Never Too Late to Change Career

Back in time, you had one career and you stuck with it for life, unless disaster struck and forced a change. How things have changed! The speed of change has picked up with new technologies and these days, young graduates are told to expect to change careers at least half a dozen times in their lifetime.

By the time we often hit middle age, we expect to be established in our careers, homes and finances but life doesn't always go that way.

Starting a new career through changing conditions or circumstances

Big picture changes can come into play. The Christchurch earthquake and other natural disasters like storm, drought and flood have sometimes meant people have had to change the way they worked. The decline of whole sectors like forestry, mining, unskilled factory work has also had a big impact on the availability of jobs and career opportunities.

Divorce and death of a partner can sometimes come out of the blue and completely change our future plans. Finance company failures and other financial disasters may also mean that we unexpectedly find ourselves having to work longer.

Changing to a new career through choice because you want to

Sometimes too, people want to change careers. There is nothing worse than feeling stuck in a job that you hate. It is increasingly common to train in a profession and after working for a decade or so in it stop finding enjoyable or fulfilling or find yourself at the top of the growth path with nowhere to go.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. The good news is that a lot of people find changing careers can give them a whole new lease on life. For example at age 49, Judy's world fell apart through an out of the blue affair and a brutal divorce. Their children were grown and in training for their careers. Suddenly she had to rebuild her life again from scratch. She was in crisis wondering what to do.

It took two years to recover and formulate a plan. Judy had always wanted to train in mental health. She went to university using her divorce settlement to fund it and "discovered potential I never knew I had".

Now working in the sector, she loves it, and based on feedback so far, is expected to do well.

For more on changing careers, have a look at:

• Can We Ever Say It's Too Late to Change Career?

• Never Too Late to Change Careers

• How to Change Careers Middle Age

• Changing Jobs

Some images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net