I’ve been noticing something lately.

The women I work with aren’t asking me how to get promoted anymore.

They’re asking much bigger questions.

• “Do I want to keep climbing?”
• “Have I still got another big chapter in me?”
• “Do I want to build a business?”
• “Should I pursue a board career?”
• “Am I ready to lead something bigger?”

Or sometimes, and this one’s my favourite because at least it’s honest…

• “What do I want to be when I grow up?” (In their 50’s no less 🤣)

Every time I hear those questions, I think the same thing.

This isn’t about their next job.

It’s about their next decade.

The crossroads nobody warns you about

For most of our careers, life moves at us. We don’t get a lot of say in it.

We build careers. We raise kids. We pay mortgages. We support ageing parents who insist they’re “fine” while ringing us four times a day. We juggle partners, schools, deadlines, holidays and a truly staggering amount of logistics that nobody puts on your position description.

Opportunities come and go, and mostly we take the ones that fit the season of life we’re in. We say yes because we need the money. We say no because someone has to be home. We put our own ambitions on the back burner because, let’s be honest, everyone else’s needs got there first and stayed.

Years pass and you barely notice.

Then something shifts. The kids need you a bit less. The mortgage stops looking like a life sentence. You’ve earned the credibility, built the influence, and picked up a level of judgement you simply didn’t have twenty years ago (and thank god, because early-career you made some calls).

And for the first time in decades, you’ve got enough space to ask yourself a question you’ve been quietly postponing.

What do I actually want?

This decade is different

I don’t think our fifties are about winding down.

I think they’re about waking up.

Not because life gets easier. It doesn’t, particularly. It’s because many women finally have something they’ve been missing for years: perspective.

You stop chasing titles just because they’re bigger. You get more interested in impact than in impressing people. You understand office politics without being dragged into the drama (a genuine relief, frankly).

You know your strengths, your values, you know exactly what drains you. 

And, perhaps most usefully, you know precisely what you’re no longer willing to put up with.

You’re not building a career because it’s simply “what comes next.” You’re building a life. That’s a very different conversation, and a much better one.

Don’t drift into your next decade

The biggest risk I see isn’t that women lack ambition. It’s that they’re so busy responding to whatever lands in their inbox, they never stop to ask whether any of it is actually taking them where they want to go.

Drift is sneaky. One more promotion. One more restructure. One more year. One more project you said yes to because saying no felt like too much admin. Before you know it, another decade’s gone, and not because you made a decision. Because you never carved out the space to make one.

That’s why I’ve become so fascinated by Power Span™: the period of life during which your influence, contribution, earning power and ability to shape what happens next can keep expanding.

Not because you’re grinding harder. God, no. Because you’re getting more intentional, making deliberate choices instead of default ones, and designing your future instead of just reacting to it.

Define your next act

I don’t think your next decade should happen to you.

I think it deserves the same thought, intention and strategy you’ve given every other major career decision you’ve ever made, and probably a decent glass of wine while you’re at it.

The women who build genuinely extraordinary next chapters in their 50’s rarely stumble into them. They pause, reflect and ask themselves better questions than “what’s next on the calendar.” 

They challenge assumptions they didn’t even know they were still carrying. They decide what they want before life quietly decides for them.

That’s exactly why I created the Define Your Next Act Retreat and our next one is 5-8 August, 2026

Not because I think women need fixing, they don’t. Because I think they need something that’s become genuinely rare: time to think, time to reconnect with their own ambition, and time to deliberately design the decade ahead, instead of backing into it.

Because I don’t think the biggest career decision you’ll make is your next job.

I think it’s whether you drift into your next decade……

or choose it.

Request an invitation here

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