Disclaimer: Since this question is explicitly about applying to do a PhD, I figured that the Academia SE was a better fit than Workplace, but do correct me if I'm wrong.

How can I explicitly, concisely and effectively explain a period of frequent job-hopping in my employment record in my application package (e.g. in the cover letter, statement of interests, research proposal and/or in my CV itself) which was due to a period of "soul-searching", after which I realized that I definitely do want to do research? I assume that my problem is two-fold:

• Being away from academia and the core material of the PhD for several years, meaning that my CV has very little in common with what I want to do despite having studied it years before (cf. "Getting into gradschool from a 'real job'")
• Having proven myself to be a job hopper