Episode 49: Nobody decides to live to work. It just happens, gradually, when you design your career around what is in front of you rather than what you actually want your life to look like. In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens explores the difference between living to work and working to live, what the second one actually means in practice, and how you get from one to the other. 

In this episode you will learn why it's important to get clear on what your personal version of working to live is. And how the The Life-First Career method can help you finally create that.

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 48: What does it actually feel like to go through the Life-First Career Accelerator? In this episode Dana is joined by Juliette, who was part of the January 2026 cohort, for an honest and moving conversation about where she was when she joined and where she is now.

Juliette arrived after a redundancy feeling, in her own words, unemployable and ready for the scrap heap. She felt she had no control over anything and could not see a way forward. By the time she finished the group coaching programme she had been commissioned to write a series of children's books, was setting up as a freelancer, and pursuing a brand new business idea in a field she had never worked in before that genuinely excites her.

But this episode is not just about the practical outcomes. It is about the internal shift. The moment her thinking was held up to a mirror. The way she learned to flip her thoughts rather than be run by them. The surprise of discovering that being in a group with other women navigating the same journey was one of the most powerful parts of the whole experience. And the feeling of going from depleted and directionless to, as she puts it, knowing exactly what she wants and what she does not want, and feeling capable of whatever she turns her mind to.

If you are thinking about joining the September cohort of the Life-First Career Accelerator, this episode will give you a window to what it is actually like from the inside.

Doors close midday Monday 21st September 2026. 

Click here for more information and to join: https://www.danastevens.com/LifeFirstCareerAccelerator

If you want to chat with Dana about whether joining is right for you, book in a free consultation

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 47: Most people who are trying to change careers are not stuck because there is nothing out there for them. They are stuck because they are approaching it in the wrong order. In this episode, career change coach Dana Stevens explains why going straight to the CV, the job sites and the applications before doing the foundational work is the thing that keeps people going round in circles, and what the right order actually is. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why treating career change like job hunting is the most common reason people get stuck
• The three stage process that actually works
• Why the order of the stages matters and what goes wrong when any one of them is skipped

If you want help, support and expert guidance to go through this proven process join Dana's group Coaching Programme that starts this September. You have until midday 21 September 2026 to join. Find out more about the Life-First Career Accelerator and join the September cohort here: https://www.danastevens.com/LifeFirstCareerAccelerator

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 46: September has a particular energy. A sense of possibility. But for most people that feeling passes without anything really changing. In this episode, career change coach Dana Stevens talks about how to actually use the September fresh start rather than just feel it. 

This is an episode for anyone who has felt the September pull before and watched it pass without anything shifting.

In this episode you will learn:

• The questions worth sitting with to get honest about your real why before the feeling passes
• The most common limiting thoughts that arrive with any new intention and more accurate alternatives to each
• The Mini Change Goal concept and why the small thing you choose matters less than the practice of choosing and following through
• Why building your identity as someone who creates small changes is the foundation for the bigger career change work

In this episode Dana mentions her upcoming free masterclass "Stop Circling and Start Deciding: How To Change Careers" on Monday 7th September at 7.30pm.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP TO THE MASTERCLASS

Click here to listen to Episode 19 - Change Fluency: A Mindset Shift You Can Practise.

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 45: So many people who want to change careers say some version of the same thing: 

"I just do not feel like myself anymore."

 "I have lost my spark"

In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens explores how that happens, why the obvious solution of just getting a new job is rarely the complete answer, and what actually getting your spark back looks like in practice. She shares the story of a client who came to her after a difficult redundancy, having gradually lost everything that made her feel like herself along the way, and where that client is now. 

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 44: One of the most common things that stops people from starting to work on changing their career is the belief that they have to have it all figured out first. In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens challenges that idea. She draws a clear distinction between having a direction and having a perfect plan, explains why you need the first and not the second, and shares two honest personal stories from her own experience of building her coaching business that show what this actually looks like in practice. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why the first iteration of your plan is almost always the foundation for the next, not a wrong turn
• How starting is the only way to gather the information you need to find the right direction
• Why a bridging role or interim arrangement does not have to mean anything about whether your longer term plan is working

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 43: You have probably heard of a money story, the set of beliefs about money that were formed in childhood and shape your financial life as an adult. Career change coach Dana Stevens believes we are all carrying an equivalent work story. A set of beliefs about what work is, what success looks like, what we deserve from it and what is possible for someone like us, formed long before we had the experience to question them. In this episode she introduces the concept of the work story and explains where these beliefs come from.

In this episode you will learn:

• The three main sources of your work story and why none of it is your fault
• A set of questions to help you identify your own work story and start to see which beliefs are worth keeping and which are worth rewriting

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 42: If the thought of changing careers feels like the thought of losing yourself, this episode is for you. Career change Coach Dana Stevens explores why so much of our identity gets wrapped up in our job title, particularly when we have committed to a career for decades, and what to do about it when it is time to change. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why leaving a career that has been central to your identity involves real grief, and why that matters
• The personal story of leaving the BBC and what the identity loss felt like the first time Dana changed careers
• The second career change, leaving a Head of role, and what was different about it because of what Dana had learned between the two
• What upgrading your identity looks like, and why what you build on the other side is almost always richer than what you left behind

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 41: Are you coasting right now? And if you are, is that genuinely what you want, or just what feels easiest?

This episode is about the difference between coasting and growing. Why one feels safer. What the other actually costs. And what to do when your brain tries to talk you out of the thing you most need to do.

In this episode, Career Change Coach Dana Stevens shares a personal story that helped her identify this friction in her own brain. And she shares some helpful perspectives to help you figure out what you really want right now.  

If you've been considering going all in on change or considering coaching and talking yourself out of it, this episode will be helpful.

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Episode 40: If a holiday is the only thing keeping you going right now, this episode is for you. Career Change Coach Dana Stevens talks honestly about what it actually means to live from holiday to holiday, the exhaustion of getting there, the body finally letting go and getting ill, the dread creeping back before the holiday has even ended. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why holidays cannot fix a working life that is not working
• What a life you do not need to escape from actually looks and feels like day to day
• Where to start if you want to build that life for yourself

Book a free Coaching Consultation:

https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free consultation call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.