Psychologies

How to pivot to a new future

There’s nothing quite like a pandemic to prompt people to rethink their lives. Everyone I know seems to be questioning their purpose or career path. For some, economic uncertainty has triggered a reappraisal of priorities. Others, faced with a drop in income or the loss of a job, are forced to change career.

While the circumstances are unprecedented, the situation is familiar to me. I was weeks away from giving birth to my first child when I was made redundant from a PR job I loved. I remember not being able to see the pavement as I walked home in tears that day, fretting about how to raise a child in London on only my husband’s salary.

“That career curveball – traumatic at the time – prompted a career shift I would never have contemplated”

That career curveball – traumatic at the time – prompted a career shift I would never have otherwise contemplated. It was a desperate leap into the unknown. As my PR career crumbled, I applied my writing skills to pitch feature ideas to editors until my writing career slowly took off. Sixteen years later, I am an established freelance journalist.

That has not been my only brush with professional disruption. The pandemic

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