Mark Brandi found his ideal job with persistence and 'a lot of luck'. Here's how to make a career change

He was feeling unfulfilled in his work as a criminologist but had financial commitments holding him back from making a career change.

So Mark Brandi decided to do something "crazy".

He called in sick one day and went on a game show.

"I didn't think I'd win any money. If anything, I thought I'd be humiliated on national TV," the crime writer tells ABC RN's This Working Life.

He went on Channel Nine's Millionaire Hot Seat and, after answering one question, he won $50,000.

It changed his life forever.

Brandi had been considering his future for a while and, before his game show win, a career counsellor had helped him to hone his options.

With that guidance, he had rediscovered his childhood passion for writing. And, with his own career to draw from and those of his three brothers working in law enforcement, Brandi decided he wanted to be a crime writer.

Brandi says the cash prize was "crucial" for him to make his career change and for him to begin studying professional writing at Melbourne's RMIT University.

A few years later,  Mark was hit by a car when he was riding his bike down Brunswick Street in Melbourne. The accident put him out of action for six months but he says it sparked another "moment of clarity".

It was time for him to quit his job and write full time.

He made the leap, and then in 2016, he entered his novel Wimmera in the prestigious British Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger for unpublished authors - and won.

All shortlisted entries in the competition are sent to UK agents and publishers. Publishers came knocking and the book became a bestseller.

These days, while Brandi admits writing isn't "the most lucrative business", he loves being able to do it full time.

He says his career change involved "a lot of luck" and persistence.

"I saw a lot of other authors who I worked with ...  after a couple of rejections [they] just gave up basically. I understood it in a lot of ways ... but you have to keep putting your work out there and you have to keep striving to get better." 

Don't move too quickly

Career coach Kate Richardson says career changes don't need to be big leaps of faith. Like Brandi, you can take things step by step.

"There's no need to commit to a big change upfront because you may not even know what you want to change to," Richardson warns.

"What you need to commit to is exploring a few future possibilities for your career."

Richardson says establishing and following one's core values often leads to high levels of happiness and satisfaction.

"I always get people to think about a time they felt proud, a time they felt satisfied, a moment they felt really compromised and a time that they felt really envious. If you start with reflecting on those moments or stories from your life, often the values come from that."

Childhood interests also often give a "few clues" about a person's strengths.

Change takes 'enormous sacrifice'

It didn't take former lawyer Nicca Grant long to realise practising law was not her passion.

"At some point very early in my career, I realised I wasn't a very good lawyer, and I didn't really enjoy it," she says.

Dr Grant, who now works as a psychiatry registrar at a hospital in Melbourne, says she "developed a pretty overwhelming unabating interest in science and the human body".

"I just got it into my head ... that I wanted to be a doctor and the desire just never went away."

While in her early 30s, she decided to make the change and study medicine. "The next thing you know, here I am working as a doctor. All going well, I will be a psychiatrist in about five years from now. So, I will be 43 or 44."

She says the years of study and reduced finances have been difficult.

Medical students can't work more than eight hours a fortnight on top of their studies, Nicca explains.

"You can't study medicine part time, you have to do it full time," she says.

"It was an enormous sacrifice but I have to say I was just so thrilled and enthralled by everything that I was learning from the beginning."

Her advice to others who are thinking about a career change is to back yourself and to make realistic goals.

Richardson says people need to spend time discovering what interests them before working out if their skills are transferable.

She warns against jumping in head first and spending thousands of dollars on retraining.

"Sometimes I feel that it comes from a place of insecurity, worrying that we don't quite have the skills to make a transition. I would always caution people to start with a short course, or a free or low-cost investment in their education."

She recommends committing three or four hours a week to thinking about how to make the transition and how to take small steps towards the goal.

"I've had a couple of clients that have made changes, significant ones [like] starting their own business or moving into a different industry within a few months, but for the vast majority of people, it's going to take longer. It might take you 12 to 18 months."

'Energised and excited' about work

Richardson thinks "the whole 'find your passion [mantra]' is a bit of a furphy" because not everyone has a passion.

Instead she prefers to focus on the things that make a person feel good about themselves and their work.

"It's important to know that strengths are not just what we're good at, but what we're energised by because you can be good at things ... but may not really enjoy them," she says.

For editor Monique Ross, years of sitting at a desk had sapped her of energy. She preferred walking in nature and feeling the sun on her face.

Ross says the ongoing coronavirus pandemic spurred her on to change her career because she suddenly realised some opportunities would not be around forever.

The keen walker decided to retrain to become a forest bathing guide. Nature therapy aims to improve people's wellbeing and mindfulness.

"I just went 'I've got to do it now' and that's ... around the same time as I found forest therapy," she says.

"It was like a puzzle piece clicked into place for me."

Determined not to let the fear of the unknown stop her, she enrolled in a course and started setting up a business.

"My old work wasn't bad ... and I worked with great people but I hadn't realised how much energy I could feel from the work that I do. I've really reclaimed that sense of feeling energised and excited about going to work every day."