Walking away from a job after more than a decade is rarely easy. But for one Bengaluru-based former senior manager, the real challenge only began after she left.
In a candid Instagram post, Shivani opened up about the emotional fallout of quitting her corporate role after 11 years. Her reflections on identity, uncertainty and life beyond a structured career struck a chord with many online, especially professionals navigating burnout or career transitions of their own.
Life after leaving a corporate career
Shivani began her post with a simple admission.
"I thought the hardest part was leaving. I was wrong."
She went on to describe how unexpected the transition felt once the resignation was behind her.
One moment in particular stayed with her. Recently, she came across updates showing former colleagues moving up the ladder.
"People I worked with. People I trained. I closed the app and sat there for a while," she wrote.
According to Shivani, the difficult part was never leaving a job she hated. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
"The hard part is not that I left. The hard part is that I loved it," she wrote.
She recalled being the kind of person who would voluntarily learn new tools simply because she wanted to do better work. She also enjoyed taking complicated ideas and presenting them to senior leaders in a way that made them easier to understand.
"That feeling used to fill me up completely," she said.
At some point, though, the relationship she had with work began to change.
"I still don't know when it stopped. When the calendar notification started giving me chills. When the work I had chosen started feeling like something I was trapped in. I don't know who did that," she wrote.
The uncertainty of not knowing what's next
These days, Shivani says she usually tells people she is "chilling" when they ask what she is doing.
But she admits that "healing" is probably a more accurate description.
Initially, she believed a short break would eventually push her back towards corporate life. Instead, she discovered something she wasn't expecting.
"I don't miss it enough to go back. And that is the most terrifying thing I have discovered about myself," she wrote.
The uncertainty has been difficult to navigate. Friends, acquaintances and well-wishers all seem to have suggestions about what she should do next.
"Everyone has a suggestion now. Learn this. sell that. Do a course. I hear them. I just don't feel pulled by anything yet. And I have stopped pretending that I do," she added.
After spending more than a decade in a career where the next promotion, project or milestone was usually visible, Shivani said the absence of a clear roadmap now feels impossible to ignore.
"After 11 years of always knowing what came next, the not knowing is the loudest thing in the room," she wrote.
She ended the post with a reflection that resonated with many readers who have tied a significant part of their identity to work.
"I am not looking for answers on LinkedIn. I think I am just looking for proof that I existed there. that it was real. that I mattered," she concluded.
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