Changing Career over 51

Changing career over 51, 52, or at any age is absolutely ok. 

Changing career at 51 – You don’t have to be experiencing a big birthday to be thinking about changing career – and by the way – it is never too late.

The main question you have to be able to answer is why you are thinking about this, and what you might want to replace your current role with.

Without going into a long article about identifying your new career, some of the basic questions I would want you to be able to answer for yourself are:

What do you mean by Career?

If you are considering changing career at 51 or older, your thought process is likely to be substantially different  to someone in their 20s, 30s or even 40s.

Having said that there are many people who have become amazing successful in a completely new career after they have seemingly completed their standard career.

For example Tricia Cusden launched Look Fabulous Forever in 2013, aged 65.  Admittedly, she was already a successful professional but had an existential crisis when she became a grandmother and completely changed direction, launching a cosmetics range that is now very well known.

Whilst, most of the well know late in life career changers are now business owners, you certainly don’t need to become an entrepreneur. It is just that you don’t tend to hear about people who have made a successful career change into something less public.

Example

A client of mine was profoundly unhappy with her life for many reasons including a complete lack of financial security and a poor marriage. In her mid 50s she decided that if she didn’t take control of her life now, she would be stuck in the same situation for ever.  She had 2 driving needs – to end her marriage and to feel in control of her own life again. 

Unlike a career change in your middle years, when you feel you may have 20-30 years of good productivity and health carer ahead of you, she was pragmatic.

There were things she loved:  animals, environment, health etc, but she recognised that these were unlikely to give her the financial security she needed and as she got older any career in these active fields may not remain viable.

So, with financial security being her main concern, she looked at the skills and aptitudes she had (numeracy and determination being amongst them) and started a degree course in accounting.

This was not an overnight change, but within 2 years she was able to get employment in secure office jobs which used her growing knowledge.  4 years ago she qualified, got a new job and moved out of the marital home.

Since then she has moved again to be closer to her grown children, travelled to different countries and is living a much more sustainable and fulfilling life.  This is enabling her to include all her interests as above.

So for her, the word career was really more of an interchangeable sustainable lifestyle supported by financial control.

What is it that you are wanting/needing to take into account to make your change realistic and workable?

Reality counts

Changing career at 51 (or anytime in late 40s, 50s or 60s)  is difficult and can be scary.  This is actually true at any age but when you are younger you tend to be more able to take a risk, and maybe feel that a mistake doesn’t matter because you would still have time to correct it.

When we get to our 50’s and 60’s we tend to be more risk averse, less adventurous and feel we can not necessarily rely on blooming health and fitness for the next 15-20 years.

Another issue is that we often tend to become more altruistic and feel we want to spend our time doing something of tangible ‘value’ rather than just making money for a company.

The problem with this is that when thinking about ‘giving something back’ or ‘making a difference’ our focus is often on a career that is the outcome (i.e something vocational rather than professional). A problem with this is that many of these roles are either physical or not well paid.

Rather than looking at the career vision, it is sometimes worth looking at what you want to achieve and then identify all the different routes that could lead you there.

If money is not an issue, you will have much more choice, but the reality is that most of us still need to earn a reasonable amount.

Stepping Stones

Assuming that salary does matter to you, these are the 2 key things you should be thinking about:

What is wrong in my life currently? Not just career!

• • Therefore how would I like to see things change?

• • Do I have professional experience (some of which I enjoy) that I could leverage?

• • If I don’t think I do – what do I have to offer any other role?  (see Job Search Techniques workshop Step 1)?

• • How long am I prepared to give myself to get into a position to make a change in a reasonably controlled way?

• • What help might I need to help me understand and follow through with each of these steps?

• • How can I envisage a change to my ‘job’ positively impacting the rest of my life and adding value elsewhere?

Do I have an all-encompassing passion?

If you can answer ‘yes’ to this, you may be on track to become another public entrepreneurial success story – but you should still make sure you plan your steps to get there.

A useful tool

The Ikigai is a Japanese concept  that has no direct translation but is a term that embodies the idea of happiness in living. Essentially, ikigai is the reason why you get up in the morning – taking joy in the small things which enable you to see a better future even if right now is not great.

The diagram shows the key elements and although they are all very important when making life decisions, there seems to be a pragmatic order for your thoughts when looking to make career type changes when you are 50+.