What I experienced I now see in the clients I work with. These are accomplished women who've built impressive careers. They're not struggling with competence. They're struggling with something deeper.

Timing 

You’ve outgrown your role, but you’re not sure what’s next. Have you left it too late?

Identity

You’re defined by what you do, and without the job title, you don’t know who you are any more.

Stuck

Waking up every day feeling like you’re playing a role. You’re good at it, but it’s not you anymore. But you’ve got a mortgage, school fees and ageing parents who need support.

Relevance

With the pace of change, you feel you’re rapidly losing relevance.

They're not lacking confidence in their abilities; they're lacking clarity about how those abilities should be applied at this stage of their lives. They're experiencing what I call the midlife competence trap: being excellent at something that no longer fulfils them.

Why Midlife Is the Ideal Time to Change Your Career

Here's what nobody tells you: Midlife isn't a crisis. It's a reckoning. And it offers advantages that younger versions of us simply didn't have.

At thirty, I was proving myself, seeking external validation, building credibility. At forty, I was still operating from someone else's definition of success. At fifty-plus, I finally had the self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, and hard-earned expertise to ask: What do I actually want?

How I "Reinvented" (Without Starting Over)

I quit my corporate job and took a six-month break with no agenda. I knew this was my chance to fully embrace a new chapter, but I had to rest and reset first.

When I was ready, I didn't take another headhunter role. I didn't become a freelance recruiter or follow conventional career advice. 

Instead, I asked myself different questions (the kind I ask my coaching clients):

What do you want this next chapter to stand for?

Not what looks good or what others expect.

Which of your skills and experiences still matter, and which no longer fit

I wanted to keep the best parts and release what no longer served.

How do you want to feel in your work, day to day?

I wanted to feel aligned, purposeful, energised rather than drained. I wanted flexibility and autonomy. I wanted to work deeply with people.

What wisdom have you earned that you’re now ready to use?

I'd spent years placing senior executives, seeing what made transitions succeed or fail, and understanding what truly drives career satisfaction. I'd lived through my own midlife crisis and come out the other side. All of that was expertise worth sharing.

The result was a set of career and coaching services that don't fit neatly into traditional categories. They're not conventional career coaching; I'm far too practical, strategic and intuitive for that. They're designed specifically for people who don't want to shrink, sidestep, or start again but to reposition, refine, and evolve.