When Michael came to us, he needed help redefining his career path. He was 31, eight years into teaching, and good enough at it that he’d become the kind of employee nobody wants to lose. That was part of the problem. He was miserable, stressed, and ready for something that actually fit his skills and paid off his student loans, but he wasn’t sure how to get there.

Two questions kept coming up: how do you actually leverage transferable skills to move into a new field, and is 31 too old to make a change like this? Here’s Michael’s transition, in his own words.

Deciding to Invest in a Career Change

I’d been a teacher for eight years, all of it in education. It was easy to keep signing the same contract every year, even though I knew it wasn’t right for me. I didn’t know what else was out there beyond the usual progression for teachers. I wanted a foot in the door somewhere I’d feel more valued.

The breaking point came after a long teaching day (they’re all long). I came home and realized my husband and my friends all worked from home, and I saw the joy on their faces at the end of the day. That wasn’t necessarily what I wanted for myself, but it made me ask why I wasn’t coming home feeling like I had room in my life for joy and opportunity. Why I kept turning down invitations. Why I brought my frustration and stress home with me every night.

That woke me up. I needed something bigger, something different, something that let me actually have a life outside of work. Once that clicked, I knew I had to act on it, even knowing it would mean juggling eight or nine hours of teaching a day plus the extra work of changing careers.

Michael’s Concerns About Making a Career Change

My biggest concern was internal. If I put in all this work and energy, what if I didn’t find anything? What if I ended up somewhere that wasn’t right either, or just wasted my time? I was putting a lot of faith into something I hoped would turn into a better life.

I’m 31, and teaching is almost the only thing I’d ever done. I assumed my skill set began and ended with teaching, and that it was too limiting to be attractive to other employers. Kori kept telling me, and everyone in the group, that our skills went way beyond our current job titles. I had to trust that, even when I didn’t fully believe it yet.

Everything we worked through kept pointing to the same theme for me: I have an innate ability to organize, structure things, and build routines. Eventually it became undeniable that this should be my actual career, not just something I did on the side of teaching.

If you’re working through this same question for yourself, this is the system that helped me find that clarity and confidence.

Inside the Job Search Process and Results

The interview process took patience. There were plenty of stretches of days or weeks with no response, but I kept trusting it would work out.

I never would have followed up on my own. I’d bring it up in our weekly group sessions and ask if it was okay to follow up on an application, and Kori would always say yes, and tell me exactly when to do it. Those small pushes added up to a significant shift in my life.

Once I leaned into my biggest strength, organization, the transition happened almost on its own. Now I’m doing exactly that as my actual job.

I’m doing operations and management at my school now, with a team underneath me, giving the school structure and support. There’s real room to grow from here, whether I stay in education or move into something like project management, which I now know is also in my wheelhouse.

I remember crying on camera in front of the cohort because everything felt so hard. Looking back now, my biggest win was internal: realizing that if you actually do the work, it pays off. The external win is that where I landed is more exciting than anything I could have imagined a couple of months earlier.

If you’re considering something like this, your anxieties are valid, but they don’t have to be the final word. Trust the process, and you’ll start seeing the goal come into view long before you actually reach it. I told my husband I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to do this work. I don’t know exactly what the next ten years hold, but I know they’re going to be good.

Watch the Interview with Michael

Wondering whether your own skills could carry you into a new career? Book a free Career Alignment Audit™ and let’s find out together.