Shuvo’s Story: From Games Industry Burnout to Exploring More Meaningful Work
When Shuvo started coaching, he was navigating a career transition after seven years in the games industry. A layoff had given him space to question what really mattered to him in work – especially purpose, visible impact, and making a meaningful difference in people’s lives.
Through our sessions, Shuvo explored his values, his relationship with creativity and burnout, and what kind of career might fit who he was becoming. Teaching began to emerge as a possible direction, connecting his background in art and games with his desire to support others.
By the end of our work together, he had more clarity, more accountability, and practical next steps – including teaching experience days and volunteering – to begin testing this new direction.
What were you grappling with when you first came to coaching?
I’d been through a bit of a journey, really.
I worked in video games for about seven years, and after a layoff, I had the opportunity to start thinking about what was really important to me in a career.
What I came to was that purpose was really important to me – having a visible impact in improving people’s lives.
I was lost trying to figure out what that could be. In my discussions with you, we were processing my values, what was really important to me, and how that would translate into a career.
We looked at a few options, but one that stood out to me was teaching, and how it had the potential to connect my experience with art and the games industry with my desire to be supportive to people, and be an empathetic ear in people’s process of developing themselves.
How did you find the process of coaching?
I found it very revealing.
I’d never really taken personality tests, and to be honest, I didn’t really give much credit to those processes.
But going through that process with you, I thought, okay, let me surrender to this and be open to it.
Once I found out what my category was, I felt very seen. I felt understood and connected to that group of people, INFJs.
It was really helpful because I didn’t feel alone in the way I thought about things.
It was useful in that sense, and in how that could translate to career paths.
How did you find the meditation and somatic work?
That was another thing I found really useful.
It was about slowing down. The mind can be pretty erratic, ping-ponging through certain thoughts, and things aren’t cohesive or are hard to understand.
Having those moments to slow down and process things was really useful.
At one point, I delved deep into my experience with art, and how for years I was pushing myself through the industry and putting myself in the process of things that were so unenjoyable, but I would suppress them.
Having that time through the meditations, I realised how burnt out I was, and how much I hadn’t delved into self-respect, patience, and hearing myself.
It was really important to have those moments of hearing myself, and then talking to you about it and processing that.
What were the biggest takeaways from our sessions?
A big one was accountability.
One of the methods you applied was habit tracking. I’d done it in small ways before, but it wasn’t very regimented, where you could see how it translated into percentages and all that kind of stuff.
That helped give more momentum to making small inputs through the day to achieve a habit.
The habits you choose are important things you want to strive towards and make more progress towards.
Having that accountability, and seeing that visible thing of how well I’m doing or not doing, and what I can do to improve those situations, was helpful.
Beyond that, I have a bit more direction towards what I’m going to pursue as a career.
I can get quite locked into thinking and the theoretical parts of life. What you helped me process was the practical steps – to have those thoughts and turn them into logical steps towards making progress in a career, while keeping those values and meaning.
What do you feel clearer on now, and what are your next steps?
The practical steps are applying to experience days.
I want to see whether teaching really applies to me as a person – does it work for me?
I need to experience that.
Part of that is applying to experience days, doing some volunteering, and being in those situations where I can experience it.
From there, that’s a practical step towards understanding and knowing, and then seeing how that progresses as well.
What would you say to someone considering coaching for their career change?
I’d say it’s definitely a valuable process.
To some degree, you can pursue things on your own, but to have a cheerleader — someone in your corner, someone to nudge you in certain ways, and to hold your hand through quite a stressful process of trying to understand what you want to do next — is comforting.
Final Thoughts
It was a real pleasure to support Shuvo through this period of career transition.
What stands out in his story is the shift from feeling lost after a layoff to reconnecting with his values, his creativity, and his desire to do work with more purpose and visible impact.
His story also shows something I care deeply about in coaching: that finding direction is not always about forcing an answer. Sometimes it is about slowing down enough to hear yourself, making sense of what no longer fits, and then taking practical steps to test what might.
If Shuvo’s story resonates with you, and you’re navigating your own career or identity transition, you can explore Between Chapters, my 8-week coaching programme, below.