Making a career change | PART 1

How I am finding my way back to living a creative life.

I’d been ready for change in my work life for a while. As early as 2019 I’d been looking around at roles I could possibly move into as well as thinking about whether or not I wanted to go into senior management.

I was a teacher. A head of department in a large school, managing a team of over 20 staff. I started in this role in 2014 and had relished the challenge of it for the first few years, but steadily I had come to a point where I needed more. Or, at least, something different.

I’d been a teacher since 2007. I graduated with a degree in Music and, having no idea what I could do with that (and little guidance), I signed up to do a PGCE teacher training course. At that time there were grants available for trainee teachers of ‘shortage’ subjects, of which Music was one of them. This meant that I received a tax free bursary of £9000 for the training year. I still had to pay tuition fees, but this bursary meant I could study in London and manage financially. I met some great people whilst training, and was fairly good at the teaching. However, I think I knew, even then, that it wasn’t exactly my dream job.

Towards the end of the year-long course, I started to think about what I would do next. I’d had this niggling feeling for a little while that really I wanted to do a postgraduate Music course in Composition. I didn’t think my parents would fund this; neither went to university themselves, and they were keen for me to get a sensible job, like becoming a teacher. I applied for some masters courses without telling my parents, and to my surprise was accepted onto my first choice at Trinity Laban in Greenwich, London. I signed up to take this course part-time over three years and so I set about looking for a part-time teaching job. I found one and for three years worked incredibly hard completing a masters, passing my NQT probation and moving in with my boyfriend (now husband).

Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash

After that I changed schools and taught four days per week with a little composing work on the fifth day. Of course it didn’t take long before I was full time. Anyone who has ever worked in a school or knows a teacher will know that schools suck you in. Before you know it, you are coordinator of several things you didn’t know you knew anything about, and find yourself staying later and later each day. Suddenly, my freelance composing work didn’t seem so important any more. It was near impossible to make any money from it and my time and energy was being drained by long days at school.

I was ambitious at this time, I should add. I wanted more responsibility and I wanted to be a head of department. It wasn’t going to happen in that school as my boss wasn’t going anywhere. So, I looked elsewhere and ended up being offered a job as Director of Music giving me all the things I thought I wanted.

Fast forward 9 years and we’re back at the top of the page. I needed a change.

I’d explored a few options of other jobs within the field of education, but none of them seemed to excite me in the way I’d once felt about music and teaching and so I knew it was time to explore some other channels and reignite my passion and zest for life doing something else.

I had MANY questions going around in my head:

1. How can I simply leave my job? Will I regret it?

2. What about our finances? How will we pay the bills/mortgage if I quit my job?

3. How do I work out what my next career is going to be?

I’m going to answer these questions and explain how I got to the answers in my Wednesday post - part 2. Watch this space for the rest of the story!

For now, I will leave you with three of the many books I read over the past couple of years that helped me come to my eventual decision about what to do.

A Year of Living Simply: the joys of a life less complicated by Kate Humble - an inspiring read about trying to figure out what truly makes us happy and attempting to separate needs from wants.

The Multi-Hyphen Method by

Emma Gannon

- confirmation that careers are not simple and straightforward, and it is ok to have several different and varied projects going on at the same time. I loved how this book encourages you to give your side hustle(s) a go. There’s nothing to lose in trying something!

Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert - I’ve long been fascinated by creativity and how it manifests itself differently in us all. Going forward, being creative is now at the heart of everything I do because giving value to that brings me lots of joy.

Making a career change - part 2

Making a career change - part 3

Making a career change - part 4