A successful career as a lawyer, having your own law firm and being regularly asked to explain high-profile cases on TV, that’s not something you just give up. Yet Marielle van Essen (46) does it. After twenty years she is following her dream to become an interior designer. The message she shares about it on social media is going viral.
Marielle van Essen (46) worked as a lawyer for twenty years and ran her own law firm. But soon she will hang up her toga to devote herself completely to something she actually prefers to do: interior design. The news she shared on LinkedIn about this move reached more than 15,000 people and generated thousands of responses.
Overwhelming numbers, says Van Essen. “It’s almost all positive and sweet messages. Many people find my story inspiring because, for example, they are struggling with a career switch themselves and want to know how to approach it. But there were also people who think it is a shame that I stop as a lawyer.”
It’s not a step you take lightly. ,,I have felt for some time that I was no longer really happy with my work. That is why I took a sabbatical during corona time to think about it carefully and to make sure that the doubts were not due to fatigue.”
Hardening society
What Van Essen finds out during that period: it is indeed not the fatigue and the love for interior design, which she spends a lot of time on in her spare time, is real. “I have worked in the legal profession for years from a sense of justice and social commitment. But I could never put my creativity into it. In this work, yes. I love working with art and design and designing beautiful interiors. My home and business premises always had to believe it too.”
There are also other things that have come to stand against her about the profession of lawyer in recent years. “There is an enormous hardening going on in society. Aid workers are harassed and mistreated, and lawyers are also increasingly confronted with violence. I have lost a colleague lawyer, Derk Wiersum, and Peter R. de Vries, a colleague from the media world. The job of a lawyer is hectic enough, but if it also puts you and your friends and family in danger, then you start to think.”
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Aid workers are harassed and mistreated, lawyers are also increasingly confronted with violence
In addition, she is tired of always having to work until late at night or even into the night if a case requires it. Lawyers must always deliver quality, that’s what they owe their clients, says Van Essen. ,,I always thought: ‘That has to be done’, and just went to work. But I wanted to get rid of that. I don’t want to continue working like that for the next twenty years. I want to avoid eventually getting sick and dropping out. Because that was about to happen.”
Also read at Intermediary: Career switch: from actor and presenter to pilot
Plan B
Although she continues to assist a small number of clients as a lawyer, Van Essen will stop working as a lawyer on 1 September. She was well prepared for that. She has built up a financial buffer and sold her car so that the monthly costs are less. ,,I also followed a thorough training, read all possible books about the profession and attended events. I also enlisted the help of a coach to help me make this step.”
No matter how sure you are of your business, with a career switch there will always be a small voice in the back of your mind that says ‘But what if…’, Van Essen knows. “Fortunately, there is always a plan B. If it doesn’t work out, I can always find another job, for example in the catering industry. They are looking for people on every street corner.”
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Fortunately, there is always a plan B. If it doesn’t work out, I can always find another job, for example in the catering industry
In any case, she is sure that she will never regret her choice. ,,If I have spent a day working as a lawyer, I feel a bit gloomy and I sleep restlessly. If I have been busy with my own interior design company, I feel very happy and I sleep like a baby that night.”
Enjoying work
According to Van Essen, this is not only because she enjoys the work so much, but also because she can finally be herself in her work. ,,I couldn’t show much of myself because of my own safety. But the profession also made me a strict lady, that is so far removed from who I am. At a certain point I no longer recognized myself. From now on I can be myself again.”
Therein lies another danger: Van Essen is by nature an enormous perfectionist. ,,I’m so excited, I really have to whistle back now and then. I worked with blinders on for twenty years and always went full throttle. Now I don’t want to rush anymore, I want to be able to enjoy my work every day.”
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