They Mess You Up with Dr. Ciara Kelly and Dr. Richard Hogan
Career Change: Taking the Leap
06 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Is it too late to change your career?
Hello and welcome back to They Mess You Up, the podcast with myself, Dr. Richard Hogan.
Myself, Dr. Ciara Kelly.
Ciara, today we're going to talk about something that is really close to my own heart and something that I'm really fascinated by and intrigued with. The idea of moving or changing your career as you maybe get a little bit older.
Yeah.
Because so many of us fall into our...
degrees so many of us fall into the job we get from those degrees and generally in my experience working around the mid 40s we might start to think is this it is this what i wanted to do is this actually what i wanted to do and start to think maybe i'm too old to shift direct you know to change trajectory here would it be too much of an inconvenience for the whole family these are thoughts i kind of had you know will i stay well should i just stick this out for another 20 years or what is it i should do here but that really creeps in doesn't it for some people
We should say that this was also sent to us from a listener, a DM. And she says, please talk about career change. And we both jumped on it because... We both lived this.
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Chapter 2: What fears do people have about changing careers?
I started my post-school thing. I did a commerce degree in economics and finance. Most people who did that ended up working in the bank. That was the big thing then. I then...
hopped from that to medicine when I say hop I mean I did three years of it I went into medicine qualified as a doctor worked as a doctor for 20 years and now I do this here you are sitting on the couch now I do this now I do podcasting and radio presenting and I work in the media full time so I like you tell them what you've done
Well, like I did an English and psychology degree to start with. And then I went off and did a HDIP in English because I love English and I was passionate about it. And I went into teaching and taught English for 20 years and loved it.
Like me in medicine.
Chapter 3: How did Ciara and Richard navigate their own career changes?
But there was always that, you know, talking with students. I always loved talking with the kid who's having a difficult time trying to help them with their thinking and get them to move towards achieving something, working in that interest of their future self. I always loved that. So I went back and retrained many years ago now as a systemic family psychotherapist.
Did a four-year master's in UCD with that. And then I went on with that and did a PhD in Trinity around intersecting some of the ideas that I was writing about. Went off to America and a Fulbright scholarship and did some research there. Came back, gave up teaching, you know, very reluctantly, if I'm being honest, because I love being around the students and all that. And then went into all that.
And here I am sitting talking to Ciara Kelly.
Chapter 4: What steps should you take to explore a career change?
So you were a teacher, then a psychotherapist, and now you work hugely in the media as well. So we've, I don't know, we've done all sorts of things.
That's the cutest route to God knows where.
And I wouldn't outrule something else in the future either. I genuinely wouldn't. So to the person who texted in saying, you know, will you talk about it? It is a good idea. To me, it is a no brainer. Life is long and I have no choice.
interest in just going through the motions plodding in and out day in day out doing something I think if something excites you this is the ADHD Jesus but if something excites you if something interests you if there's something else you can do and you have a hunger to do it and you can one thing I would say is I the changes I have made in my life I managed to maintain my income and I managed to still provide for my family and do things like that I had responsibilities I didn't just go
Chapter 5: How can you maintain financial security during a career transition?
Rip cord, pull. And I wouldn't advise that.
You know, what did you say earlier? I'm going to become a poet. I didn't do any of that stuff. But within reason, I made quite massive changes and I haven't an iota of regret.
People used to say to me, and this is a huge thing in Ireland, I think particularly, because, you know, teaching is a pretty good pension.
So it's being a doctor.
Yeah, absolutely. You're giving up that.
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Chapter 6: What role does fear of failure play in career changes?
permanent pensionable job.
And I was thinking, yeah, I didn't even give that a second thought, really. But the advice I'd always get, and I love this topic, you know, I love the idea of like reaching potential, you know, succeeding in life, you know what I mean? And I don't even think succeeding in life is monetary and all that.
Oh, I don't think so either.
But just reaching somewhere where you feel, God, this is what I wanted to do, right? Because it takes a long time for that to kind of maybe emerge. And you could be in your 40s because you're so busy building your career
career let's say and your family you know whatever it is you're doing there in your 30s and for early 40s trying to figure out and what i used to all say to me when i work in this field and i've got so many anecdotes i could tell about this that i love you know is that i would never pull the ripcord at in my 40s i wouldn't just decide i'm changing job like that i would like i did for myself i would slowly work my way out of it i always think of andy dufresne and the shawshanker
redemption you know like chiseling away chisel away put something on your cb doesn't have to be a phd now it might be something else that you might be interested in get a little diploma and so just kind of build up your sense of what it is you want to move to but figuring out what it is you want first can be kind of kind of confusing for people but trying to give that a go i don't i fully agree with you and i would have done the same i didn't do the same through take doing courses educational things i took on more and more little pieces of work me too
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Chapter 7: How do you identify what you truly want in your career?
little pieces of media work. You know, I wrote a column. I did some radio contributions, you know, as you do. I did bits of television presenting. I did little bits and pieces. And as I was inching towards something, I didn't even know what I was inching towards.
I didn't even have a clue what I was inching towards.
But I kept doing more. I had a thing in my mind. do more of what you enjoy if you can.
Chapter 8: What advice do experts give for making a successful career shift?
And do less of what you don't enjoy. And the path formed itself, as it were. So I totally agree with you about the incremental changes. It isn't like a guillotine coming down. Now, some people do do that too.
Some people, but I'm saying when you've got responsibilities, my advice would be like, no, you're going to get to where you want to go to now. You're going to get there like that. But it's a bit more incremental because people have sometimes, two things are coming up from there I'm listening to because I love this topic.
People have two kind of things, that they expect it to be instantaneous and that they're going to get what they want immediately. And I'm kind of going, I don't think it works like that.
I did my first piece of media work in 2008 and I left medicine fully in 2017.
So that means slower.
Nine years. Now, and for a while I was... juggling wildly. I had a full time job as a doctor and I was doing almost full time hours, probably doing 80, 90 hours some weeks. Huge amounts of media and huge. And I knew something had to give. Yeah, me too. But I kind of straddle those two things for about two to three years of very hard work until I'd built up really the media enough.
that something landed in my lap that it was worth making the jump for. And that's when I made the jump. And it was it was a significant because I would always say to people a bit like you with the permanent pensionable thing with the teaching, being a doctor, being a medical doctor isn't solely a job. It is part of your identity.
But it's vocational, too.
Yeah, there was a bit of that for sure. But it's not just your identity to other people. Truthfully, it's your identity to yourself. Yeah. I didn't know if I took off the white coat, we didn't wear a white coat anymore, but you know what I mean, the metaphorical white coat, what was left. I actually remember questioning that going, what would be left of me if I don't do this?
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