Speaker #0There are seven mistakes that almost everyone pursuing meaningful work makes at some point. Not because they're careless, not because they're not capable, not because they're not cut out for this, but because doing work that truly matters to you and doing it outside of the systems that you've always known is inherently vulnerable. Today I'm going to walk you through the seven stumbling blocks on the path to meaningful work. The things that come up consistently whether you're building a business, a consultancy, or simply creating a work life that feels aligned and powerful. Being aware of these patterns is incredibly helpful because when things wobble, and they will, there's a very good chance that it's one of these seven things that needs your attention. So let's get into them. And if you listen through to the end, I'm going to share one of the big mistakes that I made as a meaningful founder and why I don't want you to do the same thing. If your career looks great on paper but feels wrong in your bones, you're not alone. Welcome to From Corporate to Calling, your lifeline into meaningful work. I'm Alyssa Murphy, a regenerative business mentor and former startup CEO who walked away from corporate systems to create work that brings life. Each week I share stories, reflections and provocations to help you recognize the signs of burnout and make a career change with purpose. If work looks good but feels wrong, this is your invitation to get out of corporate and into your calling. Welcome back to the podcast, episode 59. Let's get into it. Seven stumbling blocks on the path to meaningful work. We're going to dive right in. Mistake number one is giving up before you even get started. Oh, I find this one so sad because I see this happening actually quite a lot. And I think it happens when the gap between where you are and where you want to be starts to feel really overwhelming and your brain uses that as evidence and tells you, look, it's not safe. We shouldn't have taken this path. We should have just done something predictable and comfortable, you know, stayed in the corporate job kept that nice consistent salary We should never have done this in the first place. And the problem is, this isn't people giving up based on data. This isn't people giving up based on lived experience and really trying everything that they can. This is people giving up before they've even got started. There's a real danger that, you know, in your head, you've been thinking through an idea or an offer or a consultancy for such a long time that... As soon as you don't get that immediate traction that you want, you tell yourself it's evidence that it just can't work. The only evidence there is, is consistently putting yourself out there, having the right conversations, doing effective marketing, meeting the people that you need to meet, making offers, putting yourself and your business out there. You have to do that consistently over and over again for a significant period of time before you can really... make that decision around viability. But this is not a viability question. This is people letting their fears catch up with them. So please do not give up before you've got started. Believe in yourself. Make a long-term commitment to following this path, seeing this work through, and allow that momentum and that compounding of success to build for you. The second mistake is staying reactive. instead of proactive. Look, this is straightforward corporate conditioning. In corporate work, we are taught to respond. You know, someone sets us targets, we deliver on them. Someone gives us a budget, we decide how to allocate it. We're always in this kind of responsive mode. When you develop work on your own terms, when you put yourself out there, whether that is as a freelancer, a contractor or as a full-blown business, it's time then to be proactive. And that's quite a difficult mindset shift to make sometimes. So instead of responding to whatever comes your way, whether that's a contract, an opportunity, someone else's idea, even worse, someone's opinion, you really need to be intentionally building based on your own framework, your own planning, your own modeling. and you need to stay true to the work that you've done. to develop your offer and to develop your business. And not allowing yourself to get swayed by everything new that comes. along your way and there's such different energy when you are being reactive it's about owning your value it's about standing by your methodology it's about being really clear about exactly what you need to have a really successful engagement with someone it's about saying this is the work that i do this is who i do it for and this is what makes me really good at it and this is how you you can engage with me. Reactive instead of proactive. Number three, embrace yourself because I bet there's a really good chance that you've done this one. It's sneaking back onto the job boards. Look, almost everybody does this, but I'm not sure that everyone is aware of the kind of psychological harm that this can do and how it can undermine the new work that you are developing. Because really what you're doing when you're going back on that job is you're saying, should I quit? Should I just go back? to my old job should I go back to that industry that I know I don't want to be part of but maybe just makes sense for me that's what you're doing when you're looking at jobs and you might tell yourself you're you know being smart you're just making sure that you're on top of the kind of opportunities that are out there but really what's going on is your fear is taking the lead your doubts are there at the driving seat it's the pull of the familiar when you're stretching in to something new and actually that pull can get stronger the closer you get to actually fully committing and achieving in your new line of work. So give yourself the grace of just stepping off of those job boards. Number four, confusing your passion with other people's needs. You know what you care about, but translating that into something meaningful for someone else and something that's going to be commercially viable is you know it's a structural process that requires kind of rigor and discipline this is about finding the commercial grounding for your business and just because you care really deeply about something does not mean that other people urgently want that thing and are willing to pay for it so when it comes to defining your audience you really need to be asking who needs this and are they ready to pay for it do they have those resources you cannot build I was going to say you can't build a business purely out of passion which is a strange thing for someone who has been a purpose-led entrepreneur all their professional life to say what I mean is passion is your starting point passion is your bedrock it's your north star but you have to learn to translate that passion and express it in commercial terms otherwise you simply will not have a viable business so this relates really clearly to mistake number five which is not choosing a clear and viable audience a lot of the time people want to kind of hedge their bets they want to say i can do this work for these individuals here but i can also do it for this type of organization or i can do it for small organizations but also big organization or in these various sectors and it kind of feels safer to do that right because choosing feels risky but not choosing not zoning in on a really specific audience is actually what keeps you invisible it's counterintuitive your brain is going to tell you if i can keep this board general if i can keep this broader i'll have more opportunities more of an addressable market no it just makes you an even less significant fish in a giant giant pond you need to be talking directly to the right people you need to or everything that you do your marketing your offer your brand your positioning needs to speak to that audience and that is how you get real traction the state number six not setting boundaries early on boundaries really are the bedrock i believe of regenerative work because they're the part that is just completely absent if you look at corporate experience. You know, the vast majority of people who have been in corporate, their experience is essentially, you know, we own you to a certain degree, work comes first. And, you know, if we call on you, you need to meet that demand. We're not used to having the opportunity to think how much space do I want work to take up? What else does work need to support in my life? How do I want to feel when I'm working? And right at the beginning, is the time when it's really tempting to be you know available to everyone to work every hour that you possibly can to kind of put aside what works for you personally because you're just so grateful that there might be an opportunity that you can chase. But you need to set those boundaries because remember, you are building for the long term here. This is not about a three-month sprint or kind of hustling for the next year and then you can start putting those boundaries in place. Put them in place from the beginning and build out a business that actively supports those boundaries because then your work will truly support your life. And that is what will allow you to continue to show up for it day after day, month after month, year after year, well into older age if you choose to. The final mistake that I see many people making on the path to meaningful work is simply underestimating their own skill and ability. Again, corporate conditioning. It does a number on your confidence because it kind of teaches you that you're good at one thing. on really, really effective in a particular lane, or you work well as a cog within a bigger machine. And the part that you're probably scared of is, can I do this on my own? Can I do this standing on my own feet? Can I do this outside of my immediate area of experience? And yes, you can. You've just forgotten how capable and resourceful and creative you actually are. So do some work to remember that, you know? do your own private highlights reel think the things that you're incredibly proud of speak to people who have known and worked with you for years and hear their opinion about the value that you have to offer because you really really need to own that and embody it and feel it in your bones these mistakes that I have outlined they are normal and they're not signs that you're failing They are signs that you are doing something brave. unfamiliar and deeply personal and just being aware of these is really helpful you know you can see if one of these starts rearing its head you can check in with yourself when things get a bit wobbly you can notice oh um you know found myself sneaking onto those job boards this morning really didn't feel good afterwards didn't have you know a clear productive day because I was kind of just distracted by the thought of you know, what other things might be out there for me, just become aware of them, you know, listen through again, have them in the back of your mind so that you can avoid falling into these traps because they really are just traps. And it all comes down to having the confidence in what you're capable of and really committing to this path towards meaningful work. But there's one more thing that I want to say and this is important. trying to avoid these mistakes alone is the hard route. There's no doubt about it. This brings me on to the story I promised you of the big mistake that I made as a founder. And I'm really not someone who believes in regrets. I don't spend a lot of time with regrets. And while there are certainly, you know, things that I could have done better, as an entrepreneur, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about them because they were part of my journey. But, you know, this is something that I think, yes, if I could go back and build my first business again, this is something I would definitely do differently from day one. I would surround myself with so much more support. I, you know, I did have a co-founder initially, but I bought my co-founder out after a couple of years. We didn't have investors who were there to support us. We didn't have backers. You know, I didn't have a board of advisors and I had a small team. Most of the time it was just me. You know, the buck stopped with me. All of the responsibility and pressure was on my shoulders. And that wears you down for a while. And I wish that I had earlier on in my journey, you know, built myself or found a founder community that I could be part of, pulled together an informal board of advisors, started working with a business coach because when I did all of those things, roughly about halfway through my journey with my previous company, everything changed. It wasn't that I wasn't able to do things on my own, but oh my goodness, it was better doing it with that kind of support around me. I was able to make big decisions much faster. I was able to manage major strategic shifts with confidence when it came to really high stake moments. I had backup. I had people around me. I had a place to take those conversations and I wasn't lonely in it anymore. And getting that support, I don't know, if you told me early on, maybe I would have just thought it was kind of... nice to have, but this wasn't just about comfort or someone kind of patting you on the back. It was one of the smartest strategic decisions I ever made because it gave me structure, guidance, sounding boards, community, and everything changed. The business grew faster. I became more resilient personally. I had more time for my own life and the things that were really important to me. I had headspace, confidence, perspective. Support, you know, it didn't, it wasn't a weakness. It was what made me and my business really, really strong. So these seven mistakes matter because meaningful work asks a lot of you. And without support, structure, accountability, and a safe place to test your ideas, it's really natural that you end up in your head, second guessing yourself. shrinking your vision down, maybe even, sadly, abandoning it entirely. And you are capable of this, but no one is meant to build meaningful, groundbreaking, radical work in isolation. That is exactly why I created the Meaningful Business Incubator. In many ways, it's the container I wish I'd had back at the beginning. It's a place where you Don't have to do this alone where you get a really high level of accountability, structure, nervous system support, practical business guidance, and a community of people who are going through the same transition. It's a place where those seven mistakes are quickly identified and just do not get to run the show. And if 2026 is the year you want to build your meaningful work, for real not just think about it but finally build it the early bird deadline for the january intake of the meaningful business incubator is coming up it's on december 19th if you are on board with the incubator before that date you get a 500 pound discount so if you want to explore if it's the right step for you please send me a message on linkedin book a discovery call send me an email let's talk we can go through all your questions i can outline exactly what you get inside of the incubator and the specific support that you will get there. You do not need to avoid these mistakes perfectly, you just need the right conditions around you so that they don't derail you. Meaningful work is too important and too impactful to build alone. So let's do it together, whether that's in the incubator or here in the podcast, let's support each other and guide each other forward. Thank you for listening. and I'll see you next week. If this episode of From Corporate to Calling was helpful or inspiring, follow the show so you don't miss an episode. And if you know someone who's questioning their career, send them this podcast. Lifelines are meant to be shared. Remember, you don't have to tolerate burnout or misalignment. You can redirect your skills into meaningful work that brings back life to you. and to the world around you.
