From Layoff to 7 Continents Week 2: The Layoff Made Me Stop. I’m Glad It Did.

Steam rising through the trees. The kind of place that makes you stand still.

The goal I’m weeks from finishing came out of doing nothing for a while.

That’s not how these stories usually go.

The version people expect is that losing a job lights a fire — you move fast, you hustle, and the setback becomes fuel.

Mine didn’t start that way.

After I was laid off three years ago, I stopped.

The light at the end of the day, when there’s nowhere else to be.

What everyone tells you to do

The advice after a layoff is consistent and it’s all about speed.

Update the resume today.

Tell your network before the week is out.

Start applying immediately.

Don’t let the gap grow, because gaps raise questions.

Keep a routine, keep momentum, keep moving.

Most of it is sensible.

Some of it is necessary, depending on your circumstances.

But all of it assumes the same thing: that the empty space is the problem, and the sooner you fill it the better.

I understand why.

Coming back to work and being told I'm laid off after taking family leave to care for my mother who had surgery wasn't easy.

Then, being a single parent at that time, I knew I needed to do something fast.

A path through the trees. One foot, then the other.

What I did instead

Before doing anything, I stopped.

I breathed.

I took some time to listen to my heart about next steps.

As I left the office and arrived back home, I sat down and stopped.

It wasn’t restful, exactly.

So many thoughts were going through my head.

Analyzing took over.

All I was thinking about was getting stable again.

Green and gold, and nothing asking anything of me.

The question

What came out of that time was a question I hadn’t asked myself in years:

What do I want to attain in life?

I knew I obviously needed to work again.

I also knew I wanted to do something big in my life.

Something that would inspire my son and the world.

The answer

All seven continents.

That was it.

Not a career move, not a strategy, not a reinvention plan.

Just the thing I wanted when nobody was asking me to be practical about it.

It wasn’t a reasonable goal for someone in the middle of a career disruption.

It was expensive, logistically complicated, and there were a hundred good reasons to wait until things were settled.

I set it anyway because I know myself.

I know when I set my mind on something, nothing on this earth can stop me.

Then it was time to come up with a realistic plan how to accomplish that dream.

I needed financial stability to make it happen, then I started submitting job applications.

Three years later, I’m weeks away from finishing it.

Hills going back as far as you can see. Perspective, literally.

Why the pause mattered

I’ve thought a lot about why that period was so productive, given that from the outside it looked like nothing was happening.

Here’s where I’ve landed.

A layoff hands you something rare: time with no predetermined use. 

Almost nothing else in adult life does this.

Your calendar empties out, and for a short window nobody is telling you where to be.

Most of us fill it immediately, because empty time feels like failing. 

The discomfort is real.

There’s a particular anxiety to an unstructured Tuesday when you used to have meetings.

But it’s a moment when you’re not being carried along by momentum. 

When you’re employed, the next step is usually implied by the current one.

The pause breaks that, and in the break you can ask where you actually want to go rather than where the path was already heading.

The irony is that the thing that felt least productive turned out to be the most consequential decision-making I’ve done.

Suspended over the canopy, moving slowly.

What I kept

Here’s the part that surprised me most.

At that time, I didn’t choose to slow down.

But once I had, I never fully sped back up.

Today, I still stop, on purpose now.

Three years of travel across five continents, and the parts I remember most clearly aren’t the movement.

They’re the moments I stood still somewhere and looked at something.

I remember the first time I stood on the summit of the Eiffel Tower in France and looked out at Paris months after being laid off.

Earlier in the year, I was in one of the lowest moments of my life; for my birthday, less than a year later, here I am in Paris.

It gave me an indescribable feeling...I can't be stopped.

The view that comes after the decision.

If you’re in the pause right now

I want to be careful here, because I know the circumstances vary enormously.

If you have a mortgage due and no savings, the advice to sit with your feelings is insulting.

Some people need to move fast because the alternative is untenable, and no amount of reflection changes that.

But if you have any room at all — even a hour — consider not filling it immediately.

Ask the bigger question before you answer the smaller one.

The job you take next will shape years of your life, and it’s worth knowing what you actually want before you choose it.

Mine turned out to be a goal I could barely afford and had no business attempting.

I’m glad I asked.

In a few weeks

South America, then Antarctica.

The last two.

We're on Week 2 of From Layoff to 7 Continents series and almost at the finale.

Allison Coleman is the founder of Dream Worldtrotter, where travel is transformation.

Follow the From Layoff to 7 Continents countdown for a new post every week.

When did you last stop long enough to ask what you actually want?