I have spent the last 20 years of my life teaching. My background is in Marketing, and for seven years, I worked in the Promotions and Marketing areas of some international companies. While I never liked the financial or administrative aspects of the business, and my management career was not very joyful, I did deeply enjoyed the creative tasks, creating training sessions, materials, and delivering training for our outsourced staff. Deep in my heart, I always had a curiosity for the teaching field, but I was not sure about leaving my management position.

How everything started

When a company takeover left me jobless, I knew I didn’t want to return to a commercial setting. I focused on finishing my Master’s degree (guess… in Marketing!) and then took some time off. During that break, I decided to explore a new career path in the teaching field. In my early 20s (pushed by my mother), I had obtained a Teaching English as a Second Language Certificate and I put it to good use; a friend of mine gave me the opportunity to tutor his employees. Simultaneously, I also landed a job teaching English as a foreign language at a high school (bless them! I’m not teaching teenagers again).

As luck would have it, I was presented with the opportunity to teach Spanish to the wife of an expat living in Mexico. His company had unsuccessfully looked for a Spanish tutor. Initially hesitant, I decided to go for it and got the job! I started transferring my English teaching skills to teaching Spanish to adults, and of course, studying a lot of Spanish grammar at the same time. 

One of the first things I realized, was that many books and materials are not designed for adult learners. My student would often say, “I studied before, but I don’t need to know how to say book or chalk; I need to go to the store.” So, I started creating materials tailored to her daily life as a wife, and as a mother of a little boy. Eventually, she got pregnant again, and we had lessons covering vocabulary related to pregnancy and doctor appointments. My lessons were entirely tailored to her needs, and we developed a wonderful friendship.

Things start to fall in its place!

In time, more students appeared in my life, allowing me to gain more experience and start building a reputation as an instructor. Meanwhile, I had applied to teach Marketing at some universities and eventually landed a job in two different universities, teaching Foundations of Marketing and other related subjects. It was clear that I had changed my management career path!

In 2004, I was tutoring Spanish, English, and teaching Marketing at the university. I officially realized that I was embarking on a new adventure, now in the teaching field, and I never looked back! The classroom seemed so natural for me. I enjoyed teaching, and I wanted to share with my students everything I knew, even though I was sure that some of them were there just because they had to be. Of course, my salary went from a Marketing executive to a lecturer/tutor, and sadly, in Mexico, the teaching field is not well compensated. But I started experiencing something that I had never felt in my seven years in Marketing for big, international, well-known companies: I felt accomplished, I loved my job, and I wanted to keep doing it. An educator was born!

What I wish I had known better then

Some takeaways I would like to share if you feel that your current career path is not the right one:

1-As everything in life: It is okay to change your mind! As we grow up, we evolve, and what might have been a good idea in your early 20s can be making you miserable in your mid-thirties!

2-Be brutally honest: Sometimes it’s not that easy. Sometimes we get swallowed by expectations (self-imposed, from family members, friends) and we feel that we are “failing” by changing and doing something that we love much more. Be absolutely honest with yourself if you are second-guessing your current career path.

3-You don’t have to know what you want: In my case, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, but I knew very well what I was not liking, and what kind of things were requirements of my job that made me unhappy and were taking a toll on my personal life.

4-You still need to pay the bills: This is a harsh reality. Sometimes it’s not as easy as “Goodbye, this is not for me and I don’t know what I want, but I will go jobless and find out”. If you can do it, go ahead! I was lucky as I had savings, was single, living at home. But that’s not the reality for many people. What can be an option is to start trying a new path through volunteering, taking courses, start doing some research, or start a side hustle even though it won’t make a lot of money at the beginning. Start prepping the way to the goal that you have in mind. Another option is to change jobs! If you can sacrifice a bit of your salary and maybe find something more fulfilling in the meantime, do it!

5- Take the good advice but don’t let comments take you down. People mean well when they give you advice (well,.. most people) and most of the time that advice comes from love and care. But please don’t listen to those who will tell you things like “When are you going to have a real job?” “So you’re not working now” (your new job doesn’t look like a job to them), “You studied so much, this is a waste of your education” “So when are you going back to work?” Just ignore those words (sometimes it’s not easy).

So tell me: Are you thinking of changing your career? Do you see yourself in your current job/industry/position for a long time? If you feel that this is not the right career path for you: What is stopping you from changing? Have you changed your career? How was it for you

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow