I Thought I Wanted This with Katie Carson

Do you actually like the work, or do you just like being good at it? If you were the gifted kid, the eldest daughter or the one who always gets voluntold, this one’s for you.

We dig into how being good at something turns into an identity you never asked for, and why praise and promotions can keep you in a role you don’t enjoy. We also talk about how to tell the difference between liking the work and liking the recognition that comes with it.

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Ellie Kime thought she’d be a copywriter forever. Then the business she built for freedom started to feel like a trap. So she threw her copywriting offers a retirement party and started over with everyone watching.

We get into how she knew it was time to go and why changing direction publicly can feel like letting people down. We also talk about what the messy middle actually looks like almost a year later: more joy, less income and a lot of experimenting.

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What happens when you finally get the thing you wanted, and it’s not terrible, just fine? We’re kicking off the show with the job I was sure would fix everything, why “fine” can be harder to leave than a disaster, and why we so often need a villain before we let ourselves change our minds.

We also walk through the five questions we’ll come back to all season, and what this show is (and isn’t).

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The first full episodes arrive Friday, October 30.

You know that moment when you finally get the thing (the job, the relationship, the house) and it's… fine? Maybe even good?

You just don't think you want it anymore.

And honestly, sometimes you're not sure you ever did.

I'm Katie Carson, and this is I Thought I Wanted This, a podcast about what happens when the life you planned and the life you actually want stop being the same thing.

I've changed careers and industries more than once and started over more times than I can count. Most recently, I packed up my dog and moved from East Tennessee to Florence, Italy. It sounds very Under the Tuscan Sun. It was significantly more paperwork.

But this isn't a podcast about moving to Italy. It's about the question that got me here:

What do I actually want?

Not what I'm supposed to want. Not what 18-year-old me decided when she picked a major, or what 25-year-old me decided was a career path. What do I want right now?

And then my favorite question: how the hell do I actually do it?

We'll talk careers, relationships, friendship, money, moving and starting over, including the plans that worked and the ones that didn't. I'll talk with women who changed course when they realized their lives weren't what they actually wanted, and we'll get practical about turning "I wish I could" into "okay, what would it actually take?"

You don't have to hate your life to want something different. You don't have to burn it all down. And changing your mind doesn't mean you got it wrong the first time.

Sometimes the plan worked. Then you changed.

Same girl. Different plan.

First episodes drop Friday, October 30.