Are you ever too old to change career?

Is anyone ever too old to change career?

No, never!

A better question to ask is:
“Are you ever too old to be happy in your career or too old to learn something new?”
And again, the answer is a resounding NO!

Learning new and exciting career competences may be the best next step for you to change direction in your career.

However, people often make the mistake of thinking they have to spend a significant amount of time and money learning new skills, knowledge and talents.

But to change careers, you don’t necessarily have to learn something new. Most people have a lot of transferable skills which they don’t fully appreciate the value of.

Making a career change at the later stages of your career doesn’t even have to be difficult.

How would you go about approaching a change if you are older?

A good place to start is to talk with a career coach. A career coach can help you figure out what is it you really want to be doing going forward and what you want to leave behind.

With established experience you will have developed a wealth of talents and skills that you can choose from going forward.  These can be built on and adapted to allow you to grow into a new role where the learning curve does not have to be a steep one.

A career coach can help you to identify opportunities that exist for you to build on what you have already learned from your valuable experiences from your past and help you figure out what kind of job you would really enjoy going next.

Life is too short not to have fun! It really doesn’t matter what you do as long as you enjoy it!

An alternative to changing direction in your career and learning new skills as you consider what you want to be doing before you reach retirement, is to take a step down the corporate ladder in your career and do work that is more enjoyable.

People often expect that they keep going and growing in their career continuously climbing the corporate ladder until they retire. But that’s not always how it has to be.

It can be more satisfying working in a new role that is less challenging and less demanding of your time but is more enjoyable without the pressures of a more senior role that you used to have earlier in your career.

You’re never too old to decide, “I’m not happy in this job anymore. I want to do something different. I want to be happier than what I am right now”.

A career coach will support you through the process of finding work that you enjoy doing and helping you to have the confidence to go out there and compete with other candidates who are younger and perhaps more ambitious at this stage of their career.

Want some help deciding on your next career move?
Call Angela Couch (Career Coach Auckland) on 0226467818 or email angela@careerinspiration.nz (I’m here to help)