9 months into investment banking at Citi in NYC, I burned out.

Working until 4am every day for 3 months in a row broke something in me. I started crying every day, followed by anxiety and panic attacks.

Soon, I was the most miserable I had ever been in my life.

I was desperate to leave, but had no idea know who I wanted to become next.

I had followed clear paths my entire life. From professional tennis to D1 scholarships to Wall Street. There was always something to optimize for: rankings or money.

After my burnout, neither felt right. But if you are not optimizing for optionality, then what?

There was no roadmap for that.

I was lost.

Welcome to the messy middle.

The messy middle is the space between who you were and who you are becoming.

Anthropologists call it liminal spaces: the in-between stages where individuals are transitioning from one state, status or place to another, characterized by ambiguity, confusion and potential for transformation.

If you are reading this, chances are that you are navigating or want to navigate a career change.

But the messy middle isn’t only about changing careers. It’s a much deeper than that.

During this time, your identity loosens. You ask meaningful questions about who you are, what you value, the meaning of life and the impact you want to have in the world.

It’s a space to explore different versions of yourself and design a life you love, this time, aligned with who you truly are.

Common triggers of the messy middle:

And many others.

It feels like standing in fog. You know you can’t keep doing what you were doing, but you have no idea what’s next.

This is an inherently difficult period. We are wired for certainty, so uncertainty feels like a threat. Our reaction is to escape it as quickly as possible, but the transformation only happens when we stay in this discomfort long enough.

I cycled through confusion, doubt, fear, grief, freedom and excitement. I often experienced many of them on the same day. I felt lost. Not just unsure of what to do with my career, but unsure of who I was.

After banking burned me out, I knew I needed to leave. So, I asked myself the obvious questions. “What do I want to do?” I didn’t know. “Okay, but what do I even like?” I didn’t know either.

I felt like a blank page.

I had spent my entire life inside strong identities: tennis player, DI athlete, investment banker. Those structures told me who I was, what mattered and how to measure success. My sense of self was outsourced to them.

So when I finally asked: “who am I without all of this?” I had no idea.

That emptiness is terrifying, but necessary.

The void and the not knowing are precisely what makes this transformation possible.

You can’t build what comes next while holding on to who you used to be. You need to let go of old identities to make space for the new one that is emerging.

Everyone wants to find their purpose and live a fulfilling life, but few people want the chaos that comes from it.

We romanticize the transformation, the clarity and alignment but often skip the part where everything falls apart first. Where you have no idea who you are and can't explain what you do to anyone, not even yourself.

Real transformation takes time. It doesn’t happen in 1 month, 3 months or 6 months. It takes years. I am 3 years into this and I still don’t have all the answers.

Most people can’t tolerate this phase because they need an identity, certainty and a plan. An answer to " what do you do?"

But you can’t get to the other side without the uncomfortable part.

You need to ask questions you have always avoided, face the fears you buried under years of achievement and look at your traumas and the mark they left on you. You need to be brutally honest.

It’s hard and it takes time. You can’t rush through it.

The messy middle is a place where you must sit with uncertainty long enough to uncover who you really are.

I will talk about this in my next newsletter.

Thank you for reading.

Just reply to this email if you have any comments or questions.

Vitoria