I’ve been working as a brand marketer in Korea for eight years. It may sound short to some and long to others, but for me it feels like a journey with both depth and limits. I’ve been hoping to step up from execution into broader strategy and planning, but those opportunities have been rare. The working environment hasn’t always been ideal either, and now I suddenly find myself in my mid-thirties.

In my previous post, I mentioned feeling a sense of mannerism in my work. Marketing is still an interesting field to me, but as a brand marketer the quality of experiences I gain often depends on the company’s capital or the CEO’s personal vision. At this stage, finding a company that matches my own growth needs has not been easy. Sometimes I even feel that my definition of marketing is different from the company’s. That’s why I’m considering a new path.

With family planning ahead, I’m thinking of taking a gap period and exploring different directions—such as studying for the logistics manager certification, building myself as a micro-influencer, or even pursuing songwriting. Over time, I’ve realized that I have a fairly solid inner world of my own. In many workplaces, it has been difficult to fully express my ideas, and this might be why I naturally gravitate toward smaller startups. Ironically, that preference may also have limited my growth as a marketer.