Sheria Rainey thought she was doing everything right: climbing the corporate ladder in public relations, teaching and human resources while raising her son. But deep down, she felt drained. The turning point came at a seminar she attended in 2014. One of the assignments was to make a vision board.
“Something that I have always been passionate about is modeling,” Rainey says. “But I had stopped pursuing it years ago. And I said, ‘You know what, I have nothing to lose.’”
Within weeks she was at a casting call for Creme of Nature products and landed her first gig as a hair model. A decade later, Rainey is still going strong. “It’s fun,” she says.
Rainey’s pivot reflects a broader trend reshaping the workforce. In recent years, women have been leaving corporate life at unprecedented rates, driven by burnout, rising childcare costs and return-to-office mandates that erode flexibility. Between January and July 2025, 212,000 women aged 20 and over left the workforce, while 44,000 men entered it, according data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Many women are responding by pursuing entrepreneurship for more control, balance and fulfillment. Some women, like Rainey, call it a “soft girl career.”
Anjali Stamats is living that life. She graduated college in 2016 with a music degree in vocal performance and a marketing job in web design. She quickly realized that being indoors at a desk wasn’t where she belonged. “I just knew I didn’t want to be locked into an office,” she says.
Her escape came through yoga. She began teaching colleagues during breaks. “And then I thought, ‘you know what, this is what I want to do’,” she says. She obtained a certification but realized being a yoga instructor wasn’t going to be a way to make a living.
“I didn’t like the idea of charging people to do what I felt was fun,” Stamats says. She still teaches yoga for free, often on farms and in local communities. After marrying her husband Ben, whose family has farmed for generations, the former city girl fully embraced a life outdoors.
The couple spent years living the van life, traveling from farm to farm and trading labor for food and shelter. At one point, they lived in a 200-square-foot tiny house before buying land in Washington state.
“Dream without limitation,” Stamats advises. “Remind yourself that you were created with purpose. Think about the careers that are in alignment with that purpose and where you can make money but also be fulfilled.”
Lifestyle coach and speaker Jasmine Brett Stringer, who left corporate sales at General Mills to launch her empowerment brand Carpe Diem with Jasmine, says the wave of women stepping away from traditional jobs reflects something deeper.
“So many women are burnt out because they’ve been trying to do it all, be it all and have it all,” she says. That included herself. “I was silently managing grief, caregiving, burnout and the constant pressure to excel in a world that often expects Black women to be superhuman. But let me be clear: Black does crack. We need to give ourselves permission to pause and ask: what do I really want my life to look like?”
Stringer has spent more than a decade helping women wrestle with those questions, which she addresses through her books, podcast, consulting practice and her latest framework about giving ourselves time to rest. That’s R.E.S.T.: Recovery, Emotional Agility, Support and Time.
“We don’t have to define ourselves by the grind,” she says. It’s OK for women to step away from toxic environments and design careers on her own terms.
Georgia Fort, a three-time Emmy-winning journalist, left mainstream media after encountering microaggressions and being denied maternity leave.
“I have encountered a lot of adversity working in media and instead of giving up on my dream of telling stories I created a different pathway for myself,” she says.
Fort built a media empire after George Floyd’s murder. Based in Minnesota she founded BLCK Press, the Center for Broadcast Journalism and her Emmy-award winning news program “Here’s the Truth,” to tell stories often ignored by traditional outlets. Through the center and its radio station Power 104.7- FM, she trains the next generation of reporters.
“I’m serving my community every day, and if I don’t get out of bed and go tell those stories, those stories might not get told,” Fort says.
Her work underscores the urgency many women feel when existing systems fail them. Author Robyn Moreno, author of “Get Rooted” left a high-profile media career after a midlife meltdown. She turned to the healing traditions of her Mexican grandmothers and now has a podcast and hosts retreats to help women root back into their own wisdom and sense of purpose and play.
“What I’ve learned is that burnout isn’t just about work, it’s soul-deep,” Moreno says. “When women walk away from hustle culture, they’re not quitting. They’re reclaiming.”
Mika Malter, a certified route setter (someone who designs climbing routes)and co-owner of Horizon Climbing in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, represents another path: turning a lifelong passion into a business. She discovered climbing at summer camp in Arizona and began setting routes as a teenager. She studied early childhood education and initially pursued teaching but quickly found herself pulled back into recreation and climbing. She opened a gym with a business partner in August.
“Doing a job you love is a great privilege, but I believe it’s just as important, if not more so, to pursue work that aligns with your strengths,” Malter says. “Now I get to combine my passion with my love for working with kids. It really is the best of both worlds.”