Testimonials: they changed jobs late in lifeTestimonials: they changed jobs late in lifeLeaving the city for the countryside, moving abroad, retraining in a manual or artistic profession… 78% of French people* dream of changing their lives. For many, the health crisis was also an opportunity to take stock and question things. Awareness, successful project, dream come true…, these women talk about their big leap.
*Yougov, 2018
“I left marketing to become a ceramist”
I always wanted to be a ceramist potter but I was content to take classes after work, without daring to take the plunge. And then, at the dawn of my forties, I realized that I was really no longer happy in my job as a marketing executive for fifteen years, that I wanted to undertake, to give free rein to my creativity. At that time, I also lost my mother, still very young, and I said to myself: you only have one life too, you can die tomorrow… So in 2017, after training in a ceramics school professionally, I opened my workshop in Montreuil (93) where I also give lessons*. I find myself more fulfilled today, more aligned with myself, even if I work a lot to earn less! I also feel more integrated into local life than before, when I worked an hour by metro from home…
*atelier-ceramique-3t.com
Audrey, 42 years old, Montreuil (93)
“I have always wanted sunshine and lavender”
Last year, we left Lille after around ten years, to come and live in Ardèche with our two daughters, now aged 7 and 4. We had long wanted sun, nature, lavender and we could work from almost anywhere since my husband is a documentary filmmaker and I am a musician specializing in perinatal care*. So after Covid, when our eldest was about to enter CP, we swapped a city center apartment with many views for a large village house, with the mountains of Ardèche on one side. , and the Drôme valley on the other… We live more outside, we watch the seasons pass, and we feel more peaceful, less stressed, more creative too.
*lechantdeslunes.fr
Florence, 41 years old, Rochemaure (07)
“We are discovering a new continent as a family”
I no longer wanted to be a nurse in France. I had so many patients for so little money that I felt like I was mistreating them. For a long time, we wanted to emigrate to a French-speaking country and we chose Quebec because we can practice our profession there with a French diploma. From the small village in Allier where we lived, I found a position in a Quebec hospital. For a year, we prepared our departure (administrative procedures, schools, accommodation, etc.) and, last December, we landed in Napierville, on the south shore of Montreal. Here, I rediscovered the meaning of my profession, the recognition too: I am better paid and my unit manager is much more attentive. In the emergency room in France, I had 45 patients per day, compared to 5 here. Moving so far away is a big responsibility: we uproot our children, we lose our bearings, we miss our loved ones, TV and French food too… But we are happy to discover as a family a new continent, another culture* and to be able to pass on to our children the idea that, if we don’t like somewhere, we can always leave, provided we prepare well.
* Canadian adventure on Facebook
Marion, 34 years old, Montreal (Quebec)
“My burn-out allowed me to bounce back”
After fifteen years in events and communications, I suffered burnout for several months. When I was at my worst, a friend reminded me that as a teenager, I dreamed of becoming a photographer. That was the trigger and I decided to give it a go. In parallel with two training courses, in 2021 and 2022, I discovered the “climate frescoes” workshops (fresqueduclimat.org), which I started to run in companies. Then I created the “Born in PPM”* project: on behalf of individuals or companies, I photograph people with the CO2 concentration rate of their year of birth, a way of highlighting the increase in pollution in the atmosphere over the years. By bringing together my two passions – photography and raising awareness about climate change – I really feel like I have created the activity that suits me. Additionally, the network and skills I had developed in my first career helped me get started. Sometimes, the accidents of life allow us to bounce back, to dare what we had not yet dared until then.
Mary-Lou, 42 years old, Paris
Support from those around you is essential to change your life
“These testimonies show that a change of life often begins with a desire to change territory or activity, and that it essentially consequences on one’s relationships with others (spouse, children, family, old and new friends…) and on his own state of mind (emotions felt, new priorities, etc.). But we also see that wanting to escape is not sufficient motivation. You have to find what you aspire to and what direction you want to take in your life. Sometimes, like Audrey and Mary-Lou, twenty years later we take the fork in the road that we had ignored in the past, because we don’t want to miss out on our life. Sometimes also, we benefit from advances in technology which has broadened the field of possibilities by allowing us to work remotely, to train ourselves in almost all areas, to maintain links with our distant loved ones… Finally, we see that You don’t change your life alone in a somewhat heroic way and by making a clean sweep of the past: the support of those around you is essential.“
Thanks to Philippe Gabilliet is a psychology professor and author of The art of changing your life in 5 lessons (Saint-Simon, 2020).
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