The Next Big Move™
Turn career uncertainty into a decision you can act on.
The Next Big Move™ is a 3-week career decision sprint for professionals who are tired of thinking about the same options without getting closer to an answer.
Together, we’ll identify the real decision keeping you stuck, pressure test 3 possible paths, and build out a 6-month plan based on what you discover.
You’ll leave with either:
• A committed next move you’re ready to pursue; or
• A structured experiment that gives you the evidence you still need.
DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?
🔥 You have several possible career paths, but you cannot tell which one is actually worth pursuing. And you’re starting to feel anxiety from it all.
🔥 You keep researching jobs, industries, degrees, countries, or business ideas. But every new search gives you even more possibilities instead of a clearer decision.
🔥 You’re afraid of wasting time, money, or momentum on the wrong move.
🔥 You know you’re capable of more. You just don’t know which version of “more” makes sense for the life you want.
The problem isn’t that you haven’t thought about it enough. You’ve been thinking about it for months at this point.
The problem is that you’re trying to reach a new decision using the same information, assumptions, fears, and possibilities already circulating inside your head.
NBM is a structured process for turning career uncertainty into an evidence-backed next move.
• Should I stay in my current path or change direction?
• Which of these 2, 3, 7 career paths should I pursue?
• Do I genuinely want this career? Or do I want the lifestyle I associate with it?
• Should I relocate, study further, build a business, or find another role?
• Is my current plan viable given my experience, finances, and priorities?
• What do I need to test before making a major commitment?
I will not simply tell you which option sounds best or automatically validate the path you are most attached to.
We’ll examine whether each option actually exists in the form you imagine, what it requires from you, and whether its trade-offs make sense for the career and life you want.
The goal is not perfect certainty.
The goal is enough real-world evidence to make your next decision intelligently.
THE R.A.D. METHOD™
My 3-stage process for taking your career decisions out of your head and testing it in the real world instead.
🔍 REFLECT & RECALIBRATE - Session 1
First, we identify the real problem and decision beneath all the overthinking.
We examine your experience, strengths, finances, priorities, constraints, timeline, network, risk tolerance, and the assumptions you have already made.
Sometimes the career you think you want is actually a proxy for something else: freedom, recognition, stability, creativity, a different environment, or a better life outside work.
Before evaluating your options, we need to understand what you are genuinely trying to change.
You’ll leave Session One with:
• A clearly defined career decision
• An honest picture of your current position
• Your most important decision criteria
• Up to 3 possible paths worth investigating
• A personalized research plan for testing them
📊 ASSESS & ALIGN - Your 3-week research phase
Next, you turn your possible paths into testable hypotheses.
Instead of asking, “Which option feels right?” we identify what would need to be true for each option to work. And more importantly, how you can find out the truth real quick.
Depending on your decision, your research may include:
• Informational interviews
• Conversations with people doing the actual work
• Internal career conversations
• Job applications or recruiter conversations
• Analysis of real job descriptions
• Financial and timeline calculations
• Reviewing degree outcomes or alumni paths
• Small projects or other low-risk experiments
You complete this research between our 2 sessions, with my support available throughout via messaging.
You can (and should!!) come to me when you need help preparing for a conversation, interpreting conflicting information, or adjusting your research plan.
🗺️ DESIGN & DECIDE - Session 2
In our second session, we examine what the evidence changed.
Which assumptions held up? Which path became stronger? Which option no longer makes sense? What important questions remain?
From there, we create 1 of 2 outcomes:
• A committed next move with a 6-month action plan; or
• A structured next experiment with a timeline, success criteria, and decision point.
You do not need to manufacture a 5-year answer before you are ready.
But you will stop circling the same question without learning anything new.
#TBCRESULTS: CAREER DECISIONS IN REAL LIFE
These students did the research, confronted their assumptions, and made their own decisions.
My role was to give them the structure, questions, challenge, and support required to move the process forward.
This could be you, designing next chapter of your career on your terms (1/2)
This could be you, designing next chapter of your career on your terms (2/2)
#TBCResults: 3 POSSIBLE PATHS, 1 MAJOR DEADLINE, AND 0 DECISIONS
He had spent years telling himself he would stay in his current career for “1 more year.”
Now he was considering 3 very different paths while approaching a major personal deadline.
Between our sessions, he completed 47 pages of research and confronted what he had (and had not) actually tested.
By the end of the process, he had decided to leave his current role, begin applying, and give himself 6 months to settle into a new direction.
He did not need more options. He needed clarity with a deadline attached.
#TBCResults: A COMFORTABLE LIFE AND 0 DIRECTION
She knew how to perform well in school but had never needed to design a professional direction for herself.
With a possible international move approaching, she needed to determine what she wanted to build next.
Through the process, she ruled out the family business as her automatic future, became more honest about her financial position, and designed 2 career experiments to complete before moving.
She did not leave with a fake 5-year plan.
She left knowing what to test next. And more importantly how she would evaluate what she learned.
MEET YOUR STRATEGIST
Hi, I’m Justine 👋
I help ambitious professionals get unstuck and confidently make their next career move — minus the weeks (or worse, months!) of spiraling into doubt and decision paralysis.
I know how overwhelming a big career decision can feel. Because I’ve had to make a few of my own!
At one point, I was torn between 2 options:
→ Stay in Manila and take a job offer that paid 37% more than my already-very-high base salary
→ Or leave everything behind and pursue an MBA in the Netherlands, with no job lined up and 0 support system waiting for me there. (I had no friends or family in the country at all, I was moving with my then-boyfriend-of-4-years who I had never lived with and who had his own career to think about. My parents were really really worried.)
It was terrifying. But it was also the start of everything.
Me at Interlaken, Switzerland in May 2025. Normally I don’t take calls when I’m on vacation, but 1 student had such a major crisis, that I called her with this as the background and told her, let me take a picture of what I’m looking at while we’re on call.
That decision led to a role I landed before I graduated. And one that paid 420% (lol) more than my old salary.
I did not make that decision with perfect certainty. I gathered information, evaluated the trade-offs, and made a strategic bet based on the life and career I wanted to build.
Now I help other professionals investigate their own complicated career decisions with the same level of rigor.
WHAT YOU'RE GETTING
✅ 2 private 60-minute strategy sessions, which can be recorded for your future reference
✅ A tool to organize your possible futures before we begin
✅ A personalized research plan for pressure-testing up to three possible paths
✅ Three weeks of messaging support while you complete your research
✅ A 6-month action plan or structured career experiment, including milestones and decision criteria
THE INVESTMENT
₱10,000 total (or 2 payments of ₱6,000)
or
€170 total (or 2 payments of €90)
You are not paying me to choose your career for you.
You are investing in a structured process that helps you ask better questions, gather more useful evidence, and make a decision you understand and are prepared to act on.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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That is a perfectly valid starting point. And most people start there.
You do not need to arrive with a perfectly defined list of careers. We can begin by identifying what you are trying to change, what matters to you now, and which possible directions are worth investigating.
However, you must be willing to test your ideas outside our sessions. NBM cannot create clarity if everything remains hypothetical.
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Then we identify exactly what information is still missing and design the next experiment required to obtain it.
You will not be forced into a false answer. You’ll leave with a structured way forward instead of returning to open-ended overthinking.
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A Career Clarity Move (1-time call) is designed for 1 immediate question or situation that can be unpacked and acted on in a single session.
NBM is for a larger career decision involving multiple paths, significant uncertainty, or assumptions that need to be tested in the real world.
It includes 2 sessions, a career planning tool, a personalized research phase, messaging support, and a 6-month plan.
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Staying can be a strategic decision when you understand why you are staying, what you want to gain from that period, and what would eventually cause you to reconsider.
If the evidence supports staying, we’ll build a plan for using that decision intentionally and to grow your career trajectory internally.
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NBM is designed for professionals with at least 2 years of experience who know they are capable of performing but are uncertain about what comes next.
It is particularly useful if you are:
• Choosing between multiple career, education, location, or lifestyle paths
• Unable to discuss your decision openly at work
• Prepared to investigate opportunities and speak to relevant people
• Looking for structure and challenge—not someone to choose for youNBM is not the right fit if you only want confirmation of a decision you have already made, need an answer to 1 immediate tactical question, or are unwilling to complete research between our sessions.
READY TO MAKE YOUR NEXT BIG MOVE?
You do not need to predict the rest of your career.
You need to identify the decision in front of you, collect better evidence, and take the next step deliberately.
NBM will help you reach either a committed next move or a structured experiment that gives you the evidence you still need.
“I was choosing between 3 completely different paths and driving myself crazy and I was wasting time with my current job. After calling with Justine, I had a clear plan and started executing immediately. I lined up networking calls that led me to my now boss. No more analysis paralysis.”
“I thought I needed to quit my job to be happy. Turns out I just needed to renegotiate my role and my remote work setup. Justine saved me from making a huge mistake and guided my negotiations every step of the way.”
“The research framework helped me realize my ‘dream job’ was actually a nightmare for me. Justine helped me pivot to something more realistic, pays me better, and makes me so much happier.”
“I showed Justine the 16 different grad school degrees I was considering and she stopped me. Then she narrowed it down to the 2 programs that would get me into the career I wanted to go. Started applications the same month and got an acceptance letter 2 months later.”
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Perfect. That's exactly what Session 1 is for. We don't assume you know - we help you figure it out using systematic analysis, not guesswork.
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Absolutely. This is about strategic career planning, not job applications. You shouldn’t be actively job hunting as we’re doing this because we’re trying to figure out what comes next.
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Better to know now than after you've already invested time and money. Don’t worry, we'll find alternatives that get you closer to your goals without the unnecessary risks.
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Most career coaches focus on self-discovery and motivation. I focus on market reality and strategic positioning. You'll leave with data, not just inspiration.
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Sometimes that's the smartest move. We will still be creating a plan to optimize your current situation and position yourself for future opportunities though. Can’t get too complacent.
- Pay for The Next Big Move and schedule Session One.
- I’ll send you the Pathfinder tool to complete before our call. This gives me an initial picture of the futures you are considering, what is drawing you toward them, and what may be holding you back.
- We’ll use your Odyssey Plan as the starting point for Session One, define the real decision, and build your personalized research plan.
I work closely with each NBM client throughout the research phase, so I take on a maximum of four clients per month.
Questions? Message me directly @justineltchua or justine@thebumpycareer.com
I respond within 24 hours.
This is where analysis paralysis ends and strategic action begins. Talk to you soon~