AB Strategies Principal Antonia Bowring is an author, executive coach, and longtime Chief Guide.

About a year ago, I found myself feeling very anxious about the future. Both of my sons were in college, my work was going well, and I wasn’t planning to retire. In fact, I’m seemingly allergic to that word and its connotations. But I was starting to think more seriously about what I wanted the next stage of my life to look like.

Do I have another big chapter of work in me? Do I want one? What do I want my work to look like five or 10 years from now? And how does the rest of my life fit into that picture? These weren’t new questions, but I was just paying much more attention to them.

I began noticing versions of the same questions being asked among the incredibly accomplished and dynamic women I coach and have in my Chief Core Groups. They may be 45, 50, or 60, and they are still very much in the game, leading companies and divisions, building businesses, and sitting on executive teams. Yet increasingly I hear: “Do I have the energy for another big job?” “Do I want one?” “And if I don’t, what exactly is on the other side?”

We spend decades intentionally building our careers. We set goals, seek mentors, negotiate opportunities, and plan our next moves. Yet many of us spend little time thinking about what follows our most career-intensive years.

I think we should start much earlier, not waiting until we are leaving or facing an enormous change.

Start Before You Know You’re Leaving

Thinking about what comes next doesn’t mean you’re winding down. One woman I coached was fired in her early 50s after leading a prestigious luxury fashion company. Her doubts about whether she had another “big” role in her were real.  But she did, and she went on to run a major division of a big public consumer company. Her success there has been extraordinary and hard won.

The point isn’t that another big job is the right answer. There isn’t one right answer, but finding your truth takes time.

We can see the irony here, right? Time and space are exactly what dynamic, accomplished women have very little of. They have all-consuming jobs and are tired. Some know they don’t want to keep working at this pace indefinitely, but they have little bandwidth to think seriously about alternatives.

Maybe the answer is smaller and more sustainable: a practice of giving the question some attention while you are still very much in your current life.

Your Old Scorecard May No Longer Work

For much of our careers, we know how to keep score. Measures like title, compensation, scope, responsibility, influence, recognition, or achievement can serve us well. But they may not be the right way to keep score in the next chapter.

Arthur Brooks offers a useful lens. Drawing on psychologist Raymond Cattell’s work, Brooks distinguishes between fluid intelligence — our capacity for rapid problem-solving and innovation — and crystallized intelligence, which draws on accumulated knowledge, pattern recognition, and wisdom. Brooks argues that, later in our careers, we need to recognize the value of making greater use of the second.

I have spent a lot of time asking myself what else I need to learn to stay relevant, particularly as technology and AI move so quickly. But perhaps I need to ask another question, too: What wisdom (dare I use that word?) have I accumulated that I’m ready to share?

Is that less ambitious, or just a different kind of ambition? For me, it means having a new scorecard for the next chapter. Who knows, yours might measure agency over your time, contribution, relationships, health, curiosity, service, or fun.

I see this in another woman I’ve coached. After a senior career in financial services, she moved into leading a nonprofit and is now considering another chapter as a coach. Is coaching “bigger” than her previous roles? Is that even a useful question? What matters more is if it taps into who she has become, allows her to contribute in ways that matter to her, and fits the life she wants to live.

Create a Practice, Not a Plan

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox writes about our new “Q3,” the substantial stage between midlife and old age that longer lives have created. The old career-to-retirement map doesn’t describe the lives many of us are actually living. The possibilities can be exciting and a little overwhelming.

I’m beginning to think that, rather than another map, the answer is finding time and developing practices that give those possibilities room to emerge.

For me, that has included journaling and reading, talking with my spouse, therapist, and friends, getting financial advice, walking the Camino in Spain, exploring spirituality more intentionally, saying yes to some things and no to others, and paying attention to what those choices tell me.

Gradually, things are shifting. I’m beginning to recognize that I may be almost, not quite, ready for a different rhythm. I want more control over my time, more travel, more quiet, and more nature. I’m less interested in filling every available space with work. (I know many of you won’t believe that.)

This has started to emerge because I have been giving the questions some room. That is what I mean by making discovery a practice. The practices will be different for each of us. What matters is creating regular space outside the demands of day-to-day work to ask questions, notice what is changing, try things out, and revisit what you are learning.

For me, two questions are increasingly at the center of that practice: How do I want to live next? And how do I want to serve next?

I don’t have complete answers yet, and that’s OK. You don’t need to know what your next chapter is, but you do need to begin the practice of discovering it.