Are you really though?

People are no longer sticking to one career for life and that shows no sign of changing anytime soon. So what might that mean for you?

The pandemic changed the mindset of many towards their job. While some employers re-evaluated their approach to hybrid working to take on board the best of the practices which became the norm in 2020-2021, others returned to business as usual with alacrity. In the UK, for instance, data from the Office for National Statistics showed that in January 2022, fewer than 20 percent of employees in the United Kingdom worked in businesses that intended to use homeworking as an ongoing part of their business model.

Overall, indeed, there seems to be a discrepancy between employers’ perceptions and employees’ expectations that is not only related to the pandemic, but also to people’s wish for their career to meet not just their material, but also their psychological needs.  Once you feel you are being sufficiently well-paid, feeling like you have some control over your working life has become very important to many people.

The stumbling block can come when fear gets in the way. It can be genuinely scary to think about giving up what you have spent years to build and starting over in another area altogether. Surely 35, 45 or even 55 is way too old?

The character, Tim Canterbury, in The Office, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, sums up the sometimes paralysing nature of this fear perfectly when he explains why he’s still working in the eponymous office:

“If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands – yeah, it may only be a 3. If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a 6 – no problem, I could roll a 6… I could also roll a 1. OK? So, I think sometimes… Just leave the dice alone.”

The good news is that there is always opportunity for change and that fear of rolling a 1 shouldn’t stop you going ahead and rolling that 6.

Did you know that:

Before becoming one of the most prolific writers of all time, Stephen King worked as a janitor at a high school?

Vera Wang didn’t design her first wedding dress until she was 40?

Samuel L. Jackson had only bit parts before landing an award-winning role at age 43 in Spike Lee’s film “Jungle Fever” in 1991?

Toni Morrison wrote her first novel, “The Bluest Eye” at age 40 while she was working as an editor at a publishing house and she won her Pulitzer Prize at 56 and her Nobel Prize in Literature at 62?

If your current role isn’t right for you anymore, it’s not too late, you’re not too old and you’re not stuck. Just because you’ve invested time and energy into building your existing career doesn’t mean you’d be throwing that all away to make a change. This is a fundamental mistake many people make when thinking about career transformation in the second act of life. You won’t be starting from scratch this time because you have a wealth of amazing experience and fabulous transferable skills to bring with you.

So many of our former and current students have been in this very situation and have gone onto build new careers through hard work and their relationship with Ideal Schools. A great example is our former student, Terry Ramm, who won the ICB Luca Award for Student of the Year in 2016 and followed this up by winning the ICB Luca Award for New Practice of the Year in 2017 with his company, TLR Bookkeeping & Taxation. Terry was 63 when he started his business and he and it continue to go from strength to strength.

Our experiences of working with people like Terry make us uniquely well-placed to advise people considering their first step towards embracing a new career path at any age.  Maybe the flexibility of self-employment appeals or perhaps you’d prefer an employed role within bookkeeping, finance or accounting – whatever your goals for your career evolution, Ideal Schools can advise you.

We offer various qualifications routes, including AAT Courses, ICB Bookkeeping Courses and CPD Courses. These organisations are well-known and respected in the bookkeeping industry and you can be sure you are gaining qualifications which will open doors for your new career going forward.

Explore Ideal Schools’ Bookkeeping Courses:  AAT Courses     –     ICB Courses     –     CPD Courses

With our training and support, you too can thrive via midlife career change. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our friendly advisors to discuss your options and find the perfect course for your needs.

Contact us for a chat if you’d like more information or advice – hard sell not included.

Reference:

Business insights and impact on the UK economy – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)