It’s never too late to learn – Liv’s story as a career changer

May 15 • Career

As part of Learning at Work Week 2024, I wanted to share my personal story of learning and how for me that started with learning about myself, what motivated me, and how I liked to work which was the key piece of the puzzle when thinking about retraining and a career change.  

Square Peg, Round Hole… 

I had been working for a number of years in ethics and responsible sourcing, writing modern slavery statements, visiting supplier factories and reviewing auditing processes. Academically, I found the work interesting, but I knew it wasn’t me at my best. If I look back at my career advice from school, it all says ‘people person’: nursing, the armed forces and teaching. Fundamentally, I love working with people, in a team, one-to-one, and at depth, so I knew that had to be a central focus of my career change.  

An annoying, powerful question 

On a particularly moany afternoon, when I was deep in the trenches of a job that made me miserable, my partner asked me a challenging, supportive, pain in the bum question that got me thinking…”yea but what CAN you do?” To this day, now as a certified ICF ACC coach, this is still one of my favourite questions. Our brains are wired to protect us, so they focus on risks and what we can’t do. I can’t leave my sensible, well-paid job with great prospects that looks good on the CV… I have rent to pay.  

That’s what you can’t do…what CAN you do? 

I could find the right course, I could retrain, I could look at my finances and work out how much time I could take off. I could talk to friends, peers and mentors for advice. I could speak to my manager about how unhappy I was. I could listen to myself and identify my transferable skills and passions.  

Ultimately, I signed up to a coaching course, quit my job, qualified, and set up my own business…from the Caribbean (that’s a whole other story but the moral of the story is take the leap and give it a go). I don’t mean that to sound glib; it was tough to leave a steady job and take a risk, it was hard to set up my own thing and work totally on my own and it was hard to put myself out there in the scary internet world to market myself…but sometimes the best changes come out of doing hard things. 

The joy of learning 

I think as adults, we don’t spend enough time learning. We might go on training courses, and we also learn from colleagues and certainly through giving things a go…but as we get more experienced in the world of work, we become less comfortable NOT knowing, and so we fear (well I did) being a beginner at something and learning something new.  

The comfort zone…where everything is safe, but nothing feels alive… 

I’ve got better over the years at listening to myself, what makes me tick and what environment I need to be in to be at my best. This led me to join Hustle House in December of last year. This people person needs a team around me, so it’s fun being part of a small business where we’re all mucking in to make it a success.   

Embracing change and encouraging others 

So, in the spirit of learning at work week…here is my free coaching session for you… 

That’s what you can’t do but what CAN you do? 

Really think about what you could do, don’t get into the ‘how’ just yet. Just get thinking about options, ideas and get excited about possibilities.  

Here are my top tips for making a career change: 

  1. Focus on what you CAN do and not what you can’t. 
  2. Use your experience – remember you’re not starting from the beginning. 
  3. Listen to yourself – you know what you’re good at, how you like to work and what makes you feel good…follow that path. 
  4. Get back to basics – Are you people or task focussed? Detail or big picture? Office job or out and about? Is working with people a booster or a drainer for you?  
  5. Talk it through – find yourself a coach, mentor, friend, or fellow career changer to bounce ideas around with and help you see the wood through the trees. 
  6. My Dad once said life is like a book, there is always a new chapter, and you never want to go backwards. So, take the chapters that have been before, and learn from them…let’s see what the next chapter has in store.