Decide what comes next—without walking away from everything you have built

The Sustainable Success Method™

A 12-week, physician-led programme for successful professional women over 40 who need to decide whether to stay, change or leave—and want a realistic career-and-life plan for what comes next.

Fortnightly small-group meetings · Evidence-informed method · Continued monthly peer support

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Your career is not necessarily wrong. But it may no longer fit.

You may still value your profession and feel proud of what you have achieved. Yet the way you work, the role you hold or the future it leads to may be increasingly difficult to reconcile with your life.

Perhaps:

·    your health or energy has changed;

·    menopause or another midlife transition is affecting what you can sustain;

·    family or caring responsibilities have grown;

·    the pace, culture or demands of your work no longer feel acceptable;

·    you want more autonomy, flexibility or variety;

·    you know something needs to change, but cannot put your income or family security at unnecessary risk.

This is not a failure of resilience. And it cannot be solved by another productivity system.

It requires a considered decision about the place work should have in the next part of your life.

By the end of the programme, you will have two things

A grounded decision

You will decide whether your most realistic next step is to:

·    stay and redesign the way you work;

·    change your role, setting, portfolio or professional direction; or

·    leave and move towards a new career or way of earning.

A personal career-and-life plan

Your plan will connect that decision to your priorities, health, responsibilities, finances and preferred way of living. It will set out practical next steps and small experiments so you can begin moving forward without depending on one irreversible leap.

This is not a promise that every uncertainty will disappear. It is a structured way to move from circular thinking to an informed direction and a workable plan.

Why this method is different

Career strategy for the whole person

Most career programmes begin with skills, opportunities or ambition. The Sustainable Success Method™ begins with fit.

It recognises that a career decision after 40 sits inside a wider system: your body, family, identity, financial needs, values, relationships and available time. Ignoring any of these may produce an exciting plan that cannot survive contact with daily life.

The method combines:

·    structured self-reflection;

·    professional identity and values work;

·    energy and sustainable-work analysis;

·    motivation and behavioural-change principles;

·    career and life design;

·    practical experiments and scenario testing;

·    facilitated peer-assisted learning.

It is physician-led and evidence-informed, while remaining practical, human and firmly focused on your decisions.

Programme curriculum

The six phases of sustainable career change

Phase 1 — Insight

See your current reality clearly

Examine your professional identity, energy, health, priorities and the demands of your current life. Identify what still fits, what no longer fits and which domain needs attention first.

You will explore:

·    who you are beyond your job title;

·    what gives and drains energy;

·    which parts of your work remain meaningful;

·    what has changed in your life or capacity;

·    the assumptions shaping your current choices.

Phase 2 — Motivation

Understand what is driving you

Distinguish between what you feel you should do, what others expect and what you would choose with greater freedom. Examine responsibility, perfectionism, fear, loyalty and the practical reasons you may feel stuck.

Phase 3 — Plan

Create realistic future possibilities

Develop several possible futures rather than forcing one perfect answer. These might include redesigning your current role, changing employers or sectors, building a portfolio career, starting a business, reducing hours or retraining.

Phase 4 — Autonomy

Make a decision you can stand behind

Evaluate your options against your values, health, income requirements, responsibilities and desired life. Decide whether to stay, change or leave—and define what that decision means in practice.

Phase 5 — Connection

Think better with thoughtful peers

Use confidential, structured peer learning to test assumptions, see alternatives and learn from other experienced women. The group does not tell you what to do; it helps you think with greater depth and less isolation.

Phase 6 — Transformation

Turn insight into movement

Create your personal career-and-life plan. Define practical experiments, next steps, support, boundaries and review points. Begin implementing change at a pace that is ambitious enough to matter and realistic enough to sustain.

What the 12-week pilot includes

·    Six facilitated online small-group meetings, held every two weeks

·    A structured learning path through the Sustainable Success Method™

·    Workbook with guided reflection and practical exercises between meetings

·    Confidential peer-assisted learning with other experienced professional women

·    Tools for comparing career scenarios and testing realistic options

·    A completed personal career-and-life plan

group size: 6–12 participants.

session length: 90 minutes.

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Sustainable Success Method™ VIP

Everything in the standard programme, plus two private one-to-one sessions with Mariska.

Use the first session to explore your situation, decision criteria or obstacles in greater depth. Use the second to review your direction and strengthen your personal career-and-life plan.

Investment

Sustainable Success Method™

The investment for the complete 12-week Sustainable Success Method™ is:

€995 excluding VAT

This includes:

  • Six 90-minute facilitated small-group meetings

  • The complete Sustainable Success Method™ and all programme materials

  • Guided reflection and practical exercises workbook

  • Confidential peer-assisted learning

  • Your personal career-and-life plan

  • Monthly continuation meetings after the 12-week programme optional for €59 excluding VAT

Sustainable Success Method™ VIP

The VIP experience includes the complete Sustainable Success Method™, plus two private 60-minute sessions with Mariska. These sessions provide additional space to explore your individual circumstances, decision criteria and personal career-and-life plan in greater depth.

€1,495 excluding VAT

VIP places are limited to ensure sufficient individual availability.

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  • “The programme helped me step back from the demands of everyday medical practice and look honestly at what I wanted from the next stage of my career and be more present with my family.”

    dutch GP Andrea

  • “The combination of structured reflection and conversations with other doctors gave me clarity. I realised I did not need to leave medicine completely—I needed to redesign how it fitted into my life.”

    dutch internal medicine doctor Femke

  • “I finished the programme with more than insight. I had a realistic direction, clear priorities and practical steps I could actually take to move from medicine into coaching and be more present at home.”

    dutch gynaecologist Paulien

  • “I especially valued the conversations with the other doctors. The group created a safe space where I could be completely honest about my doubts and ambitions. Mariska guided our discussions thoughtfully, helping us explore what mattered without telling us what to decide.”

    dutch oncologist Marit

This programme may be right for you if

·    you are a successful professional woman aged 40 or over;

·    your career no longer fits your life, even if parts of it still matter to you;

·    you are considering a change but do not want impulsive or unrealistic advice;

·    you need to consider health, energy, family or financial responsibilities alongside ambition;

·    you value evidence-informed reflection and thoughtful conversation;

·    you are willing to test assumptions and take practical action between meetings;

·    you want to make your own decision, not have an expert make it for you.

This programme is not the right fit if

·    you are looking only for job matching, recruitment or CV support;

·    you want a guaranteed route to a particular income or role;

·    you need medical treatment, psychotherapy or crisis support;

·    you are currently experiencing a burn out;

·    you want someone else to decide whether you should resign;

·    you cannot currently make time for reflection or experiments between sessions.

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Physician-led, evidence-informed and grounded in professional reality

The Sustainable Success Method™ was created by Mariska de Velde, a physician with more than 15 years of experience in medicine, former medical CEO, and facilitator of professional development and peer learning.

Mariska developed the method from a programme originally created for Dutch doctors navigating sustainable employability, professional identity and career change. Luna Earth brings that same depth to a broader international community of successful women over 40.

Her approach does not treat midlife as a crisis or suggest that previous success was somehow inauthentic. Your earlier choices may have been exactly right for an earlier part of your life. The work is to decide what fits now—and what can remain sustainable in the years ahead.

Start your change now by applying for the next cohort

FAQ

  • No. The programme is designed for women who know that something no longer fits but have not yet reached a clear decision. You will develop and compare realistic possibilities before committing to a direction.

  • No. A sustainable decision may be to stay and redesign your role, boundaries or working pattern. The method gives equal legitimacy to staying, changing and leaving.

  • The core programme is a structured educational and professional-development programme using facilitated peer-assisted learning. The VIP option adds two private sessions focused on applying the method to your circumstances. It is not medical care, psychotherapy or psychological treatment.

  • Allow 90 minutes for each fortnightly group meeting, plus approximately 60–90 minutes between meetings for reflection and practical exercises. The method is designed to fit alongside a demanding professional and personal life.

  • Your cohort can continue with monthly facilitated meetings to support implementation, review experiments and keep your plan aligned with real life.

  • VIP participants receive the full group programme plus two private sessions with Mariska: one to deepen the exploration of your individual situation and one to review and strengthen your career-and-life plan.

  • No. The method was adapted from a programme developed for Dutch doctors, but this version is designed for successful professional women across sectors.

  • The programme draws on established thinking in professional identity, motivation, behaviour change, career and life design, sustainable employability and peer-assisted learning. It does not make medical claims or promise a predetermined outcome.

You do not need a completely new life. You need a direction that fits the life you have now.

If your successful career no longer fits, the Sustainable Success Method™ will help you make a grounded decision and turn it into a practical plan.

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Not ready to start yet?

Read more about sustainable careers and navigating change on Substack, or take the free Sustainable Success Score™ to discover which part of your work and life may need your attention first.