In her 40s, Treena quit her desk job. Now, she runs her dream company

If you’ve been plugging away at your chosen career for the past decade or two yet can’t stop wondering what you’d like to do next, you’re far from alone. Millennials, Gen Z and, to some extent, Gen X workers are likely to change the course of their career at least once. In fact, a 2023 RMIT study estimated that one in four Australian workers under the age of 30, close to 700,000 people, were already considering a career change.

If you are considering a new vocation, Leah Lambart, career and interview coach at Relaunch Me, has some sage advice. “This is a huge decision and should only be actioned after taking several key steps, starting with self-assessment to identify what career areas will be aligned with your key strengths, interests and values, and then undertaking significant research to explore and test different options before making a decision,” she says.

Time for a career switch? Don’t rush into it, but don’t put it off forever, either.Credit: Stocksy

“Financial impact – particularly where additional study is required – is a consideration, and remember, changing careers may also require a step back to a slower salary so you may have to factor in reducing costs in certain areas or changing the way you live your life for a period of time.”

What does it take to make the switch? Three women share their journeys.

‘I no longer wanted to spend my days behind a desk’: Treena Devery, 51, florist

Treena Devery’s career literally bloomed when she switched from an office job to training as a florist.

“It was only in 2018 when my father got sick and passed away that I began to question the way I was living my life. Until that point, I’d done everything by the book: at school I was good at English and writing, so I fell into marketing and PR, which I didn’t love, then moved into freelance copywriting once my daughters came along.

It made sense when the girls were little – I had flexible hours working from home and I was writing predominantly in the parenting space. As they got older, I picked up clients across different industries but I couldn’t help notice that my heart was no longer in it. Once Dad died, I realised that spending my days behind a desk was the last thing I wanted to do.

Floristry certainly wasn’t the first thing that came to mind as a career change, but then I went to a panel discussion where three women were talking about their own midlife job switches. Later, I heard an artist speak about the path she’d taken to become a florist and I realised how much I also love being surrounded by flowers.

After a little research, I signed up to a floristry course at TAFE and stuck my head in at a local florist, to see if that might be an opportunity for me. During the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns, none of the other staff could travel in to work so she called me up. I spent the next four years working and learning in a happy bubble.

Starting my own business felt like a natural progression, so I launched Details by Treen in January 2024. It’s nerve-racking going out on your own – you don’t know if you’re going to be busy enough to earn a decent income, for a start – but things have worked out.

It’s nerve-racking going out on your own – you don’t know if you’re going to be busy enough to earn a decent income for a start.

Treena Devery, who retrained as a florist in her 40s

For the first few months, many of my clients were from within my social network, then it evolved to friends of friends, and now most are people I’ve never met before. I do flowers for weddings, parties and funerals, as well as displays for several retail clients. No matter the event, I’m always blown away by how much joy flowers bring to people, even on their darkest days.

Changing careers in your late 40s can take courage, but I’m happier than I’ve ever been. I’m also aware that I’m role-modelling for my girls; I think teens today worry that they’re they’re going to do the ‘wrong’ uni degree, or find themselves in the ‘wrong’ career, so I’m glad they can see that we’re never really stuck, that we can always just pivot.”

‘I found my perfect career in my 40s’: Anja Walsh, 43, interior designer

After a career in modelling and bouncing between careers, Anja Walsh now makes over properties, and loves it.

“Growing up in East Germany, career options were pretty limited – even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I first went into occupational therapy because our career guidance counsellor thought I’d be a natural fit, but it really wasn’t for me.

The minute I got scouted by an agent when I was 19, I quit my bachelor of science degree and threw myself into a modelling career. Fortunately, success came quickly and pretty soon I was travelling the world. I based myself in cities such as Paris, New York, London and Milan and shot editorial for high-end magazines as well as advertising campaigns. When you’re in your early 20s and keen to see as much of the world as you can, there’s no better career to have.

By the age of 26, I had moved to Sydney and my partner Chris [an Australia-based photographer] and I had our first daughter. Although I continued to model until I became pregnant with our younger daughter three years later, I knew it was time to find something more solid.

Fortunately, I’d been doing some styling work and this part of my career naturally evolved. From brochures for fashion chains and campaigns for Westfield, I reinvented myself as a freelance stylist, but over time realised I was gravitating towards interiors. Eventually, people started to hear about the work I was doing, or perhaps just liked what they saw, and offers began rolling in to style holiday homes and Airbnb properties.

So much in my life has had a runaway-train quality to it; until recently, I’ve found myself in careers without much thought, or set intentions. But during the chaos of COVID, when so much of what I was doing for work took a terrible hit, I finally had the opportunity to ask myself what it was that really made me happy.

I quickly realised the answer was making over properties. I also knew that since you had to have a degree to work as an interior designer in Australia, it was time for me to go back to study. I enrolled at Design Centre Enmore [in Sydney], which was fantastic – except for the fact that I was probably the oldest student there!

Over the past year, my interior design work has grown leaps and bounds, purely through word of mouth. Although I do mostly small-scale residential interior work through my business, Atelier Heim, I’ve had the opportunity to work with high-profile clients. I love the flexible nature of my job – a must when you’ve got school-aged kids – and I love my clients. But the thing that thrills me most is that I’ve finally found my perfect career fit.”

‘I was too young to have the confidence’: Katie Kjelsaas, 43, psychologist

Katie Kjelsaas loved aspects of teaching, but found her true calling in psychology.

“In high school, we had to rank our six top preferences for university degrees. I filled the first five slots with my parents’ suggestions (acting and teaching degrees). There was one slot left so I added psychology. I was accepted into my first course but was a pretty woeful actor, so I went back to uni to train as a teacher. Looking back, psychology was always a central interest for me, but I didn’t have the confidence to back myself.

During my decade-long teaching career, I taught all grades from prep to year 12, but ultimately focused on high-school drama. While I loved the relational aspects – supporting students’ growth, seeing them thrive – I struggled with the ever-growing admin burden, which crowded out the teaching. Also, I felt ill-equipped to help the students most in need of support. I started exploring ways to better support student wellbeing, which led me to consider psychology training.

I began my undergraduate degree thinking I’d return to work in schools, but my studies drew me in another direction. Today I run my own online psychology practice, Connections Count, which is focused on relationships. I also teach and mentor other therapists and consult to organisations looking to leverage emotion and relationships to improve outcomes.

A big part of my career decision formation came around having children. The work I do now is steeped in attachment theory, and my husband and kids are my first and best teachers. The idea of supporting people to repair and strengthen their most important connections gripped me and I dove into relationship therapy, theory and research.

I had two highly supportive mentors who’d both also had children while doing their psychology postgrad degrees and their examples showed me what was possible. I began by seeing couples in my mentor’s practice one evening a week. Initially, I continued contract and supply teaching jobs to cover the bills but eventually stopped altogether. I loved teaching, but I love helping people improve their relationships even more. I’ve never been happier.

It definitely wasn’t easy juggling young kids, work and study, but having supportive mentors who’d paved the way helped. To others thinking about making a career change, I would say just make a start, however small. Research your new area of interest, contact people who work within that field and ask them to give you their honest insights. You definitely don’t have to do this alone.”

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