Changing careers at any stage in your life can feel daunting, especially if you are doing it during your midlife years, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a tendency to think if you are unhappy in your current career then the only choice you have is to leave immediately. This can, in some cases, lead to you continuing to feel anxious, stressed, or unhappy and ultimately, not being in the right frame of mind for the next step in your career.

You don’t have to change your career all at once. Just like you would do within anything else you are wanting to achieve, making a career switch requires you creating a plan and then following it. Not having a plan is likely to lead you to jump into the first role you see out of panic, and you will be in no better position than you were in the career you have just left. Changing careers should not be a giant leap and hope for the best.

Not everyone is going to be in the position where financially they can afford to step away from a career without having an idea of where they want to go next and there be no pressure to figure it out. Generally, making a career change begins while you are still in your current role. And it starts with coming to a decision that now is the right time for you to be thinking about changing your career. At this point, you might not know the direction you want to go but you do know something has to change and you no longer want to be where you are now.

For many people in their 40s or 50s, they have reached a point in their lives where their current career is no longer working for them, they need to make a change but often they don’t know where to start. It is easy to be stuck in a set mindset, holding on to beliefs which limit how they see themselves, their experiences and potential. They limit the scope of their search for a new career, play it safe, overthink to the point of doing nothing but think about it and continue to be miserable and frustrated. This is where a career coach can help.

With me as your career coach, we draw upon the Firework Career Coaching framework, where our time is spent focusing on three phases:

1. Explore – Dig deep into your work history, consider what the future work landscape might include, understand yourself at a deeper level – your skills, strengths, values, and purpose. You’ll be working with intention in creating your future career path both in your own time and within coaching sessions.
2. Dream – Through coaching, brainstorming, and visualising, we’ll work together in building a bank of career possibilities, identifying the ones which resonate with you the most in order to develop these further. We often get stuck as we live by someone else’s agenda or expectations, now is the time to create your own vision for the future.
3. Discover – In this final phase we get to grips with where you are now and where you want to be. Bridging the gap between the two in order to create a plan of action.

It is so easy to get stuck in a loop when it comes to changing careers, thinking that the way to go about it is to spend endless hours searching on the internet in the hope that we’ll find that perfect career. The reality is, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, how will you know it when you come across it? There is a good chance you might have already seen it but passed it over or you may be looking forever more, and this is as far as you ever get to making a career change. Don’t waste your time and energy, throwing a dart out there, hoping it hits something you think in that moment appeals to you. Make the right next choice in your career. Be intentional in creating your future and invest in a career coach.