A reader who was going through midlife career changes sent me a wonderful e-mail sharing her story as she moves along the path to her dream job. I want to share it with you along with my thoughts about what she said.

“Believe me, I tried to love that job, especially because the money was so good. I realized that I was earning big bucks at the expense of my soul. Next year I will be taking a huge cut in pay when I become a high school teacher. And you know what? Since I made that decision, I have never felt richer and more surrounded by abundance.”

Most of my clients in a midlife career changes all have mortgages, bills, children and a standard of living they try to keep up with. That standard of living does keep increasing almost daily. We have to work to live. Earning an adequate amount of money is important and we all like having extra money that enables us to do or buy something special.

Consider this: If you spent as much time thinking about increasing your own internal sense of fulfillment as you do about taking care of and increasing your monetary wealth, how much could your life change?

What does your soul want? What does your soul need? Take some time to look at what brings you fulfillment. Look at what steps you can take to bring that into your life more. Money and fulfillment don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but they can co-exist quite nicely if you only make space for them.