Most of us built our careers around answers we gave before we really knew ourselves. Elizabeth has a front-row seat to how that plays out. She’s an HR pro and founder of Cultivate Growth Co., who works with early career professionals every day.
In this conversation, we get into the expectations gap between what young people think work will look like and what it actually demands, why knowing who you are matters more than knowing what you want to do, and the reflection practice Elizabeth uses to help people stop measuring their worth by what other people hand them.
We also get into what leaders are getting wrong when it comes to really knowing their people. Leaving your door open doesn’t count.
As we grew into our professional careers, we had answers before we really knew ourselves. What we wanted to study. What we wanted to be. What “success” was supposed to look like. And a lot of us are still living those answers out, even when they stopped fitting years ago.
We lead with those questions every time. We ask them of teenagers who barely know what they value yet. We ask them of adults who’ve spent years doing what they thought they were supposed to do. And then we wonder why so many high-achieving people end up burned out, stuck, and quietly wondering how they got here.
The real question has always been who.
Your career can’t outpace your self-awareness
When I talk to clients in burnout, one of the most common things I hear is some version of:
“I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
Said like it’s a personal failure. Like they should have figured this out already.
But most of us built our careers on external signals. Grades. Other people’s expectations. The salary number that felt like proof we’d made it. We were rewarded for performing, not for knowing ourselves. So we got really good at performing and never stopped to ask whether any of it actually fit.
That’s what happens when nobody teaches you to listen to yourself.
Self-awareness isn’t a personality trait you either have or don’t. It’s a practice. And most of us were never given the tools, the time, or the permission to develop it.
The energy audit you’re probably skipping
One of the most practical things you can do right now is start tracking what gives you energy at work and what takes it away. Not the big stuff. The small stuff.
The meeting that left you buzzing versus the one that physically aged you. The project you kept coming back to versus the task you kept avoiding.
That data matters. Patterns show up fast when you pay attention. And once you see the pattern, you can ask the more important question: why?
Why does that drain me? Why does this light me up? That’s where your strengths live. That’s where your values start showing themselves.
You don’t find those things by thinking harder about your career. You find them by paying attention to how you actually feel inside of it. Be an observer of your career.
This is also where energy management beats time management. You can rearrange your schedule all you want. But if you don’t know when you’re sharp, when you’re depleted, and what’s causing either one, you’re working on the wrong problem.
The blind spot leaders don’t know they have
If you manage people, there’s something worth sitting with here.
An open door isn’t a relationship. It’s furniture.
The idea that your team will come to you when something’s wrong — because you’ve said they can — ignores something real: authority changes the dynamic whether you want it to or not. People don’t walk through your door and say “I’m struggling” because you told them they could. They do it because you’ve shown them it’s safe to.
That means you have to initiate. One-on-ones that are actually about them. Pulse checks that don’t feel like performance reviews. Saying out loud, when a change you’re rolling out makes their jobs harder, that you know it makes their jobs harder.
That last one costs nothing and lands more than most leaders realize.
Knowing your people isn’t a soft skill. It’s the only way feedback lands, change sticks, and trust actually builds.
The staircase nobody tells you about
If you’re reading this in a season where you genuinely don’t know who you are or what you want — that’s a completely reasonable place to be. Burnout alone strips your confidence and disconnects you from your own sense of self. You’re not behind. You’re not broken.
Values clarification isn’t something you sit down and solve in one afternoon. It’s a staircase.
You start with the small stuff. What energized you this week. What depleted you. What you remember doing when you felt like yourself. You build from there.
The clarity doesn’t arrive all at once. It accumulates. And it only accumulates if you make space for it, which is the one thing most high achievers resist the most.
Subscribe to start making meaningful changes with every episode.
To connect with Elizabeth:
- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethgalbreath031/)
- Website (https://elizabethgalbreath.com/)
I’m Tara Kermiet — leadership coach, burnout strategist, and host of The Balanced Badass Podcast®. I help high-achievers and corporate leaders design careers that are successful and sustainable.
Here, you’ll find tactical tools, leadership lessons, and burnout education that just makes sense.
👉 Start by taking my free Burnout Drivers Mini Assessment
😍 Join my community on Instagram (@TaraKermiet) and/or TikTok (@TaraKermiet) so we can stay connected!
