It’s time. You’re ready to make a change. You’ve been feeling unhappy about your career for long enough. You’re smart, capable, and you’ve worked hard for years BUT something is missing. You’ve hit a slump. You want to do something that helps others, plays to your strengths, AND gives you a good quality of life. You want work-life balance to be a reality rather than a vague idea. The BIG question is: where to start? A career change at midlife can seem impossible: a big leap into the unknown. That was my experience for more than 10 years. In 2003 I started teaching psychology in ..read more

My pre-pandemic work nemesis was a thing, not a person. The printer/photocopier was a constant source of irritation: it was always breaking! Nothing in my job as a lecturer made me want to swear so much. I hated having to either wait for it to be fixed or roam the halls looking for an available, working alternative. That all ended in 2017. As part of my coach training, I identified my top value as “being effective”. It REALLY matters to me that I do my job well - whether lecturing or coaching - and I don’t like anything that stands in my way or wastes my time when I could be doing something us ..read more

Career change takes time. So what do you do in the meantime? How do you improve your current situation while working out what’s next and formulating your escape plan? One of the perhaps surprising results of career change coaching is that clients can feel better about their life and career relatively early in the process. That’s because we begin with the here and now, making small tweaks that release energy and build momentum towards their bigger goal of choosing a new career path. What career tweaks could you make in the short-term that would enable you to feel happier at work while waiting t ..read more

One of the reasons I changed career was because full-time lecturing didn't suit my introvert personality. Positives + my amazing colleagues + incredibly inspiring students + psychology as a subject ? Negatives - open-plan office - 2-hour classes and a 16 hour contact week - a workload that spilled over into evenings, weekends and "holidays" There was little opportunity for down time or a balance between "people noise" and quiet: what many introverts need to function well. I now only plunge into college life 2.5 days per week. The rest of the time I've the freedom to coach, write, and struc ..read more

This too shall pass but what can you do about your career change in the meantime? The global pandemic has intensified your desire to escape your job and you’re stuck at home with only a laptop! Where would you even begin? Here’s a simple suggestion: follow your curiosity. There’s more than one starting point for a career change and exploring what you’re interested in is a gentle introduction to what’s possible, as well as extremely doable with relatively limited resources. Read on to find out how to follow your curiosity in a structured way so that you can get concrete results you can build on ..read more

    It’s time. You’re ready to make a change. You’ve been feeling unhappy about your career for long enough. You’re smart, capable, and you’ve worked hard for years BUT something is missing. You’ve hit a slump. You want to do something that helps others, plays to your strengths, AND gives you a good quality of life. You want work-life balance to be a reality rather than a vague idea. The BIG question is: where to start? A career change at midlife can seem impossible: a big leap into the unknown. That was my experience for more than 10 years. In 2003 I started teaching psychology in ..read more

My grandmother lived in one of the most beautiful places in Ireland: Donegal. Like the landscape, my grandmother met the day and its challenges with stoicism. Coronavirus? She’d still be sitting in her chair, listening to RTÉ Radio 1, having already prepared the dinner for noon when my grandfather, uncle and whoever else was helping on the farm that day would come in for their dinner. Global pandemic? Nothing to get upset about. As she’d say, “this too shall pass”. Changing times The current situation won’t last forever but it will bring about significant change. It already has. We’ve changed ..read more

My pre-pandemic work nemesis was a thing, not a person. The printer/photocopier was a constant source of irritation: it was always breaking! Nothing in my job as a lecturer made me want to swear so much. I hated having to either wait for it to be fixed or roam the halls looking for an available, working alternative. That all ended in 2017. As part of my coach training, I identified my top value as “being effective”. It REALLY matters to me that I do my job well - whether lecturing or coaching - and I don’t like anything that stands in my way or wastes my time when I could be doing something us ..read more

Have you gone back to college while staying at work? Are you struggling with the workload? Are you going to work, attending classes, submitting assignments, doing exams - maybe taking care of a family - and wondering… have I made a huge mistake?! Perhaps you made the decision to go back to college to improve your career prospects, change career or simply out of interest. Either way, it’s proving to be a challenge. Even if it’s on a part-time basis, there’s so much to do! Having been in higher education as a student and then a lecturer for more than 20 years, let me share what works when it com ..read more

Career change takes time. So what do you do in the meantime? How do you improve your current situation while working out what’s next and formulating your escape plan? One of the perhaps surprising results of career change coaching is that clients can feel better about their life and career relatively early in the process. That’s because we begin with the here and now, making small tweaks that release energy and build momentum towards their bigger goal of choosing a new career path. What career tweaks could you make in the short-term that would enable you to feel happier at work while waiting t ..read more