Career Change â In The Fast Lane at 46
At the age of 46, after years of hard work, making my way up the ladder in the banking world I was forced into making a career change.
I received the news that the bank was making redundancies. Branches were being merged and, guess what; my position could possibly be one of them. Wow, the news was crushing. I can remember thinking what on earth am I going to do! I had a mortgage, an investment property loan, a car loan and credit card loans, all based on the fact that I had this secure 9-5 job and had had for the last 30 years!
Emotionally, I felt fear, panic and anger. I was 45! I only knew how to exist in the banking world. What skills did I possess for a career change?
And then, you know what â I got a grip of myself and sat down with pen and paper.
My debts were manageable within my redundancy payout â I was not going to be penniless, at least, not for the next 12 months so I felt I had time to calmly reassess where I was going from here.
The funny thing is, is that the more possibilities and options I put down on my piece of paper the more exciting everything appeared. The panic subsided â I was still feeling anxiety at the prospect of trying something new but the butterflies loose in my stomach were excitement jitters not nausea jitters and my mind suddenly started working overtime with thee possibilities of making a complete career change!
I was being told by my employer that, apparently after 30 yearâs service, my continued career with them was to be decided upon by answering six questions the next day at 10am. I donât think so!!
I decided to take control of my own future. I went in the next day and held my hand up. I advised them that I was not going to demean myself by answering their questions and felt it was better that the other person be given the position.
RASH you may feel. Allowing emotions of anger, denial, pride even to colour my judgement? Oh no! You see, overnight I had decided I was a valuable person who had many skills to offer. Among other lists on my table top was a list of what I thought was one of the most satisfying past times that my present salary provided and that was travel. I then knew exactly what I wanted to do but knew that to achieve this career change properly extra training would be required. I contacted the local college and was pleasantly surprised to find that my present skills would be taken into account and decrease course training time required. The excitement was building!!!
Twelve months later I had a Diploma of Tourism which opened the options for my longed for career change. I started my own holiday villa rental business - couldnât be further from the banking environment. The world is a big exciting place â give yourself a chance.