Progressive Pathways Consulting

Career pivots are almost fashionable these days. It’s lovely to see how much rallying there is from different quarters. To me, it feels like community has evolved. There is a maturity that is setting in. It’s very encouraging.

When we speak about career pivots, I still think that a lot of the conversation is skewered to when the change being sought is thoughtful and intentional. This is ideal and there is a lot of support for people wanting to make this type of change. But what if the oscillation isn’t planned? How much support is there really?

I have been reflecting on career pivots quite a bit. 7 January 2026 is exactly twenty years since I lost my mum. It was my first significant loss. We were literally told that she had six hours to live. We needed to decide on whether or not to put mum on life support, but she had always told me that this was something that she never wanted to endure.

Twenty years on, I am baffled that we had had such conversations even when there didn’t seem to be a need for them. I am also very thankful to God for those conversations.

My dad and I spoke to the doctors to ask if mum’s condition could be overcome by treatment. The answer was a resounding ‘no’ as my mum’s lungs had deteriorated so severely. We didn’t put my mum on life support. In the wee hours of 7 January 2006, mummy breathed her last.

At the time of her passing, I was living out my ambition. I was practising law as a litigator and I had been blessed because I was working for such a wonderful man who grew me in the field. The exposure I had been given had been amazing and I loved every bit of my work life – and life in general.

When my mother died so suddenly, I nearly broke. The one person who really propped me up was my father. All of a sudden, his extrovert, bubbly, enthusiastic daughter whose love for life was unmistakable was nothing but a shell. There was no two ways about it.

I found that I simply couldn’t get back to work. It wasn’t because I didn’t try. I would go to the office but the shock and horror of the trauma I’d endured was taking hold. It was suffocating every time people told me to be strong. It angered me when people presumed to tell me about how carrying on would be what my mother would want for me. Some told me to get a grip. Others just dropped me.

My dad saw all that was happening at home. He saw that I had lost all sense of delight in things that used to bring me so much joy. Overnight, I lost memory of all sorts of facts and trivia. These were things that made me who I was. I never got it back.

My amazing boss saw my brokenness and instead of turning me out the door continued to support me on terms that I could manage. Going to court didn’t have that same excitement. It felt like I had run out of the sense of exhilaration. I would go home and sob in my father’s arms feeling like a complete failure.

I got told off quite a bit too. People would call me to say that I needed to get over it. It got so bad that my father started telling them to back off.

About a year later, papa finally spoke to me about the situation. I think it was when I could finally have that conversation. I wasn’t going to be able to go back to legal practice. Instead, I brought forward retirement plans and did the CELTA. I would teach English.

You’d think that people would’ve been happy for me. I was trying to stand, even though it was all feeling so very raw. The comments I got about being weak, wasting the money my parents spent on my education, etc. were quite hard to take. I think it’s partly why I’ve just avoided a lot of people over the years.

The first pivot that happened from lawyer to English teacher made me an abject failure in the eyes of so many people. For a long time when people asked me what I did and when I answered that I taught English, there would be a chorus of voices correcting me saying that I was a lawyer. I learnt then that many define us by our work.

Another pivot happened after a while, but a bit more quietly. I moved into training and then coaching. I even had the chance to set up a business and departments for organizations. But there were still reminders that rang about my being a lawyer. It was exhausting.

Don’t get me wrong. I loved my time in the legal practice. I loved the people I met and some of the experiences I had. The intensity and pressure I underwent and was able to withstand did have an impact on the person I became. I speak about my time in practice with enthusiasm even to this day. But I am not a lawyer.

Instead, twenty years to the date of losing mum, the last two of which have been without my dad, I think the pivots I made finally make sense to me. I am now the founder of Progressive Pathways Consulting, which is a coaching and training consultancy. I have gained coaching and training experience over the last eighteen years and my coaching and training have been well informed by the realities of legal practice, setting up a business and setting up departments for organizations. My big interests these days are writing and podcasting. I have just written a book on kindness in the workplace under a publishing contract from Penguin Random House, which will be published in August this year and my podcast, which is called Pathways to Thriving was launched in September 2025.

Many years ago, when after a telling off by someone, I sobbed to my dad that mummy would be disappointed in me for quitting law and that I had let him and her down by wasting my education, he reminded me of a few things.

The first thing he reminded me of was that neither he nor my mother had ever needed anyone to express their views and feelings to me. This is very true. We always had conversations in my home! He also reminded me that my mum and he were already proud of me from the day I was born, not from the day I graduated or got a job. He also said that of all the people in the world who would understand the impact of her passing on me, it would be my mother. He told me that he could see how much it had shaken me. If anything, he said that the changes I had made would have made her proud. He certainly was. He said I was brave.

I’m writing this with the hopes that someone who needs to make an unplanned career pivot reads it and doesn’t feel like a complete failure. Change happens. We struggle with loss. We fall ill. Disability can strike you at any time. We have no control over the economic climate, how people view us for our worldviews, or even just growing older.

It is great when we get to change on our own terms – think about the outfits we plan for an event. It is great when this happens. But in real life, change is messy – talk to anyone who’s changed a soiled nappy! If you don’t have a cheerleader on your side, it is OK. No one else is in a position to do you as effectively as you are. There can be mistakes, and that is OK too. It may be the stepping stone for another pivot.

I also write this for leaders. I had two very big leaders show up for me. One was my boss in the legal practice, for whom till this day I have nothing but deep respect and gratitude. The other was my father, who wasn’t a man of many words but who stood by me so that I wouldn’t fall. They would be great examples of support in a practical sense. It is something I think most of us need to aspire to.

Twenty years ago, I lost the most amazing mother, and two years ago, I lost the one person who really understood the magnitude of that loss. The pivots that have happened as a result of my loss have been meaningful for me because they have embraced me as I am – broken heart and all.

Some questions to think about:

• What has stopped you from making that career pivot?
• If you have been embarked on change, what have been the challenges and what have been your successes?
• What lessons have you learnt from a career pivot that could help others?