You're doing well. You've built something. You know your craft. And then life throws a curveball, and suddenly you're wondering if you've peaked.

This is where Sonya found herself in 2011. She was a respected television journalist, presenting current affairs, reporting on news. She had the career most people dream of. Then she had a baby, went on maternity leave, and thought: "I need to be doing something with this time."

So she decided to write a book.

Spoiler alert: she had no idea how to write a book. She'd spent 25 years writing for broadcast, which is a completely different beast from prose. But here's the thing about ambition at midlife it doesn't disappear just because your circumstances change. It just needs a new outlet.

The Catalyst Isn't Always Glamorous

We tell ourselves that reinvention happens because we've had some grand epiphany. We quit in a blaze of glory. We follow our passion. But often, it's messier than that.

For Sonya, it was the simple fact that she couldn't keep doing her old job. The newsroom demanded unpredictability you'd show up in business attire and end up on a floodplain for four days with no notice. With babies at home and no family support nearby, that wasn't sustainable. She needed to create, to achieve, to move forward. But she needed to do it differently.

Imposter Syndrome

Here's where it gets interesting. Sonya enrolled in a Master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of Auckland. She walked into a classroom full of people with English degrees, published work, and credentials. She felt completely out of her depth.

Turns out, everyone else felt the same way about her.

"I was afraid of you because you were this television person," her classmates later told her. Meanwhile, she'd been convinced they were all more qualified, more talented, more deserving of being there.

This is the trap we fall into at midlife. We've accumulated enough experience to know what we don't know. We compare our insides to everyone else's outsides. We assume everyone else is more confident, more prepared, more "ready" than we are.

They're not. They're just better at hiding it.

The truth Sonya learned, and what she now tells people in her creative writing workshops, is this: nobody is a genius on the first draft. Not the Booker Prize winners. Not the Oscar-winning filmmakers. It takes persistence, a bit of talent, and mostly just showing up repeatedly when you're terrified.

Try this: Reach out to someone whose work you admire. Ask them about their first attempt at whatever they do now. I guarantee it was rough. That's not a bug; it's the feature.

Find Your People (But Don't Be Transactional About It)

Sonya's breakthrough came from a chance conversation. She mentioned to an author she was interviewing that she was trying to write a book. He told her to enrol in Paula Morris's Master's programme (at Auckland University). She did. Paula became her mentor, her pusher, her person who believed in her when she didn't believe in herself.

But here's what matters: Sonya didn't approach this as a transaction. She didn't email Paula asking to be mentored. She showed up, did the work, and built a genuine relationship.

This is where most people get networking wrong. They treat it like a transaction: "What can you do for me?" Instead, Sonya's approach is simpler and infinitely more effective: be genuinely curious about people. Read their work. Support their ecosystem. Show up as a real person, not a person with an agenda.

When you do that, mentorship happens naturally. Opportunities emerge. Doors open. Not because you manipulated them, but because you became someone worth knowing.

Try this: Identify one person in your field whose work genuinely interests you. Buy their book. Read it. Share a thoughtful note about it. That's it. No ask. Just genuine engagement.

Your Past Isn't Wasted Time; It's Your Competitive Advantage

Here's what Sonya realised: she didn't regret her 25 years in journalism. She regretted nothing because those years gave her something no English degree could have: access to real human stories. She'd interviewed prime ministers and single mothers on benefits. She'd seen people at their best and worst. She'd learned how to tell stories that matter.

When she pivoted to fiction, all of that became fuel. She writes with depth and authenticity because she'd lived it. Her characters breathe because she'd met thousands of real people and understood what drives them.

This is the thing about reinvention at midlife: you're not starting from zero. You're starting from everything you've already learned, and you're applying it in a new direction.

Try this: List three skills or experiences from your current or past work that feel irrelevant to what you want to do next. Now find one way each could actually be an asset. (Hint: they almost always are.)

The Ambition Shift

Sonya talks about how ambition changes as you age. It's not that it disappears. It's that it evolves. She's no longer chasing the top of an organisation or collecting awards. She's chasing the feeling of creating something that matters, of doing whatever she's doing well, of contributing to something bigger than herself.

That's why she founded Kiwi Christmas Books. It wasn't planned. It snowballed from a simple idea: kids deserve books. Now they're distributing over 13,000 books a year across the country. She's running a charity, managing spreadsheets (which still makes her laugh), and building an ecosystem that supports authors, illustrators, publishers, and kids who might never have owned a book otherwise.

The Real Reinvention

The thing about Sonya's story isn't that she reinvented herself. It's that she didn't. She went back to what she'd always loved: storytelling. She just found new containers for it. Books instead of broadcasts. Fiction instead of news. A charity instead of a newsroom.

That's the secret nobody tells you about midlife pivots: you're not becoming someone new. You're becoming more fully yourself, with the benefit of everything you've learned along the way.

Your past isn't a liability. It's your edge.

Where to Find Sonya

Instagram: Sparkhunterbook

Web: www.sonyakwilson.com/

Charity: www.kiwichristmasbooks.org.nz/