Making a career change in midlife can be an amazing way to refresh yourself, find new purpose and live more wholeheartedly at a time when we need it most. Whether you are thinking of staying in your field and changing companies, switching to a new career entirely, or chasing down your big dream, a fresh start can make all the difference and help you see your future with new hope. But for some who are well-established in title, income or benefits, the thought of taking the leap can be daunting.
Having changed careers twice in my life, the first from sales to marketing and the second from marketing to coaching, I attest that moving into (or even towards) one’s purpose and joy is incredibly freeing and fulfilling. But to make those shifts involved some important inner work on my part: letting go of who I thought I was, rewriting my professional narrative, and embracing faith and courage. And it was all worth it! To take a chance on life is to embark on a journey of personal transformation. Like any adventure, there are sure to be some growing pains, but there’s nothing like the thrill and freedom of living into your dreams and purpose. To turn the mundane into the marvelous is an incredible opportunity if we listen to the call.
Let go of who you think you are
When I left my sales career, I went back to graduate school first. It wasn’t that I was dying to use my studies in a future career—although I have been—but it was more that I really needed a time-out to retool and think about what I really wanted in life. I moved from Washington D.C. to Paris, France, and have been forever grateful for it, even when I wrote my last student loan check two years ago. But I found that the transition from being a national sales rep for a reputable French wine importer to a poor student was a big shift. I was thrilled to make the change, but when I realized that I had been carrying some ego around my job—eating amazing food and drinking world-class wines on the regular and being a dinner party show pony—I knew it was time to let it go and create room for a new identity.
When I became a student, I learned that I was still the sales rep but with a different costume. I was equally hardworking, passionate and engaged, and I realized that I didn’t need a fancy job title to prove myself—especially not when that fancy job title and industry were keeping me traveling 100 hours a week and being up late at night with clients instead of friends or lovers. Being a student, I still stayed up late at night, but instead of entertaining clients, I was delving into writing about French politics and history. Same person, same inner drive, but a fresh new title of “no one special” to foster necessary change.
With some of my coaching clients, letting go of surface identity is really hard. By midlife, we’ve risen through the ranks in some way or another, and that hard-earned title and wisdom makes it hard to let go. But for many of us in midlife who are from Gen X, it’s important to remember that we are much more resilient than other generations, and the latch-key kids of yesterday are now the career chameleons of today. Our generation was long-destined to have multiple careers, and when we embrace that possibility for ourselves, no longer do we have to feel captive to livelihoods that no longer serve us.
Rewrite your professional narrative
Five years later and back in the United States, making the transition from sales to marketing, and moving from New Mexico to California, I was worried. It seemed like there was a big difference between sales, customer service and strategic product placement with writing, digital marketing and branding. I used to always look back on my resumé regretting that it wasn’t linear enough. How wrong I was! It wasn’t until years later when rewriting it that I discovered the obvious threads between these two different types of selling and storytelling. And my passion for what I was promoting was all universally the same: artisan products that had great stories behind them.
By looking at my resumé with fresh eyes, I was also able to craft cover letters that wove the jobs together with ease. But what if your professional story is much harder to tell with less cohesive of a line? That’s when you can draw on your personal experience in that role to share and how your learning around it made you realize it was no longer in line with your values or your desire to grow. Major career changes illustrate your story may not tell a linear story, but they offer a prospective employer insight into your character and values. And their acceptance of your story means they are more likely to be a great fit for you as a boss.
It wasn’t until I left marketing for coaching that I realized what I was bringing to the table. While there is no obvious line between the two sectors, they illustrate a passion for getting people in a certain mindset, a desire to connect people to a vision, and an interesting shift from telling stories to empowering people to tell their own stories. And the wisdom of having had two other careers before coaching allows me to show up here in this blog post with something to say and to coach people on. For you, what could this new potential role and new narrative reveal about who you are, what you value most, and how you want to show up in life?
Make faith & courage your two best friends
In my personal experience, our minds don’t create that big idea that makes us giddy with excitement unless we’re destined to see it through. And at midlife, we’ve certainly earned some gold stars for challenges met and overcome. There’s nothing we can’t handle. So if your heart sings at the thought of your job change, then you have to believe that your dream is meant for you to realize. Intuition is knocking on your door! I’ve felt that giddiness a good handful of times in my life, and every time I follow it’s call, it’s ushered me on an incredible adventure.
This said, fear loves to whisper in your ear: “Who are you to make this change?”, “You’ll never make it,” or the classic mutter of midlife, “Take the safe option and stay where you are.” Whether you listen to fear or your intuition is up to you. If you listen to fear, you can be sure that your life will look much the same. Like standing at the end of the diving board and waiting until you’re fearless to jump, you may go a lifetime without ever knowing the thrill of the leap or the cool refreshment of the water. However, if you can summon just the few seconds of courage it takes to make the choice, extraordinary things can happen.
The Law of Attraction reminds us that we train our minds to shut down fear and replace it with faith and courage, abundance flows. Like any adventure, there are no promises of an easy ride, but one thing is certain: we will feel alive. There are lessons for us to learn whether we rise to the call or sit in stagnation. Either way, we are going to experience joys and sorrows in life. But when we challenge ourselves to follow a big dream, doors open wider than you can possibly imagine. Now imagine how it would feel to love your work again…
Follow your bliss
Midlife is a natural time to reassess what’s important. If at this point in your life, you feel like you can’t continue blindly on the same career path, then know your intuition is calling you to a higher purpose, even if it looks like leaving a high-profile job for a gentler one. The most important thing you can do is follow your bliss. Whenever we resist our dream or purpose, we remain the tiny caterpillar. Opening ourselves up to the journey means letting go of what we think our identities are, rewriting our professional narratives, and embracing faith and courage—much like the pupa in its cocoon. When we show up and do this inner work, and take action steps towards our new career goals, we are sure to emerge with the wings of a butterfly—able to fly, renewed, repurposed, and free into the next half of life.
If you’re looking for a buddy alongside you on your quest for your next big career shift, sign up for a free 30-minute chemistry call to see if we’re a good fit. Sometimes it’s easier when we don’t have to move through change alone.