As the job market starts to recover, people all over the world are beginning to make career moves again.  A recent study shows more people voluntarily left their jobs than were fired or discharge for the first time since October 2008.  The study says that many individuals had felt it was too “unsafe” or “unreliable” to make a move to a new company during the turbulent economic times of late.  At PTC we have already witnessed many of our students turn economic uncertainty into opportunity. Unlike other industries, Pilates teachers were weathering the storm quite well.  So now as the economy seems to be shifting and changing and even adjusting to the new reality, how might we as a teaching community adjust? In reading this study I asked myself if our teachers might be broadening their horizons and thinking of the job market as a chance to make a move. I asked two PTC graduates and one soon-to-be graduate to write about how they re-imagined their lives with Pilates.  Their responses were so wonderful I have made this into a three part series.

I hope you will find their stories as interesting and as inspiring as I did. And please feel free to post your thoughts or share your stories on our Facebook page.

Here is Julie Gustafson’s story:

It wasn’t a gradual transition, as some career changes feel. Mine was more like a sudden panic attack that arrived on a sun drenched afternoon, while the two computer terminals stared at me, the 5 phone lines were beckoning to me, my colleague was pestering me about the receipt of a VIP script to be messengered over from one of the powerhouse agencies, my work space was filled with file folders, brads to bind scripts, endless yellow Post-it notes with my bosses’ scratching scrawled from here to White Plains, and my pile of wishes, hopes and dreams moving in someone else’s direction.  And it wasn’t mine.

I could no longer sit at this desk. Not even just this desk. I couldn’t sit at any desk. I had heard about Pilates in very secretive, random dialogues, usually involving an aging celebrity, when I first arrived in LA at the dawn of our new millennium. It was still widely unknown and something no one really talked about.  I was a bit curious, but was too entrenched in becoming a Hollywood Creative Executive to delve in any deeper. 

I met my first Pilates teacher over a beer, and I finally spoke up and said, “What is this thing, Pilates?”  And that’s the day I began to learn and study Pilates. When my quarter life crises hit, and I realized I needed to do something better with my time at work, I began researching Post Bac Pre-med programs, Dance Therapy, Art therapy, Teaching English in Japan (again), Journalism, Master’s Degrees in anything I could think of.  I could see a common vein surfacing that I needed to do something with the body, with healing and with being on my feet.  I needed to choose a career that would utilize my high energy, dance and skating background, and my love of muscles and bodies and show other people why it was so important.

Pilates was becoming a more recognized career path and it seemed like I would be able to support myself in this line of work. I was right. I have had a lucrative career that has given me challenges, endless fascination, pleasure, intelligent discussion and the feeling that I am doing something good for other people.  I have never looked back with longing over my job in Hollywood, nor have I spent a great deal of time missing the paychecks because I know at what sacrifice those checks come at.

I decided on Pilates because at that time, going back to Medical School was too daunting to me and no other ideas I was having made as much sense. I handed my credit card over to the owner of my Pilates program, gave her my deposit, and walked out feeling lighter and happier.  I have been teaching now full time, for 6 years.  Each year I watch as Pilates brings something new and amazing to my own life by teaching it to other people.  I am employed solely as a Pilates Instructor.

I am currently writing this article from London, where I am a guest teacher at a studio here.  If you would have told me that 6 years ago, when I became a ‘corporate jumper’, that Pilates was the career that was going to give me world travel, I would have looked at you like you had a third eye. Only bankers, academics, marketing, and hoteliers got to be world travelers!  I was going to have to wait a really long time in my Hollywood job to get to come to Europe to work.

The ‘five year’ question has always been hard for me.  I know self help gurus often urge us to make goals, set plans, make collages, chart out your wants, but in five years…I just don’t know! That is what makes my life exciting.  I no longer dream of owning my own studio but I have great respect for those that do, and I for one, work for a few of those people. I work hard for them.  I am hoping that Pilates will parlay me into my next field and endeavor.  I often still have med school dreams although; I know that this is not the penultimate goal.  Perhaps something else will be revealed. I work hard for my clients, I do my best to keep the original Pilates method intact, and I am enjoying my career in a way that most people do not.

I feel very lucky every day.