Choose Your Winter

Do you go to work because you have to, or because you love what you do? And more pointedly: do you have a choice when your work stops giving and just keeps taking?

A lot of people don't feel they have a choice about their work. I dare say they do.

You know the ant and the grasshopper. In the version everyone knows, the ant works all summer, the grasshopper plays, and winter decides who was right. But on the next page, the ant isn't working any harder. The only difference is that she's carrying a picture of winter the whole time. It was never about who worked harder. It was about who had a plan.

Choose Your Winter is about agency: the ability to make choices, big and small, that build a life you find fulfilling. It isn't about escaping your job or never working again. It's about who sets the terms of your work, and who does the choosing.

Is this you?

•You've been sprinting for years, through the promotions, the reorgs, the shifting goalposts. You told yourself it was going somewhere.
•You're doing well by most measures. So why does it feel like you have so little choice in your own life?

A default isn't a decision, and you're not stuck with it.

The Four Gets

•Get the Picture. What does agency actually look like for you? Not vaguely, vividly.
•Get the Gap. Where do you stand against that picture, in real numbers?
•Get the Plan. Your investments, your business or career, or a mix: what closes the distance?
•Get Moving. Start with this week, and the step that moves you forward the most.

You'll meet Miriam, Priya, Owen and Claire, real people at the moment they started. Each chapter ends with a short exercise, so you finish the book with a picture and a plan of your own. Includes a free companion, the Agency Year Workbook.

About the author: Linda Chung is a coach, mentor, and the founder of Fulfilling 9781065864516Life Design Coaching, with more than 25 years in business management and leadership. When her work no longer fulfilled her the way it once had, she chose her moment to leave. She coaches today because she chooses to.