#71: The Fear of Missing Out vs Joy of Finding Out
From stuck to building a career that feels good
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how we measure progress, especially in our careers.
Inside “From Stuck to Expansive”, we had an open discussion that brought this question to the surface in a very real way.
Everybody was sharing updates on the experiments they’d been running from Phase 2, like:
the workshops they're setting up
posting on social media to attract beta testers for their MVP
or building visibility to attract potential first clients for their side hustle.
Super cool things were shared! I was excited for all these new opportunities that the participants were creating for themselves and impressed by how much insights they’ve gathered in just 3 weeks.
But most of all, I was amazed at how much the participants have grown since we first started.
But woven into some of those updates was also a different version of the same story that came up at the beginning of the program.
Some were already feeling behind so soon just after they started experimenting.
When asked why, it was because the results they were looking for hasn't happened yet. And somehow, there’s a dotted line between the lack of results and that they’re just not good enough.
And when we unpacked that frustration and many other feelings that went with it, what we surfaced together was this:
The urgency wasn’t just about results.
It was about meaning and wanting to feel like they were on the right track and that all the effort was worth it.
I could tell you about how beautiful it was to hear them come to a different conclusion from what they were initially feeling and also, coach each other through their concerns... but I'll save that story for next time.
But here’s the reminder we landed on (one every Product builder already knows but still needs to be reminded of):
You’re not going to figure it all out in a single sprint. That’s why we run experiments to learn, to iterate, and to shift whenever necessary. You know, agile.
And that's why, alongside these experiments, is a deeper purpose to the Stuck to Expansive program — to create a space where we can safely surface what’s really holding us back, so we can dismantle it and build something more empowering in its place.
The lack of results isn’t proof of failure. And it’s definitely not proof that they’re the problem. It just means the learning is still happening.
And quite frankly, this will never stop.
And isn't that marvelous?
Chasing the answer vs living the question
It brought me back to my own version of this story, though my frustration didn’t come from feeling slow. It came from feeling… unsatisfied.
It started with this: It started with wanting petty revenge for not getting the promotion and salary increase I wanted.
Quick backstory: The year before I found out that I was the lowest leveled and lowest paid PM in our group even if I was working on the arguably highest impact product at that time. (I wrote about this backstory in this post and why I couldn’t just leave).
And what followed closely was dissatisfaction. The need for something else, because what I needed was not being met in my current situation
I didn't know exactly what that something else was. But I knew that I needed to do something. Anything was better than feeling undervalued… or worse not enough.
So in 2019, I gave myself permission to try. It was my year of yes.
I started teaching Product Management at AllWomen.
Ran Product management-related workshops for companies.
I co-created Career Hacking for Women, a community for women who were feeling unsatisfied with their career trajectory (like I was) with my friends
I went online to write about my thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions about Product Management
And soon after that, I started going up on stage to talk about them too.
By 2020, I was running career-related bootcamps through Career Hacking for Women ,being INVITED to speak in podcasts AND conferences, and I onboarded my first ever paid coaching client.
I stopped doing Product-related workshops, though, after I realized that I wasn’t such a big fan of doing it. 😅
Those moments weren’t about building a brand (at least not yet). They were just me, trying things on. Seeing what fit and what didn’t.
And in that trying, I learned more about what I was great at and wanted to keep doing. I think what was the biggest insight was that I got a glimpse of what else my career can look like.
And the excitement for the possibilities made up for whatever confidence I may have been missing at that time.
None of these decisions were part of a great big and important career strategy (I wish they were, and maybe this would be a sexier story), I just decided on them because they felt like the next thing was worth exploring. But these experiments and the insights gleaned were what made up the strategy later on.
And this is the point, we don’t always have to chase the answer.
Sometimes, living the question is the work.
The answers will come eventually.
🧠 If there was no pressure to see results by... yesterday - what would you want to try doing today?Growth as a natural part of evolution
The more I explored and experimented on what else I could do, the more I saw what actually created lasting growth.
It wasn’t more frameworks or more skills, though learning more certainly of those definitely helped.
It wasn't just the existential angst crisis or the righteous rage against job ladders. Although I won't lie, these were great motivators too and they gave me the push to want something different and to do things differently.
But it was reconnecting with myself that the search for growth became a natural part of my evolution. And surfacing my values, interests, and definition of success to create an inner compass that I could use to evaluate opportunities (as much as they evaluated me) became my default tools to start filtering out what was a fit and what was not.
Now here we are, 5 years later, making a living out of the things that I was curious about, thought could be exciting, and could be a wonderful enabler to the life I wanted to live.
I wanted to see if I could. So I did.
Of course in between, I made a ton of mistakes and made shitty choices. While I was aligned, I was not infallible. 😂 I also changed my mind a lot. Maybe because they weren’t as fun as I thought they would be in the beginning or because I kept changing as a human being and found out more things about myself and so my compass also kept iterating.
A lot of us have spent most of our career years operating in high-stakes, fast-paced environments. And every day, we're exposed to all the talk in the industry about acceleration — not just about our products but also for our own personal growth. So we've become REALLY good at keeping up.
Look, acceleration on its own is not a bad thing. But when left unchecked, it CAN make us lose touch with ourselves.
And this is when we start chasing outcomes and titles, thinking that's what career growth truly is.
But what if the growth doesn't need to come from doing more or from 5 year plans?
Where else can it come from then? And that my friends, is the question I recommend to always keep asking.
When we give space to curiosity and lean into the joy of wanting to find out what happens if we push the red button, the quieter the noise of doubt becomes.
How? Because we finally start living in the experience of today vs living in the fear of uncertainty from tomorrow that at best is merely a possibility. And when curiosity drives us, we open ourselves up more to infinite possibilities.
🧠 Question for readers: Where in your career are you following rules—and where are you letting yourself play?Fear of Missing Out vs Joy of Finding Out
We’re so afraid of missing out that we miss the joy of finding out.
There's a thrill that can be found when we're testing and excited about the insight that we can get from it.
Every time we test an idea, we shrink the size of our fear and build real confidence, not imagined, not borrowed, but earned through movement.
We get to look uncertainty in the eye and say, "I'm figuring you out." And we give our doubts a chance to be wrong.
And eventually, there's also the peace that comes with choosing alignment over urgency. To choose opportunities that fit us and make sense for the life we want to have vs what we think we should have, because apparently there's some unspoken rule when it comes to career that we should be following.
So if you’re asking yourself if your career is going too slow or going nowhere, this is your reminder:
Your career is not just about getting somewhere fast.
It’s a space to experience more of yourself. To learn. To lead. And to evolve.
It’s okay to want more. In fact, I hope we all keep wanting more.
But my hope (and my work) is that we also enjoy the journey and adventure of getting it.
❤️
Kax
p.s.
Nobody gets it right on the first try. That's not the point.
The point is to try, to learn, and to see what takes shape from there.
p.p.s.
wrote a beautiful piece on the importance of finding joy.⛑️ If you’re feeling small in your career, feeling like you’re not getting the results of the work that you’re doing, or feeling like you're stuck in a space that's no longer a fit for you —- lean into your curiosity.
And if you want to see what could be on the other side of your feelings, I'd love to support you.
🔗 Click here to book a discovery call with me and let's see how coaching can look like for you.📌 Coaching Bulletin Board:
Why I coach: I believe that if there are more and more people prioritize their wellbeing, choose career moves that are in alignment with their values and ambition, and help others do the same — then we can change how this industry operates and make it more kind, human, and in service of the people (and not just the investors).
📌 If you’re going through some big hairy challenges that you can’t seem to figure out right now, I’m hosting a 90-minute free workshop on July 15, 2025! Join me!
📌 I’m building something for first-time Product, UX, and Tech leaders. If you’re struggling to empower your team, deliver the impact that matters to the business, influence people within your organization, and try to stay sane through it all, I’d love to support you. I’m looking for 10-15 people to pilot the Leadership Lab with me. You can read all about it and sign up for the waitlist here.
📌 But if you feel that a dedicated space is what you need, then 1:1 Coaching might be the space for you. For the new and emerging leaders in Product, UX, and Tech going through career dilemmas, I’d love to help you define your strategies to set yourself and your team up for success. Book a free call and let’s discuss how we can work together.
If you got to this part of this newsletter, thanks for staying with me until the end. And thank you for sharing with me topics that you’d like for me to share my thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions on.