How To Shift Career With A Bump: 5 Tips For Mums-To-Be

By Sarah Cooper

Posted in: How to make the change
image of toy bear

For mums-to-be! Sarah Cooper shares her tips on how to consider and actively change career during pregnancy.

I get a lot of telephone calls from heavily pregnant women wanting to reassess their career. You’d be forgiven for thinking that these women would have other things on their mind: maybe their birth plan, or getting the nursery ready, or stocking up on nappies and frozen ready meals.

However as someone who flew to Beijing at 6 months pregnant and Geneva at 7 on career change reconnaissance missions, I can completely identify.

The imminent arrival of a first baby can loom over our heads. We are told our lives will never be the same. We will never be the same.

This is very frightening. There’s an immoveable deadline out there and we don’t know who we’ll be on the other side of it. Only a few short weeks remain where we can be sure we’ll have all our faculties. We’d better fix everything that’s not quite right with our lives RIGHT NOW.

Often what’s not quite right is our work… and hence the phone calls.

So, here are some tip which I hope will help you :

  1. Ignore those people who say this is the end of life as you know it. OK, life will be different, but you will still be you. If you hate mushrooms, you’ll still hate mushrooms. If you’re obsessively addicted to X Factor, you will be no less sad. So have no fear.
  2. By all means go with your pregnancy-induced surge in energy and make some preparations for a new career post birth. Do analyze your career interest, skills, personality, strengths, ideal work environment and values, and come up with some potential directions in the same way as bumpless folk. There are many articles on this site that will help you do that – as well as the Careershifters Guide of course. But then…
  3. Give yourself wriggle room. Don’t commit to anything that will be really hard or embarrassing to back out of. If there’s a course you’d like to take during your maternity leave, check whether you can get a refund or postpone if necessary. Don’t airily say to your boss as I did "don’t worry, I’ll be back after 3 months full time. You won’t know the difference." (I ended up resigning and moving to China.) Instead use measured language, for example "I anticipate coming back at 6 months, but may decide to take longer" or "I’d like to explore options for working part-time without committing at this stage."
  4. Know that this window of time you’re about to enjoy can be wonderfully liberating. Suddenly you have an additional identity. You are not only Kate-the-disillusioned-lawyer, but Kate-the-amazing-mother-of-amazing-Josh. You’re living proof that you can be someone else, happy and successful in a role that not long ago you had little idea how to pull off. Perhaps Kate-the-interior-designer isn’t so far-fetched after all.
  5. Be ready to experience perhaps the most creative and productive period of your life! Yes you may not get much sleep, and you will need to feed, wash, dress and gaze adoringly for long periods at your baby. Yes it will feel at times like your bottom has grown roots in the sofa. But, certainly after the first 3 months, there’s still a fair amount of time left over for you.

Have fun experimenting with stuff you never had time for before. During my maternity leave I wrote my first magazine article (which turned into a long-running column), learnt Mandarin (I use the term "learnt" loosely), and landed a job that was to prove a stepping stone to my new career in coaching. What a privilege those months were.

So pregnant readers amongst you take heart. Far from holding you back, motherhood can speed up your career shift. Go for it!

Leave a comment below: What work ideas would you like to explore during or after pregnancy?

Sarah Cooper is a career and lifestyle coach who specialises in working with creative or socially-minded people who want to put their passions at the heart of what they do. Prior to qualifying as a coach, Sarah worked as a solicitor before moving to the voluntary sector, where she held senior marketing roles at two of the UK's leading charities.


Careershifters has featured in

Careershifters has been featured in national media.

What people are saying about Careershifters

"Careershifters helped me realise that there were many small steps I could take towards improving my job satisfaction. Gaining greater focus has given me a renewed enthusiasm for my work, giving me the confidence to negotiate a one year sabbatical."



Cath Rooney

"The Careershifters workshop helped me realise that it’s never too late to change your career, that these advances take time and, I am confident that if I stick with my ‘plan’ I won’t make another wrong career move."

Claire Coveney

“As of yesterday, I officially have a new career and start my new and exciting role next week! So a massive THANK YOU to all of you at Careershifters for your support. You really do deserve every success in what you're doing.”

Liz

“After attending a Careershifters workshop I had the energy and drive to start researching how to get into teaching. I applied for a course, had an interview, got a place and left my old job in less than a week. It was so easy when I finally decided to go for it.”

Nikki

“Thanks to Careershifters I'm shifting my career! Have been thinking for a while about the direction I'm going in and after looking at your website and reading some of the advice I realised that I've got to go for it.”

Justine

"This website has been a lifesaver for me over the past year!"

Lindsey

"The Careershifters workshop started me on the path to changing from the Practice Manager of a GP Practice to Community Engagement work that meets the needs I identified at the workshop."

Diane Cassidy

"For 17 years I worked in the travel industry. In the period of unemployment and after attending the Careershifters workshop I retrained and am now employed as a trainer and coach. I'd recommend the workshop to anyone who may not know what they want to do."

Paul Kensett

"I had a career in sales and now I run my own sales training company.  The Careershifters workshop gave me the motivation to get on and do things, as well as some good direction with regards to the sort of activities I needed to put in place."

Matt Hayden

Our latest Twitter post