35% of Canadian workers say they want to do something completely different in their professional lives. Among workers aged 45 to 54, that number climbs to 37%.

So if you’ve caught yourself thinking, ‘I can’t see myself doing this for another ten years’, you have plenty of company. The tricky part usually comes next.

You may know you want something different without having the slightest idea what “different” should look like. One day you’re checking job postings. The next, you’re wondering about going back to school. Then the practical questions arrive…

What happens to your income? Are you too far into your career to change direction? What if the next move turns out to be another poor fit?

After years in intelligence, I learned that gathering better information is the best thing you can do before making a call.

A mid-career change deserves the same approach. One of the most useful pieces of intelligence you can gather is a better understanding of yourself, and that’s where DISC enters the picture.

Why Can a Career That Once Worked for You Stop Feeling Right?

When you first chose your path, you may have been focused on getting established, earning more, supporting a family, or taking the best opportunity available at the time.

Then life changes. So do you.

Research on midlife career change in Canada points to several common reasons for career dissatisfaction:

• Burnout or poor work-life balance after years of long hours or rigid working conditions
• Feeling overlooked or undervalued, especially when experience no longer seems to lead anywhere
• Industry disruption, including restructuring and automation that change what the future of the work looks like
• A growing desire for meaningful work that feels more connected to your priorities now

Sometimes the change is less obvious. What feels like a mid-career crisis may be your signal to take a closer look at what you now need from work.

That’s useful intelligence.

By mid-career, you have years of evidence about the environments that energize you, the responsibilities that wear you down, and the conditions that help you do your best work. The challenge is turning all of that experience into a clearer picture of what you should look for next.

How DISC Can Help With a Mid-Career Change

I’ve spent years teaching DISC, and I’m careful to avoid the shortcut of matching a personality style to a specific profession. Human behaviour is more nuanced than that.

Every DISC profile contains all four styles. One or two will often show up more strongly, and the combination gives you clues about the kinds of responsibilities, environments, and ways of working you may want to look for in your next career.

Direct Style: Challenge, Autonomy, and Results

If Direct is one of the stronger styles in your profile, you may want work where you can lead or assist in taking charge to improve, solve, or move things forward.

The nature of work worth exploring could include:

• Leadership and decision-making – setting direction, establishing priorities, and being accountable for what happens next
• Entrepreneurial or growth-focused work – launching something new, developing a market, growing a business, or expanding an initiative
• Crisis, turnaround, or problem-resolution work – stepping into difficult situations where someone needs to assess the problem and act

You’ll find those qualities across many professions, so resist the temptation to search for a “Direct career.” Look instead for roles where challenge and leading are part of the day-to-day work.

Inspiring Style: Interaction, Variety, and Influence

If Inspiring style is more dominant in your profile, you may want to explore work where people, ideas, communication, and variety are central to what you do.

That could include:

• Communication and presentation work – speaking, facilitation, training, media, or translating ideas for an audience
• Sales and persuasion – generating interest, influencing decisions, advocating for an idea, or winning support
• Creative and concept-driven work – developing campaigns, experiences, concepts, or new possibilities
• Community and network-building – bringing people together and creating connections around a shared purpose

These categories can exist in very different industries. What connects them is the opportunity to communicate, create momentum around ideas, and interact with people regularly. If your current work keeps most of your energy behind a screen or inside repetitive routines, that contrast may be worth paying attention to.

Supportive Style: Stability, Connection, and Consistency

If Supportive is one of the stronger styles in your profile, work that allows you to contribute steadily and build trust over time may deserve a closer look.

Possible directions include:

• Development and guidance – coaching, mentoring, teaching, counselling, or helping someone build capability over time
• Coordination and continuity – keeping services, teams, schedules, or operations moving reliably
• Ongoing people support – working with clients, employees, patients, members, or communities where dependable support matters

The environment surrounding the work can be especially important here. A career may involve the right responsibilities and still feel draining if the culture is constantly disruptive or relationships are highly transactional.

Look at the kind of contribution you want to make and the conditions you want around it.

Cautious Style: Structure, Depth, and Quality

If Cautious is one of the stronger styles in your profile, you may want work where careful thinking and expertise carry real value.

Career directions worth investigating could involve:

• Research and analysis – working with evidence, information, data, or complex questions to reach sound conclusions
• Technical or specialist work – developing deep knowledge in an area and applying that expertise to specific problems
• Quality, risk, and standards – evaluating accuracy, identifying potential problems, maintaining requirements, or protecting against errors

This doesn’t limit you to technical professions. Many industries need people who can dig deeper, ask precise questions, and notice what others may miss.

When you take a DISC assessment to help with career direction, the value comes from seeing the patterns across your stronger styles and using them to narrow the kinds of work worth investigating. That gives you a clearer starting point for a mid-career change, while still leaving room for the other factors that shape a career decision.

What Else Should You Consider Before Making a Mid-Career Change?

I’ve lived through a major career transition myself. After 20 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, including 15 years in the Intelligence Branch, I moved into work focused on human behaviour, communication, speaking, and DISC. A surprising amount of what I learned in intelligence came with me.

That experience taught me to look at a career change as more than a clean break from what came before. You’re carrying years of knowledge, judgement, relationships, and hard-earned skills into whatever comes next.

So, along with the DISC insights you’ve gathered about the kind of work that may suit you better, here’s what I’d want you to consider:

• What can you carry forward? Your experience may transfer in ways that are not obvious from job titles alone.
• What would you need to learn? Find out whether the new direction requires a full return to school or a smaller skills gap you can close.
• What financial runway do you have? Be clear about the level of income change you can realistically manage.
• Can you investigate before committing? Talk to people already doing the work, learn what their day-to-day reality looks like, and look for a way to test your assumptions.

A mid-career change deserves both self-awareness and due diligence. The clearer you are about what you want from the work and what the transition will require, the better equipped you’ll be to make the call.

Your Next Career Direction Should Start With a Better Read on Yourself

In intelligence work, making a good decision often comes down to how well you’ve read the situation before you act. You gather what you know, look for patterns, and use that information to choose your next move.

You can approach a mid-career change the same way. Your years of experience have already given you plenty of clues, and DISC can help you interpret them with more precision.

If you want to explore how DISC could help you think through your next career direction, let’s set aside some time and look at it together.

DISC Makes Everything Make Sense. Keep Calm, and DISC On!

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