A career can keep working long after you have stopped feeling anything for it. You still deliver, meet expectations, and move forward. From the outside, everything is intact. But somewhere along the line, the connection had disappeared.
In Nigeria, that realisation comes with heavy consequences. A stable career carries the weight of family expectations, years of sacrifice, and a version of success other people rely on.
Two Nigerian women who reached that point, discuss with Elowell Max what the experience felt like.
“I was still doing everything right. I just didn’t feel connected to it anymore.” — Titilayo, 37, former corporate lawyer
For most of my life, there was no question about what I was going to be, so I followed through. University, law school, getting called to the bar, then corporate practice in Abuja. I had the cases, the wins, the award on my desk. I was a senior associate before thirty-two, and the firm’s respect for me grew with it. My father, a professor, mentioned my name at gatherings before I even arrived.
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Initially, when the change came, it wasn’t grand. I just started leaving the office at exactly five. For years, I had been the last one to leave, suddenly I was watching the clock.
I filed that thought away. I told myself it was fatigue. I needed to go home early. Of course, the next big case would remind me why I started, but it didn’t.
Telling my parents was harder than leaving. My mind kept going back to my call-to-bar portrait hanging in my father’s room. When I finally told them, my father didn’t shout. He just asked, “After everything?” That one question carried everything else. School fees, sacrifices, the land he sold to support my education.
My mother reminded me that my siblings were watching. That as the firstborn, I was supposed to be proof that everything the family gave up was worth it. My best friend didn’t even pay enough attention. She burst into laughter when I mentioned it, “You won’t just make such a drastic move” she said. Honestly I didn’t have a clean explanation for anyone, even to myself. But the overwhelming feeling refused to leave. I was constantly on antidepressants. Till I left.
Those first few months were lonelier than I expected. My savings held up fine, it wasn’t like we were panicking. But I had to ask my husband for help when my car broke down. I’d always handled things like that myself, so it stung. The lack of clarity hit harder though. No office, no title, no deadlines. One Monday morning I sat at the kitchen table with nowhere to be for the first time in ten years. The kids were at boarding school, and the house suddenly felt enormous.
I felt bad about not contributing the way I used to, and even though my husband had my back. My family didn’t let go. Calls, messages, criticism dressed up as concern. My mother phoned every evening to tell me my father was back on his blood pressure medication because of my decision. “You still have to send in money, and pay for your father’s medication” she would remind me.
After a few months, the questions quieted but never left. In that silence, I kept thinking about the only time I didn’t watch the clock at the firm. Younger colleagues stopping by my desk to talk about their careers, not just cases. Starting a YouTube channel came from that. Completely on impulse.
Now, I create content. Career conversations, honest ones. Talking to a camera still feels strange sometimes, and the idea of building a proper legal advisory and counseling firm is there, but nothing is fully mapped out yet. I am still figuring it out.
What feels different now is simple: I show up as myself. Not as a title, not as my father’s investment, not as the firstborn standard. I no longer need medication to function.
“I knew what the next year of my life would look like, and it didn’t excite me.” — Violet, 30, former marketing executive
I didn’t fall out of love with my job gradually, it was one moment that just refused to pass.
I led campaigns, pitched big ideas and delivered strong numbers. But once I started working to protect my position instead of myself, it began to feel pointless. Even when my colleagues were celebrating with drinks after a win.
That was new.
Marketing was what I loved. The chase, deadlines, the satisfaction when a project landed. But soon, all I could see was the next campaign, then the one after that, the promotion talk, the salary increase, the same loop repeating with fancier titles.
It started showing at home. My husband would ask about my day and I’d give him short answers. The first time I said I was thinking of leaving, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
What exactly are you leaving for? Something you’ve carried perfectly for six years? I didn’t have an answer that sounded reasonable outside my own head.
That didn’t go down well in a house where stability mattered. We had three children, two nannies, two incomes, a system that worked. From his perspective I was trying to dismantle something functioning perfectly.
We argued in circles, the kind where both people go quiet and stretch it for days. There were nights we slept in separate rooms because it was easier than pretending everything was fine.
My mother in-law asked if something had happened at work I wasn’t saying. My brother reminded me about the Lagos job market like I had forgotten where I lived. What he was actually concerned about was how I would continue funding his tech career. Everyone was trying to locate a problem.
So I stayed another year, because leaving without a plan felt irresponsible when people were already looking at me like I had lost my mind.
That year was worse than the moment I knew I was done. I started pulling back without planning to, skipping meetings, doing the bare minimum. When I finally resigned it wasn’t a confident decision. It felt more like I had run out of ways to pretend.
The first thing I noticed was the absence of structure. No weekly schedule, no client meetings. The second thing was money, I underestimated that completely.
I’d been responsible for part of how we ran the house, groceries and the kids supplies. When that stopped, I felt it in every way. We let one nanny go and I stepped in fully. Honestly, I wasn’t mentally or emotionally ready for that, and my job had been the perfect escape.
My husband carried more financially, but it wasn’t smooth. He took on work he’d normally reject, and it showed, even when we didn’t talk about it.
It’s been almost a year. I won’t pretend everything has fallen into place. I’ve started paying attention to something I used to ignore because I never had time, African prints. Sourcing, understanding quality, learning how Lagos markets work. Some days I feel like I’m onto something. Other days, I’m not sure.
My husband still doesn’t fully agree with the decision, but we don’t fight about it the same way anymore.
In marketing, everything was measured for me. Targets, numbers, growth. Now, even though nothing is stable yet, I decide what counts as progress.
It’s a small shift on paper. But it’s the only reason I haven’t gone back.
Talking to Titilayo and Violet, what stayed with me wasn’t that their careers stopped working. It’s that the women had, quietly, long before anything outside reflected it. From the outside, everything still made sense. But both of them had already detached long before they said it out loud.
