Who Says You Can’t Make a Career Change at 40?

A career change at 40 can feel like a daunting move. You’re often led to believe that ‘it’s too late’ to explore a new direction – you’ve established yourself in an industry, worked hard, and developed a strong professional network. The obvious path is to keep going and stick with what you know, but for many people, 40 is exactly the moment when you really start to reflect on what’s important and what you want to be doing for the next 10 or 20 years.

So, what’s holding you back? And what can you do to make the transition a successful one?

Taking stock

Mid-life often means you’ve hit the halfway mark of your career but there’s still a road ahead. We’re all living longer, our working lives are being extended and the concept of retirement is changing. Many of us have to, or want to, continue some form of work beyond what might previously have been considered retirement age. At 40, you may have 20 or even 30 years of work ahead of you which means there is plenty of time for at least one career change, or even two or three.

When you hit your 40s, you often feel the need to shake things up. The status quo no longer fits and you may be ready for a new challenge and direction. The last two years of pandemic life have also created the ‘perfect storm’ that’s seen more and more people making a career change at 40. In fact, data shows that the so-called ‘Great Resignation’ is being led by the 45+ crowd. Mid-life existential questions have come into focus while lockdowns and other changes in employment have given people time to learn and experiment with new interests and endeavours. It’s become clear that a nine-to-five office routine is not the only way.

But this period of life can also be a time for commitments – you might have a mortgage or a growing family and the idea of risking the security you have built through your career can seem, well, a little bit reckless. At 40, an established career contributes to your identity and sense of self. Walking away from that can feel like you’re walking away from a part of who you are.

But here’s the thing.

You don’t have to leave your job tomorrow. And you don’t have to take a leap into the unknown. This is one of the biggest myths around career change – that somehow it involves a kind of crazy jumping-off point. But as my client Michelle observed,

“I’ve realised it’s less like jumping off a cliff and more like stepping off with a parachute”. 

Exactly.

It’s important to realise that for a successful career change at 40 (or any age), you need to do three things:

Reframe the big leap

Rather than being a single bold, brave step into the unknown, changing your career is much more about taking small steps consistently, over a long (-ish) period of time. It’s helpful to reframe this idea, as it creates a lot of fear and inertia. It’s unlikely you’ll turn away from the comforting familiarity of a two-decade career and take a running jump. Especially when you don’t know what you want to jump to.

Get started

You need to worry less about what’s at the bottom of that cliff and look to the first ledge. The most important thing you can do is begin. There’s often a sense that you need to know exactly what you want to do next before you start taking action. But this is another myth everyone tends to bump up against. Instead, you need to discover more about, and experiment with, ideas for what’s next, so that you can build your confidence in new possibilities, get clarity on which might be the best direction for you, and ultimately make the right decision.  

Take small steps

There is rarely one moment when everything changes. As the saying goes, “transformation rarely happens by grand design”. It’s more like the grand total of a whole lot of small steps or tiny actions.

When I started my transition to a new career the one thing I did commit to was developing what I call my ‘explorer’s mindset’.  While I was doing paid marketing consulting work, I spent a year exploring and testing a few options for my next career move and reminding myself that I didn’t have to sign up to a big change straight away. I worked hard to open my mind to possibility and keep that ‘self-doubt’ voice in check. And at the same time, actively learn more about each of my potential career paths.

This process of learning and discovery is what helped me build my confidence and ultimately make a decision to move towards the possibility of becoming a coach. All while working in my other job as a paid marketing consultant and exploring a couple of other ideas (like being a virtual General Manager but that’s another story).

Over the course of 12 months, I completed a highly reputable short course and gained my first credential, started pro-bono coaching, ran a ‘test’ career change workshop for friends of friends, and won my first paid client. Truthfully, starting my practice didn’t ever feel like a big leap, because I concentrated on taking one small step after another, until I was kind of already there.  

Taking the out of a career change at 40

It’s normal to feel anxious, but the best way to de-risk a career change is to explore it first.

The process of exploring and testing will help you turn a vague idea about a career or even a dream, into something real. 

You don’t need to know exactly what you want to do, you just need to know what you want to learn more about. It’s this ‘explorer’s mindset’ and a commitment to experimentation that helps you figure out what’s next and ultimately make decisions about where you go in your career. 

There are really two key ways to explore what could be next.

Expand your connections

You need to make connections with people who can help you learn more about what’s possible for yourself, and what a career actually entails.  It’s both an information gathering and an inspiration exercise. Your aim is to learn enough so that you feel confident and know you really want to go after a change, or clear that you’re happy to cross the possibility off your list.

So for example, if you’re interested in the idea of becoming an interior designer, you’ll need to talk to people actively involved in the field, such as people currently studying design or working in the profession. You might want a mix of people working for themselves, and those employed at interior design companies. This is going to mean connecting with people you don’t know too well, or perhaps haven’t met yet.

As career change expert Professor Herminia Ibarra says,

“the golden rule of networking for a career change is to mobilise your weak ties”

These are the relationships with people you don’t know very well or at all, or are not in regular contact with - the idea being you want to maximise your chances of learning things you don’t know already.

The problem with friends, family, and close colleagues — your strong ties — is first that they will probably know similar things to you. And secondly, while they’ll want to help you and see you succeed, they’ll likely have a fixed idea of your identity at work and may have trouble imagining you doing something else.

Create experiments

Experiments allow us to try on a new career for size without having to make a big commitment. Think side projects, short courses, volunteering opportunities, freelance work – perhaps even a secondment in your own workplace.

48-year-old Michelle was curious about interior design. It was something she’d always been interested in. So, she started ‘exploring and testing’ by volunteering to lead the interior design and renovation of the offices of the media company she worked in. She actually did major office renovations for two different companies she worked for. Only then did she start to look at it as a serious career option, and feel ready enough to invest in 12 months of full-time study. Because her confidence in her ability to build a career in design grew. In the end she decided that the right path for her was a portfolio career that mixes design and media and that’s what she’s doing.

Who says 40 isn’t a great time to embark on a new career?

Don’t be afraid to experiment and be open to what you might discover. Now is a better time than ever to get the ball rolling as the pandemic has disrupted the concept of the linear career path even further. Cultivate your explorer’s mindset and ignore those myths that are holding you back, and remember all you need to do is get started.

Would you like 1:1 support to help you change your career direction?

If you’d like my support to help you take your career change from dream to reality, let’s talk! You can learn more here.