“You always have a choice, Bernice,” said my friend, a Learning and Development Manager at a famous global investment bank.

“I don’t think I have a choice,” I argued.  “The economy is pretty bad and I need to keep my job to pay the bills.  I can’t just do whatever I want!”

I wanted to quit my job because I found the work to be unfulfilling but we were in the middle of the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis.  The company where my husband worked had closed its Hong Kong office and after two rounds of layoffs, I’d barely managed to keep my own job.

I felt frustrated, powerless and stuck.

Then my friend suggested something that changed my life.

She invited me to attend a weekend seminar called the Landmark Forum.

During that seminar, I decided that I would eventually leave corporate life.

I didn’t know when.

I didn’t know how.

All I knew was that I would leave — some day.

Setting that intention was enough to dispel my negative feelings and energise me again.

Instead of resenting that my career was being controlled by people I’d never met and doing work I didn’t love, I reframed how I thought about my job.  Instead, I thought “I’m staying in this job with this company because I’m receiving an excellent salary and have nice co-workers – and that’s good enough for now.  In the meantime, I’m going to figure out what I want to do next.”

From the perspective of applied neuroscience, my shift in mindset makes a lot of sense.  Our brains are constantly gathering information from our environment and searching for patterns to predict what’s going to happen next.  It doesn’t like uncertainty.  That’s why, for many of us, uncertainty generates “negative” emotions that prevent us from thinking logically and clearly.

In my case, setting the intention to leave corporate life created enough certainty for me to feel more calm and motivated to take constructive actions, such as focusing on performing decently well in my job (I won't claim to have been a superstar), interviewing for jobs at other companies, exploring other professions, and developing ideas for my own business.

If you’re at a career crossroads, arriving at a clear intention can seem impossible.

But sometimes that’s all it takes to get you unstuck.

Although I was skeptical of her at first, now I realise that my friend WAS right.

You always have a choice.

Sometimes the options are already there for you to choose.

Other times, extra time is needed for you to create more opportunities for yourself.

If you’re experiencing a career dilemma and are ready to work with someone who’s been there, done that, and helped others to do the same, book a free 30-minute Discovery Session with me on my homepage.