my career pivots

🦒

I Didn't Burn Out.
I Simply Wanted to Feel More Alive.

My career itself has been a series of course corrections toward greater aliveness and alignment.

My pivots weren't caused by catastrophe. They weren't about escaping a terrible career or a mean boss. I always loved the people I worked for and with.

No, it was always a niggle from somewhere deep inside myself — something I didn't even allow anyone else to see.

It was a sadness that came to the surface only when I allowed myself to become completely still. A growing inner pull toward something more truthful. Something I terribly longed to create.

And yet, there was never anything concrete I could point to.

Just a feeling that something was missing. That was the part that made it so terrifying.

I had been raised to make sensible decisions. To have a good reason for changing direction. And how do you explain wanting to leave something that looks perfectly good from the outside when all you have as evidence is a feeling inside you?

Looking back, I can now see the pattern so clearly.

Something looked right externally. I noticed what was missing internally. I created enough space to hear myself.
And then I followed the next clue.

The pattern of my career pivots.

Again and again, that is how my career has changed direction.

And this is the story of those clues.

my first job after graduation

After my international business studies, I decided to combine my love of languages and business by taking a job as an export assistant.

I was thrilled to speak with my French clients all day long. But the work itself involved lots of technical nuts and bolts, crafting order confirmations and always being in a hurry to send out the next shipment.

At the end of the day, I was exhausted. More importantly, I couldn't really see how the work was taking my life forward.

I started longing for research. For writing my reflections. For taking deep dives into subjects that genuinely interested me.

So I took a leap of faith and continued to my master's studies.

my first pivot

At university, I dove deep into branding thanks to my incredibly inspiring teacher, Kirsti Lindberg-Repo.

I was fascinated by strategic models and food for thought. The idea of crafting an identity and creating a world of experiences to match that identity, discovering a unique positioning on a map and designing the world to be your oyster. That’s how I saw branding — a world of infinite possibility.

After completing my thesis on brand repositioning, I first worked with Kirsti at the School of Economics and later became research manager at her company, Brand Audit Group.

I had found something I loved: researching, investigating, writing, connecting dots and understanding what sits underneath the surface. I adored my colleague, Indian Apramey Dube, one of the most insightful people I’ve ever met. The jaw-dropping moments when he would present our findings and how much we laughed on our research trips.

I was on a roll, holding on to my newfound passion with two hands, and was not gonna let it go — ever. I built a library of my favorite branding gurus at home, and my identity felt sealed.

until my other dream woke up. a deep desire to have a baby.

Life took me on a journey towards my body, which I had always been neglecting. My desire to become a mother grew each day as I started to pay more and more attention to the subtle way my body desperately wanted my attention.

When my son was born, I felt like I was inside a wave of love. Nothing other than gratitude and soulful connection seemed to exist in my world. My heart felt fully open, and I longed to write about other stuff than branding.

I started writing books about subjects I couldn't stop thinking about. For the first time, I felt that I wasn’t writing. It felt more like, the more I leaned back, the more I was simply writing what I heard. And whereas before I had been exhausted after writing, now it seemed that it was the only thing revitalising me and keeping me calm through the hurdles of being a mother to a small baby.

I wrote about yoga and the power of the body to guide us on our path. I wrote about children being conditioned to eat "kids' food" instead of healthy food and how we might change that.

Looking back, I can see that something much deeper had already awakened in me.

after maternity leave, i returned to my work as a brand strategist.

This time, it was an exciting opportunity to work at Rune & Berg Design with visually talented people and help establish their strategic role in the market.

I loved their enthusiasm and passion for growing their company.

That was exactly what the old me had desired for so long. I just needed to burst out of my maternity love bubble, I told myself. Toughen up and be a normal person.

However, after two years at home, writing in complete silence, with only the sound of the coffee machine brewing and long breaths from the baby monitor, suddenly the open office felt like it was impossible for me to catch my best self. And to go back to hearing what to write instead of pushing the words onto the paper.

A huge yearning had started growing inside me.

And then there were the clues about entrepreneurship. I still remember my boss talking to a client and saying: "Once you become an entrepreneur, you can never go back." That sentence somehow became frozen in time. I can still imagine the exact moment I heard it.

Whenever someone spoke about entrepreneurship, their words would echo in my ears for days.

Being my own boss. It was an idea that made my stomach full of butterflies, yet I kept telling myself that I’d probably become lazy and get nothing done.

I tried hard to keep myself busy and productive, terrified that if I stopped even for a second, I would feel how empty I actually felt.

I longed to get closer to myself, but I had no idea what that would mean for my career.

And creating the space to hear myself felt genuinely scary. I thought I had already arrived.

I had a career. I was respected in my profession. I had meetings and functions around me that gave me a sense of significance.

And I wasn't happy. And my body was clearly not on board with my plans.

Then, after working at Rune & Berg for close to two years, the Universe stepped in.

My husband was offered work in London for six months. I was relieved. I could blame my husband for the fact that I needed to leave my “perfect on paper” work and move to London to take care of our three-year-old.

I felt free, and I was extremely conscious of the fact that I had six months to figure out who the hell I was.

Suddenly, I had space. Space to feel. And space to think. I finally had the safe space to investigate what this persistent pull toward another direction was trying to tell me.

London felt symbolic because it was to London that I had escaped as an 18-year-old to work as an au pair when I had no idea who I was and what I wanted to do.

I met with my deeply wise friend Stephanie Seege in London. She gave me this beautiful quote that has followed me ever since: “Tough decisions, easy life; easy decisions, tough life.”

in london, i came to a realization that changed the direction of my life.

I spent six months in London bookstores trying to find something that would light up my curiosity. I read books on entrepreneurship and being an introvert. And then it struck me: the only thing I was really missing from Finland was my reflexologist.

I realised that accepting who I was also meant accepting how sensitive my nervous system was. At the time, I was asking myself the question, “If I really am this sensitive, and trust that there is a good reason for that and strength behind this quality — what should I do for a living?”

This question led me to begin studying the form of healing that had helped me the most personally: reflexology.

I studied night and day for a year, built my own brand and began offering reflexology treatments.

I was finally an entrepreneur — master of my own fate — and I loved every second of it.

"how does a brand strategist become a reflexologist?"

Clients started coming from all my previous workplaces.

And there was one question everyone wanted to ask me:

How does a brand strategist pivot into reflexology?

From the outside, it looked like I had gone nuts. Like I just broke up with George Clooney.

Had I burned out? Had I had a horrible boss? Was I escaping something?

No.

There was no dramatic career disaster behind my pivot. I was simply yearning for work that felt deeply meaningful to me. There was a longing to move at my own pace, to discover more of my true gifts and my zone of genius that enabled my body to feel great.

And I was finally willing to follow my endless curiosity.

and then i pivoted again

For seven years, I had the privilege of serving my Soulmate clients at my first company, Rauha, in the best way I knew how.

Work no longer felt like work.

It felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Then, in the summer of 2024, Human Design arrived for real.

I still remember learning about the Variables and feeling that familiar pull.

Part of me tried to resist.

I remember bargaining with the Universe.

I already had a thriving healing business.

I didn't want to start over. Surely I didn't need another obsession.

But deep down, I already knew.

It was time to move forward once again.

Over the years, I've realised something. My direction never arrived as a detailed plan.

It arrived as feeling curious. Alive.

Like falling in love.

There was never any evidence that they would take me somewhere safe.

Now I trust them more than ever.

Because they have always taken me somewhere really good.

Every meaningful chapter of my life began the same way.

With something quietly asking me to come a little closer.

To learn something new. To discover a new side of myself. To follow a path less traveled.

Today, I no longer ask, "Does this make sense?" I ask, does this make me come alive?

Because I've learned that the things that feed my energy have never been arbitrary.

They've always been pointing me towards my next chapter.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve always loved the line from Mona Lisa Smile:

“Not all who wander are aimless.”

I may have wandered through French, branding, reflexology, healing and Human Design…

But perhaps I was never aimless.

I was simply following what made me come alive.

Today, after eight years of entrepreneurship, I am the happiest and healthiest I have ever been.

My business still experiences highs and lows. Of course it does.

But I feel calm. I feel deeply engaged in my research.

And I love coaching women to stay connected to themselves, their bodies and their inner compass as they make decisions about what comes next.

your career pivot doesn't have to make sense to everyone else

Looking back, I don't see separate careers anymore.

Languages. International business. Branding. Research. Writing. The body. Reflexology. Human Design. Coaching.

Instead, I see clues to my purpose. Making connections others don’t see. Synthesising across disciplines.

Each chapter taught me something about myself that I needed for the next one.

And perhaps this is what I most want women considering a career pivot to know:

You don't have to throw your past away to change direction.

A career pivot can be an investigation.

• What have I learned about myself here?

• What gives me energy?

• What am I ready to leave behind?

• What keeps pulling my attention?

• What part of myself wants more room now?

Your next career doesn't necessarily begin with knowing exactly where you're going.

Sometimes it begins by becoming aware of a part of yourself that yearns to be seen.

If you recognise yourself in my story …
and feel a pull towards something new, I created my Career Pivot course to help you investigate the clues your own life has already been giving you.

You don't need to know exactly where you're going yet. You just need to be curious enough to follow the next clue.