DIY Career Audit

The Ladder of Career

If you’re following the modern career path, this 14-step process will help you:

  • identify where you truly stand,
  • uncover the real cause of burnout or depression, and
  • take a crucial step toward overcoming the hidden architect and director of your unresolved—and likely misunderstood—dilemmas created by this path.

1. Into the world of adults!

In a shadow-driven society, every person who transitions into adulthood faces a fundamental question:

  • How do I navigate the world of adults?
  • What strategy should I choose?

At first, survival is the goal. Then, the focus shifts to success, and eventually, to flourishing.

People who are part of the world of material career live in an ancient bondage they don’t see, understand, nor can do anything about.

2. Living Heroes

What makes a career so alluring?

A young person naturally seeks a role model—someone real, someone alive, a living hero. Successful professionals act as beacons of hope, inspiring admiration and desire.

Do you have one?

My professional relationships thrive, but my personal ones are a constant battlefield. Why? Learn more here.

3. The Gods of Success

Every great religion offers something valuable to believe in. The career path is no different—it promises a better life. The core belief that fuels career ambition is simple:

👉 A good career leads to a good life.

And who doesn’t want a good life?

The religion of career preaches:

  • Work hard, be smart, and one day, you will rise among the successful.

The proof?

Look at their lifestyles—the cars, jets, yachts. Who needs a distant, unseen god when heaven can be reached right here on Earth?

Society labels those who reject this path as failures. The temptation is nearly irresistible.

4. The Career Climb

College is fun, but what really matters is what comes after. The early stages of a career vary, but one thing is universal: everyone wants to climb higher.

Some dive headfirst into the competitive world, fueled by ambition.

Others take a slower route. But sooner or later, everyone enters the game.

Hard work opens doors to new experiences and achievements.

5. The Career Law

All careers, whether in acting, law enforcement, politics, or science, follow a universal rule:

👉 When our career grows, we grow.

New skills, promotions, prestige, expanding social circles—every success reinforces our sense of personal progress.

Our salaries increase. Titles change. Respect from colleagues, friends, and family grows. The system works. We feel powerful. Life makes sense.

Or does it?

6. The Illusion of Fulfillment

A career provides structure, goals, and security. It allows us to plan for the future and, supposedly, grants freedom.

The logic seems airtight: A good career equals a good life.

We hear countless cautionary tales of aimless drifters and unemployed struggles.

In contrast, a solid career appears to be the ultimate safeguard against uncertainty.

But is it?

7. The First Cracks Appear

No path is without obstacles. Careers bring stress, difficult colleagues, burnout, and fatigue. But this is life, right?

Everyone faces hardships. Bills need to be paid. Kids need schooling.

A mature person accepts the struggles and moves forward.

Yet, for some reason, something begins to feel off.

At this stage, your shadow will provide all sorts of strategies, rationalizations, to ensure that you continue on your path to success and also your measure of burnout and/or depression.

8. When the Law of Career Fails

At some point, the invisible link between external success and personal fulfillment breaks. The fundamental promise of a career—that success leads to happiness—stops working.

Beyond a certain threshold, higher earnings, more promotions, and greater recognition no longer bring deeper satisfaction. In fact, it often gets worse.

  • Do you feel that something is missing?
  • Have you reached this stage?

IIf you have, you might start thinking about changing something in your life.

  • Are you considering changing your job or career?

Pay attention—these thoughts come from your shadow! Positive change can be beneficial, but it will never address the root cause of all your problems—the shadow itself. In this sense, the urge for change is the shadow’s clever trick, designed to divert attention from the hidden architect of human suffering.

9. The Descent Begins

This process is slow, almost invisible at first.

  • You feel more tired.
  • The drive that once fueled your ambition starts fading.
  • Negative thoughts creep in.
  • Conflicts at work increase.
  • Cynicism sets in.
  • Your life energy begins to drain.

Can you see the Begins

10. Trapped by the Shadow

Why do so many start their careers with excitement and hope, only to hit their forties feeling empty?

Why do professionals who once thrived now seek escape in alcohol, sex, or workaholism?
Why do so many end up bored, burned out, or even depressed?

The tragic irony?
👉 The very career that promised fulfillment becomes a prison.

How is it that a career that offers so much becomes a deadly trap?

Are you at this stage already?

Watch out, because your shadow will now try to ‘help’ you.

11. The Shadow’s Solutions to the Shadow’s Manufactured Problems

Once the suffering begins to be unbearable, shadow-driven society rushes in with solutions—but all of them are traps.

  • Burnout? Take a vacation.
  • Depression? Try therapy.
  • Feeling lost? Change jobs, careers or even cities.

What’s wrong with these solutions?

12. Confronting the shadow

Confronting the evil shadow on human terms is the ultimate illusion of the shadow!

You don’t need to grasp this fully now.