Change for the best can be made after mid-life. You just have to make the move and passing the age of 50 brings to bear a certain degree of urgency that spurs on that move. What do you have to lose?

I did the weirdest thing at 52: changed careers from being an accountant of over 30 years to be a teacher of English in China. How weird is that for a midlife career move?

Yet here I am on my way from Tianhe Airport back to Wuhan Textile University to teach for a second semester.

Late career changers

For most of my career, I'd done the usual mundane acceptable thing. I got educated - got a first degree in Economics and Management and followed that up with a professional accounting certification and a second degree in Corporate Law. Pretty mundane but acceptable for a baby boomer. The most daring move I may have made was to quit my full time job to freelance after my fourth child.

I read a tee shirt worn by a college aged youth in the departure lounge at the airport. It read “Don’t aim for success, do what you love and it follows naturally “. That young man in his twenties has discovered what I waited until my fifties to live. Had I done what I loved to do for the past 30 years, surely good success would have followed me! Still, it’s not too late.

Late career changing has become a phenomenon experienced by several persons in my generation and even older than me. Lucy Kellaway (co-founder of 'Now Teach') has dared to leave a successful career in journalism to become a Maths teacher. So I'm not the only one. Change for the best can be made after mid-life. You just have to make the move and passing the age of 50 brings to bear a certain degree of urgency that spurs on that move. What do you have to lose? Quite a bit actually. I could have lost maybe 30 more years to feeling unfulfilled, knowing deep in the back of my spirit that this is not it!

So what does it take to make the change? Looking back on my thought and action process, there were seven things that I did and which I advocate that you do if you want to make that move.

1. Believe and keep believing in the Plan

Believe that there is a plan uniquely made for you. God created you to live out a plan that is very specific to you and until you execute it, you will be miserable. The fact that there’s a plan that is specially for you means that you have been built and equipped to carry out this particular plan. All the talents, gifts and resources required for success are already residing within you - you have the capacity and the capability. Just make yourself available!

2. Be passionate only

For me here in China, it’s like I’m on a yearlong vacation in Asia. Every day is one to learn something and/or do something for someone. Only do what ignites your passion. The plan that God has for you, the mandate that He has placed in you from conception is an essential part of His overall world plan. He dearly needs you to carry out this plan and therefore He has placed in you gifts which cause you to be filled with the desire and enjoyment in carrying out His plan.

People who are living in God's purpose are people who have a joy in living. They do not have a mini heart attack every Monday morning from going to do a work/job that they hate. If what you are doing doesn’t turn you on, then it’s not God’s work for you. Missionaries, inventors and initiators fight to succeed beyond all odds because they have that burning desire within them to accomplish what seems to others to be the impossible. So do whatever ignites your enthusiasm. Look back over your life and see what it is that you've always been attracted to do. That ‘thing’ is your passion. On this side of 50, we only have the time to do what impassions us.

3. Make up your mind to do it

It starts with your resolve to make that change. This resolve will get you through and over the obstacles that you will inevitably encounter. When I decided to get educated to teach, money was an obstacle. I persevered in research on Google and finally found an online affordable accredited Master's with American College of Education. Not only did I find that but I also garnered lots of information about colleges and universities which provided useful input to decisions for the children's university pathways. Every obstacle serves a purpose.

With each obstacle, think that even that obstacle is part of the plan – to teach you something, to delay you from making a mistake, to make way for someone. All part of the plan – do it!

4. Take one step at a time

As a friend of mine describes her journey, “I can’t see all the connections but I’ll keep walking”. You will meet obstacles but see each step as a step closer to the execution of the plan. If you are following the plan, everything will fall into place ‘cause it’s the exact plan for you. As I organized to get the work visa and to relocate to China in the midst of settling in two children in college, there were so many ‘near misses’ like ‘meeting’ deadlines that had already passed, getting applications submitted just in time before that critical person went on holiday, receiving favors from strangers in un-doable situations, getting a document from a government office on the day before a major computer crash and the list goes on. If this plan is for you, there is no door that can be closed to your following it. You only need to take the next step and the next and the next…….

5. Be mentored

There is always someone who has walked the road that you are about to step on to. They haven’t walked it in the exact way that you are meant to but they have done some of the things that you will have to do. Seek out testimonies of people who have made the same or similar type of change or who is doing the same activity.

My friend’s daughter taught English in Paris for a year. When I learned of this, I became convinced that I too could do it. And so it happened that someone nearly half my age unknowingly became my mentor for at least part of the journey. A mentor therefore can be adopted for a season and for a particular time. Some mentors are needed for the long haul and then some for just a task. Be humble and be connected!

6. Research, research, research

In 2015, I had no idea that there was such a career as Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL) until one of my best friends mentioned that her daughter had done a course and was teaching English in Paris. That discovery started me on a journey of research every night at my laptop that resulted in my doing a Master’s in Teaching English Learners with the American College of Education.

Unlike when we were at school or college, we now have Google! I found out about Kellyann whilst watching some TED talks on education. Though I read about her after I had made the career change, her organization reinforced the validity of my move. We must use all the resources that are available to us for without knowledge, we will likely take a meandering road towards our destination - or we may even miss it!

7. Don’t limit your vision

Your first job/work to which you switch after 50 may or may not be the last job. See your career switch only as part of a bigger plan or vision that you have to execute for the rest of your life. You may have to move on to different and greater works. My plan is not to continue teaching in China – I want to do a doctorate in education in Canada and who knows where I will go from there! The sky’s the limit after 50 as evidenced by several persons who only made a ‘mark’ after making a career change after 50 including Colonel Sanders and Ronald Reagan. “Old dogs" can and do learn new tricks after all!

And for those of us who remain in the same career but prolong our participation in the work force, remember that Abraham Lincoln became President of the United States at the age of 52 and the average age of US Presidents at the start of their presidency is 55.

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