We like to think we can keep our personal lives separate from our working lives. But when something big happens — divorce, grief, redundancy or another major life change — it can affect how we show up at work long before we fully recognise it ourselves.

Divorce and identity coach Jonathan Burston knows this firsthand. During his own divorce, compounded by the death of his mother, Jonathan believed he was still functioning at work. Looking back, he realised he was barely surviving — and carrying uncertainty, loss and fear into his meetings, decisions and relationships at work.

Jonathan joins Lucia Knight to explore what happens when the weight of what we’ve been through starts shaping how we work — and how a difficult chapter can become an opportunity to reset rather than something we continue carrying into the future.

You’ll hear:

• Why major life events can affect our work even when we think we’re coping
• How career and identity can become intertwined
• The “invisible baggage” we can keep carrying long after something has happened
• Why a reset isn’t about pretending the past didn’t happen or trying to become who you were before
• The simple question Jonathan uses to shift attention toward what comes next
• Why meaningful change rarely begins with one enormous decision

Not sure what needs to change in your own working life?

Take Lucia’s free Boost Your Joy at Work Quiz to discover your Joy Readiness Score, your easiest quick win and the biggest blind spot getting in the way of work you might want to do forever:

https://lucia-trqb5gnw.scoreapp.com/

Going through divorce?

Jonathan’s free RESET Quiz is designed to help you identify where you are in your divorce journey and what you need most right now:

https://reset2breakthrough.com/ready/

You can spend decades getting good at your job without ever really understanding yourself at work.

That’s what Bridie discovered after 20 years in corporate roles. Through her work with Lucia, she began to see things about herself that had been hiding in plain sight: she was an introvert who could happily command a room, a natural networker who built relationships one person at a time, and someone whose time was far more valuable than she had been treating it.

Those discoveries didn’t just give Bridie a better understanding of her past. They changed what she wants from her work going forward.

In this episode, Bridie shares the three things she never wants to forget about herself at work—and why knowing how you work best can change the choices you make about your time, your relationships, and the environments where you can truly be yourself.

If you’ve spent years learning how to do your job but aren’t sure your work still fits who you are, explore the ways Lucia can help you design what comes next:

https://www.midlifeunstuck.com/work-with-me

What if enjoying your work has less to do with changing who you are—and more to do with understanding how you work best?

After working with Lucia, former Midlife Unstuck client Jay has three things he never wants to forget about his future work life: know his Superpowers and Kryptonite, stay experimental, and learn how to quiet the inner critic that can make every wrong turn feel like failure.

Together, those insights have changed how he thinks about work. Instead of forcing himself to be good at everything or treating an experiment that doesn't work as a personal failure, he can recognize what fits, adjust course and keep moving.

You’ll hear:

• Why something that feels easy to you may actually be one of your Superpowers
• How knowing your Kryptonite can help you respond instead of react
• Why treating decisions as experiments makes it easier to change course
• What Jay's inner critic was costing him—and what becomes possible when it gets quieter
• What work he could happily do for a very long time looks like now

Jay's answers won't necessarily be yours. But his story raises a bigger question: what would you need to understand about yourself to stop working against yourself?

Jay worked with Lucia one-to-one, alongside completing The Fierce Emporium—the six-week deep-learning phase that helped him understand how to design work around who he is and what he needs.

If Jay's story has you wondering what your own version of Joy at Work could look like, explore the three ways you can work with Lucia to start designing it.

Explore ways to work with Lucia