The Biggest Lessons I Learned From Making a Major Career Change

Steven Hopper
The Startup
Published in
6 min readNov 7, 2020

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Photo by Hello I'm Nik 🎞 on Unsplash

I spent nearly a decade as a high school teacher and loved every minute of the job itself. What I struggled with was poor leadership, annoying politics, low pay and recognition, and the rigid day-to-day schedule.

Not surprisingly, these align with the top three reasons from a recent Indeed.com survey on why people make a career switch: unhappiness with the sector, desire for more flexibility, and desire for more pay.

The tipping point for me came when health concerns made doing my job as a teacher too difficult and I decided it was time for a change.

And I’m not alone. According to CNBC, nearly half of workers make a major career switch in their lifetimes. But it’s not easy to do and it takes planning and patience to pull off.

But what I didn’t know at the time, is that finding a new job was only the beginning of the hard work it would take to switch careers.

It took over a year for me, but I finally feel comfortable in my new role and am grateful for all that I learned along the way.

Here are the major lessons I learned from this journey for anyone else looking to make a major career switch:

Confidence is key.

“Whether you think you can or…

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Steven Hopper
The Startup

Stories of a former high school teacher, now business consultant. Husband. Travel fanatic. Obsessed coffee drinker. And all-around nerd.