driving that, right? So not everyone is motivated by money. Some people are motivated by other things or it’s a combination, thinking about that. So noticing that, but also it might not be that obvious. It could mean that you’re stressed and you don’t know what’s going on. It’s just this thing that grates on the side, or you could be saying, I want to leave. I have no idea how, and I’ve been trying to work on this forever and nothing is happening. There are a lot of things that could be popping up. Frequently what I hear is, I’m burnt out, I feel stuck. Those are the big ones. To make that change, if it’s something you want to do that’s a big pivot, I recommend starting with that values exercise that we talked about and thinking about what that looks like. And then identifying your transferable skills, potentially taking an assessment. There are assessments out there. I use one from Wiley called the Pathway Planner. It tells you your core traits or your best, most natural self, and then matches up with occupations, which is really fun to explore. There are tons out there. So looking at various forms of data, not just an assessment like I talked about, but also asking yourself, what am I interested in? What have I liked? You can go back through your entire career history and jot down, what did I like from each job? What did I not like? And why did I leave? And then look through, what are the patterns in that data that you just wrote down? I, every time I do this with somebody, there’s an illumination moment. And so can do this on your own to kind of identify it. And then if you have no idea where to start, but you know, you need a change, ask yourself, what did you enjoy doing before you were the age of 10? And it might not be a direct answer, but I’ll give you an example as to why this is relevant. Before, when I was a kid, I really loved helping people with their goals and they’re talking about their careers.

Dana Skaggs (27:57)
Hmm.

Sarah JanTausch (28:20)
And I was obsessed with assessments. Before I was in college, I took every single assessment I could take. Disc, not pathway planner, but Myers-Briggs, strengths finder, loved that one in high school. And I would help my friends and family try to come up with goals and work on goals. And it drove them nuts and they hated it. And so I took that message as stop, do something else, you’re annoying people. Come to find out many years later, right? I have this career in government.

Dana Skaggs (28:43)
Hmm.

Sarah JanTausch (28:48)
I get burnt out. I leave. start a business. I’m not really sure what I want to do next. I get a master’s degree. I think I want to do something with that. And then I’m like, you know what? I’ve helped people with their careers before. Let me run a pilot. I try to pilot. Happiest I’ve ever been. I literally got off my coaching client calls and I had a smile ear to ear. And I’m like, this is interesting. Right. And then I took an assessment after a couple of years of my business that told me my top job choice was a career advisor. and I’m sitting there going, everything makes sense now. But it took me a really long time to kind of figure that out on my own. And so the reason I say, what did you like to do before you were 10 or before you were in high school? Like there could be some data there in a roundabout way. never, like it wasn’t until I took that assessment and I got that, at this point I’ve been coaching for a couple of years and I go, oh my gosh.

Dana Skaggs (29:23)
Yeah Mm-hmm.

Sarah JanTausch (29:47)
I loved helping people with this stuff. Like if I sit down and talk to somebody and you tell me about your career, I will listen to you for hours and I’ll ask questions. And like, I never get bored. For me, that was a huge sign. So like, what are you interested in? are the things that maybe, and the other thing is like shedding the stories that people have for us, right? Like my parents really valued achievement and I think they wanted me to achieve in certain ways.

Dana Skaggs (29:57)
Yeah

Sarah JanTausch (30:17)
And my version of success doesn’t exactly look like that. And so it’s reframing the whole story. And it’s a winding road. Yeah. Thank you.

Dana Skaggs (30:22)
I love that. I love that so much. And that’s another boundary thing is just understanding we all have our own yards and our parents have their yards and they can do whatever they want in their yard, but our yard is different. And so they might not be the same and respecting the differences there and respecting and honoring and making space for our own opinions and our own feelings about what we want to do and our own aspirations. So I feel like Sarah that we could talk a long time. mean, I feel like we’re just scratching the surface, but unfortunately our time is winding down, but I want to make sure that my listeners can reach you because I’m certain they’ve heard things today that are just peaking. They’re interesting. Oh my gosh, she is amazing. I’ve got to get a hold of her. Now what I have here is the website is valuesbasedcareers.com. Is that where you want them to go?

Sarah JanTausch (31:15)
That’s it. Yep. Have them go to valuesbasedcareers.com and there I have upcoming events every month that they can check out that are free to explore this area or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Dana Skaggs (31:28)
Okay. fabulous. Sarah, I really appreciate you. Just period. I just appreciate you. And then I also appreciate your energy and your wisdom and your willingness to be transparent and spend your precious time to come be with me and my listeners here on Phoenix in Flame and trying to guide us in this area and give us some help. Thank you so much.

Sarah JanTausch (31:37)
Thank you. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me on the podcast, Dana.

Dana Skaggs (31:56)
You are more than welcome. Absolutely. Listeners, I know that you have heard multiple things today that you’re thinking not only is it benefiting you, but I’m sure you have like a friend or a relative or a coworker that you’re thinking, I know the exact person that needs to hear exactly what Sarah has to say. Please take the link for this episode, copy and paste it in text, copy and paste it in email. Put it on your favorite social media sites so that we can grow our Phoenix and Flame community. so that we can reach out to one another and know that we are not alone. I hope you’ve had a wonderful day. I hope the rest of your day goes fantastically. I’m Dana on Phoenix in Flame.

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