For much of Mary Grace Hennessy's career, working remotely was normal. She was doing it long before many of us used Zoom, building remote teams and traveling to work with colleagues. Later, she and her husband built GraceRock, an HR consultancy, and GraceBlocks, the technology platform that grew from it, from their home in Massachusetts.

Then, at 54, Mary Grace decided she wanted to return to the office.

Not just an office. She wanted a new city, a new routine, new work and the daily experience of being around other people. She wanted to get on a train and go somewhere. She wanted, as she put it, to be “in the thick of it.”

Mary Grace calls this the “hardest fork” she has taken since her early 20s. And the change began by giving herself enough space to figure out what she actually wanted.

What Drove the Pivot

There wasn't one catalyst. GraceRock and GraceBlocks needed a different approach, and Mary Grace could see value in stepping away and letting her husband take the reins. At the same time, family considerations were becoming increasingly important. She wanted a different environment for her family and wanted her children to see an adult life that wasn't simply two parents working from home on Zoom calls.

But she is clear that the move wasn't only about her children. “I moved here for myself and my daughter,” she told me. After years of working from home in a suburban environment, she was ready for something different. She wanted community and the energy of a more urban environment. She wanted to model a different way of working, and she wanted that change for herself too.

Her definition of a successful next role became quite specific: work that put her among people, in a different environment, while allowing her family to maintain a comparable lifestyle. She considered other jobs, including senior product management positions, but the prospect of returning to that work and managing a large team made her tired just thinking about it.

Transition Process

The deeper transition had begun well before the move. At her sister's suggestion, Mary Grace participated in the Hoffman Process, an intensive personal development program. She describes it as enormously helpful. It gave her an opportunity to examine patterns she had carried for years and recognize that what she was doing wasn't going to continue working for her.

She didn't immediately turn that realization into action. In fact, participants are encouraged not to make major changes for at least six months afterward. Mary Grace took nearly a year before she and her family decided in earnest to sell their house and move. Even then, Philadelphia and Athena Global Advisors, the consulting firm founded by her sister, weren't foregone conclusions. She explored other opportunities.

What emerged from that period was something deeper than a job decision. Mary Grace realized that over time she had lost some of her ability to get in touch with herself. She had often approached situations by asking what she could do to make things better for everyone else. Now she was learning to say, “I'm going to take this turn,” and to recognize that it was okay to take up the space she needed for herself.

Current Direction

Mary Grace is now a senior director in Athena's management consulting division. She deliberately chose to join the delivery team where she could be immersed in specific project work. Athena's projects range across social media monitoring, change management, process design and implementation, alongside the company's creative agency work.

Her first assignment is managing part of a large corporate foundation grant process. It is a completely new subject matter, which is part of the appeal. “I'm super excited to flex some new muscles,” she told me. After years immersed in HR technology and the hiring process, she is enjoying applying capabilities she already has to entirely different problems.

The project will change. That's consulting. What seems more important is that Mary Grace has changed the setting in which she is using her experience. She has the office, the people, the train ride, and the sense of being back “in the thick of it.”

Advice for Others

• Give yourself space for clarity. Take time to understand what you actually care about and recognize patterns that may no longer be serving you.

• Check in with your whole self. Mary Grace continues to use Hoffman's “Quadrinity Check-In,” asking what her body, intellectual self, inner child and spiritual self need that day.

• Take a turn for yourself. Especially for women accustomed to considering what will please or help everyone else, ask what you need to move forward.

• Define success for this stage of your life. For Mary Grace, place, community, family and maintaining a comparable lifestyle all mattered.

• Find the joy. Her wonderfully uncomplicated version of this advice: “Dance, find time to dance.”

Mary Grace's story adds something important to my thinking about pivots. Sometimes the work of redirecting starts well before the visible career change. Her reset happened during the period of reflection when she began listening differently to herself. The pivot came when she acted on that clarity.

She didn't abandon the capabilities she had spent decades developing. She changed the environment, the subject matter and the way she wanted work to fit into her life. Perhaps most importantly, she gave herself permission to take the turn.