By the time you’ve “made it,” the story is supposed to get easier. You’ve built credibility, collected achievements, and earned respect. But for many professionals, mid-career doesn’t feel like a peak. It feels like a wall. “You get to this place where everything you thought you wanted doesn’t quite fit anymore,” says Krystal Clark, founder of Moving with Meaning, a coaching and consulting practice that helps professionals reconnect with purpose and resilience. “You’re successful, but you don’t like what you’re doing. You’ve either plateaued, or you’ve grown beyond it.” Clark calls this the disillusionment gap: the space between external success and internal fulfillment. It’s not failure, she says. It’s feedback. And for many, that’s when personal branding stops being about visibility and starts being about identity.