When Round Pegs Don't Fit in Square Holes: Expat Career Changes

There are many people who have inspired me along my expat journey. As my family life enters a new phase the last few weeks have been a perfect time to reflect. Part of that reflection resulted in an article that I submitted as an entry for Expats Blog's latest writing contest on the topic of working abroad.

Building a career overseas can mean becoming an astute
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Photo Credit: Lars van Mulligen

I moved to the Netherlands for love so I didn't have a job lined up when I packed up my gear and headed across the North Sea one grey, cloudy September day. I tried to get myself back into the world of work as quickly as I could. I needed to because we needed an extra income. We needed a place of our own to live in. Within a few weeks of landing on Dutch soil I was signed up with recruitment agencies, applying for vacancies as they came up and making telephone calls that I thought could help me. I took it one day at a time and jumped each hurdle as it arose.

Within a month or two I had a job in my field (Human Resources) though it was temporary cover for maternity leave and a step down from what I had been doing. But I had a hold on the career ladder once more. I was made permanent. The first two years or so were enjoyable. It was new. It was challenging finding my way around a new company. It kept the mortgage payments in check. When the project I was working on finished, I was palmed out to another department. And it was then that I realised, again, that I was a round peg and yet another employer was trying to squeeze me into a square hole.

I knew things had to change. I began writing. Just for my own pleasure. My own eyes. And then I started feeding that creativity into my day job. The more I delved into writing, and in particular expat writing, the more I bumped in to the name "Jo Parfitt". A Definite Articles course later and I was fully committed to getting out of an office cubicle. I was determined to leave behind endless demotivating company reorganisations and be free of meetings about quarterly profits. I wanted to take a career turn. Others had done it, so so could I. (In fact Expat Women published one of my first articles which was on the topic of making a career change abroad).

Jo Parfitt was an incredible inspiration and motivation in the early days of my writing career (and incidentally still is). She convinced me that I could write, and furthermore, could make a career out of it. Plus she was a 'real life example' that it really was all possible. She was certainly shouting encouragement from the sidelines from day one. And with that kind of support the step out of the rat race was made a whole lot easier.

I then stumbled into a Life Coaching group run by Karen Armstrong which was also a huge source of inspiration. I honestly don't remember anymore how I came to be a part of the group, or where I met Karen (aside from it being virtually) but it too played a huge role in my writing career. The group essentially came together to look at our individual reason for being, our mission in life, and our life goals in order to satisfy our reason for being. From haphazardly trying to manage a new career idea alongside being new to motherhood I emerged from the course with a clear vision and specific goals about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, not just with writing but in different areas of life. I still annually review this vision and these goals and create a new vision board to match my dreams. The group of women I took that path with were in themselves inspirational and the energy was contagious. Two of those women are the driving force behind Global Niche; Tara Agacayak and Anastasia Ashman. If you're looking to work beyond borders, to change a career, to transition, then those are the women to turn to for motivation.

So, back to my latest article. Expat life can be complicated. It presents challenges. Careers can be made or broken overseas. But expat life can also offer the opportunity to start over, to take time and reflect, to try and work out where your passion lies. And if you have the right support cheering you on from the sidelines? Well. then anything is possible.

Head on over to the Expats Blog writing contest page to read my article "Letting Go of the Career Ladder". If you enjoy what you read, please like using the Facebook button on the Expats Blog page, or leave a comment there to let me know you stopped by and share your thoughts on the topic.