Zoe Ball’s great midlife reinvention and why working in a cafe makes total sense

It is not easy to step away from a busy and prosperous career that has defined most of your working life. This is why I felt a pang of recognition when I heard that, since Zoe Ball stepped down from her high-profile Radio 2 breakfast show, she has been spending days gardening and working in her ex-husband’s beach cafe in the Brighton area. She has since announced that she will return to Radio 2 in a more low-key weekend slot after enjoying some downtime.

In an interview, her son Woody described how amusing it was seeing his parents enjoying a relaxed lifestyle after indulging in more manic activities while he grew up.

“These crazy party people I grew up with are now gardening, making puzzles and working in the local cafe,” he told MailOnline. “It’s very funny to see that transitional period, just as I’m kind of leaving the nest and now at the start of something big for me in music.”

Ball, who will be 55 this year, made an emotional sign-off from her final Radio 2 show days before Christmas. She made almost £1m annually while working for the corporation but said she was stepping away from her hosting stint to “focus on family” after the death of her mother Julia. Her decision to take some time out before embarking on her “new adventures” is something to applaud.

I felt the same way when I made the decision two and a half years ago to leave my role as editor-in-chief of Hello! magazine and a fast-paced world which appeared glamorous and outwardly “successful” but inwardly was causing me deep unhappiness.

I had thrived in my role for a long time, but, after 16 years, I was exhausted; my health was suffering, my hormones raging, I wasn’t there for my family as I wanted to be and I was desperate for something new.

I am not alone: one recent report revealed that 88 per cent of UK workers may have experienced some degree of burnout over the last two years and the statistic is particularly high for the over-45s.

That frenetic pace of life was no longer tenable and as I look forward to turning 50 this summer, I am so pleased I had the courage to make a change and my working life is now centred around supporting other midlife women to find greater purpose and fulfilment in theirs. But it wasn’t an overnight process or by any means straightforward.

Sometimes we need to gift ourselves the opportunity to be in a state of pause for a while, and ideally before our health takes a serious turn, when that pause might be on medical advice.

Being in a state of “transition” can be emotional, discombobulating and hard to navigate. You need supportive networks around you, understanding friends and family and a willingness to extend the same self-compassion to yourself, that you so readily extol to others.

As I began to share how I was feeling, wanting to reinvent my working life in midlife, it became clear that many, many other midlife women were feeling exactly the same.

Training to be a life coach was a huge change for me – not only for learning a new skill, but also for the self-awareness it evoked and I am now making it my mission to bring the huge benefits of my “Reinvent like a Pro” concept to hundreds of others.