Insights

Sometimes your career changes because you decide it is time for something different. You update your CV. You tell your friends. You buy a suspiciously optimistic notebook and start making plans. Perhaps you even have a Pinterest board entitled “My Fabulous New Life”. ✨ But what happens when the change chooses you? Redundancy. Bereavement. Ill health. Divorce. Caring responsibilities. A relationship ending. A relocation. Organisational restructuring. A promotion you never want

Every year on 4 August, International Owl Awareness Day celebrates one of nature's wisest creatures. Owls have long symbolised wisdom, intuition and the ability to see clearly in the dark. Perhaps that's why they make the perfect mascot for career change. 🦉 The wisest of Owls. Many professional women spend years looking after everyone else's careers, families, teams and ambitions before pausing to ask one important question: "Is my career still right for me?" The answer isn'

If someone had told me on 1 January 2025 that by December I’d be writing a retrospective about coaching conversations, corporate talks, Women’s Circles, podcasts, and all the moments that made me pause, I’d probably have given them a side-eye and muttered, “Are you serious?” And yet, here I am. Running Pause and Empower this year has meant embracing both the chaos and the clarity that comes when midlife transitions, menopause, career uncertainty, and life’s bigger questions c

When most people think of coaching, they imagine one-to-one sessions: a client, a coach, and a goal to be achieved. But the coaching world is far bigger, broader, and more colourful than that. There are life coaches, business coaches, executive coaches, wellbeing coaches, performance coaches, and coaches who specialise in everything from leadership to lifestyle. With so many approaches, it can be difficult for someone new to coaching to know exactly where to start. That’s whe

Welcome back to the Insights corner of Pause and Empower – where I attempt to blend serious career support for midlife women with just...