As 40 approaches I’m getting close to walking away from 17 years of Marketing to be some kind of coach/trainer/counsellor – which is much closer to my instincts and natural talents…

Not quite sure how I’ll get there but I finally have enough savings to take some time out to re-train. The motivator is primarily having had enough of lack of career progress and having to spend my working hours suppressing my instincts – it ain’t healthy or much fun…

Anyone else think they got it wrong and how’s it been? And for those who’ve made the change, what difference has it made?

I’m in engineering / building services and it bores the pants off me I am just not an engineer, problem is not sure what I want to do otherwise. Either something fitness/outdoorsy or have own restaurant but the reality of both probably isnt that good.

How do you decide what you are good at and what you enjoy? thats my problem, I have no idea, and the longer I am here the less employable I become!

42yo Graphic Designer here with no interest in ever working in London, working for myself or climbing the managerial ladder.

Wish I’d done something outdoorsy in hindsight. Land Management or Forestry, that kind of thing.

Too late to change for me, plus I don’t have the ‘hunger’ to change. I’ll probably die in this rut I’m in! Quite happy pootling along in life though. No dependants – it’s just me.

As above, 40 and bored by what i do but a ‘career’ sucks you in and you get used to a certain level of income.

I know i’d much rather do something else but what? I’ve always been envious of people who grew up knowing exactly what they wanted to do with their lives and had something to aim for.

The fear is doing something new for less money but ending up not enjoying that either. I am going from being self employed (and totally unmotivated) to being employed again though in the next 2/3 months so maybe that’s a start (same job type though but not sat on my own all day every day going stir crazy).

Engineer not finding interest/excitement in engineering.
Drink.

Got into finance by accident about 15 years ago and it’s just pretty unsatisfying…

What am I doing about it…Started studying for a ‘MCTS’ Exam to get a job in I.T.

guys if you’ve passed about 30 years old, its not a career, you have a job. By now you should have realised this. 😉

I sometimes think I’d prefer to have done something quite different, in hindsight.

But I’m pretty good at what I do and have been successful enough.

If anything I’d probably go back to what I started out doing – as opposed to what I’ve ended up at now.

More or less. I seem to have moved from technical parts of my job (which I enjoyed) to a more project management role (which i have had ruined for me), so I am feeling slightly lost right now in my job.

It pays the bills and the team make it worthwhile, but I did have a huge feeling this morning on the way in to work that maybe I could be offering more to humanity. That’s what I get for listening to “The Life Scientific” in the car I guess…

Still, it’s not too late to win a triple rollover Euromillions jackpot and chuck the whole thing in to buy a tramp steamer, hire a load of recently laid of Marines and go hunt some pirates off the horn of Africa.

MrTall – Member

I know i’d much rather do something else but what? I’ve always been envious of people who grew up knowing exactly what they wanted to do with their lives and had something to aim for.

Indeed. Having no plan and thinking, “It’ll be ‘reet”,
is not something I’d recommend to younger folk who are about to embark on the journey through life. Having said that, I’m not sure what I would recommend….

The fear is doing something new for less money but ending up not enjoying that either.

Quite. Maybe those who take risks are the people who succeed -or lose everything 😉

….not sat on my own all day every day going stir crazy).

There’s something to be said for working part of the week at home (or in a quiet room away from an open-plan office) and part of the week with other people.

willard – Member
I did have a huge feeling this morning on the way in to work that maybe I could be offering more to humanity.

That’s something that has often occurred to me too.

Still, it’s not too late to win a triple rollover Euromillions jackpot

Sad to say, I have that fairly vain hope too, although I’d be happy with much less!

Worked 7 years in finance, came to the conclusion I hated it but luckily had been going to college at night to get a basic IT qualification.

Currently in IT support but working towards web development in my spare time.

Sometimes do wish I had become a mechanic or similar but I guess you can’t look back.

I think this thread shows that work is shit and the longer you do it what was once tolerable becomes shit

A few % enjoy their work but they are either very liucky or mental 😉

If it was fun and enjoyable they would not need to bribe us with money to turn up

What’s a career?

I have recently left IT after about 20 years and am retraining with a view to becoming a sport therapist. The circumstances allowing me to do this were pretty shitty but I had been talking about getting out for the past 5 years. thing is, its easy to go in every day and get paid well for a job you can do stood on your head. It took a massive kick up the arse to get me out of that comfort zone.
I don’t know whether sport therapy is going to be that perfect career but unless I try I am always going to wonder ‘what if?’ Aren’t I?

If it was fun and enjoyable they would not need to bribe us with money to turn up

+1

Boba Fatt – Member

Sometimes do wish I had become a mechanic or similar

A nice idea, but from what I’ve seen, terrible money and conditions. For most, it will consist mainly of replacing brakes and timing belts on Corsas.

Restoring, modifying & race-preparing classic cars and bikes in a nice, fully-kitted-out workshop appeals, although having to do it for a living for years on end may spoil it.

This is an interesting (if slightly repetitive) book:

I was working in IT from 21 to 35 and got more and more sick of it even though I was getting promotion worked for a bank so pay and benefits were very good. In the end I jumped as I just hated going to work and it bored me so much as I just new I wasn’t doing the best I could offer. I now run my own business and love it. Lots of work and pressure and on half the salary but life is just so more relaxed and happier. My wife has been brilliant and has supported me loads and I think that is key. Even though my income if half she doesn’t moan about it. Yes the plan is to have a better income but I now actually enjoy going to work.

My advice is that you only have one chance at life and as work takes up so much of it you should at least enjoy it. If not work should be paying for you to have an amazing time on your days off. The classic “work to live” or “live to work”

I know I did… Now following a drunken course towards fixing it. Left uni, went into banking because there was work available, spent 10 years on it, enjoyed maybe half but it was never brilliant, got made redundant, was glad. No idea what I wanted to do, only what I didn’t!

Took a fairly entry-level position in university student recruitment because it looked interesting. It is. Took a more senior role, back in finance but now with the uni, purely for the money. Hated it completely- I think I would have been fine if I’d not done something better but going from good work back to bad was terrible!

Ended up stepping back into student recruitment and support- on paper a step back, in practice a step back on track. See where it goes next… Hard truth is I’m competing with people 10 years younger who’re more experienced but still, I’ve got some game and it’s a field lots of people come to late.

I’m not sure I chose the wrong career totally possibly just that I’m now bored of it and want to do something else. I want something that involves working for myself in something I know and love. I’m looking at buying a business to do this at the moment and am just hoping it comes off!

Double post

38 and just been made redundant after 12 years in procurement.
I will prob stay in purchasing just in a more diverse role.
I have also applied for jobs as a graduate geophysicst though..
Hmm

45 years old and still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

I’ve been in IT almost 25 years and hate it. In the early days when I was actually helping people and making life easier for them, I loved it. As I’ve progressed up the ladder, I’ve become far removed from directly helping people and more and more documentation based. I’m supposed to be a “consultant” but am under constant pressure to find new initiatives and openings – basically glorified sales; it just isn’t me.

I echo entirely MrTalls comments above but I fear I’m too late to change. All I want to do is either cook for people, drive an HGV or chop down trees. None of which, unfortunately, will keep our family in the manner we’re used to. Plus if I die in service, the missus and kids will be seen right 😐

EDIT: I didn’t really chose this career – Outsourcing and TUPE moves pushed me here.

I’ve been in Engineering for 17 years and getting to the point of bored/uniterested what i do.

I was thinking of setting up a cycle repair business and run it from home, not sure it would give me a decent enough living or not though.

I dont particulalry like my job, but I like where I live. I teach English in the Basque country. At heart I’m a programmer. (yes, I like it), but getting back into it is difficult as agencies dont believe that after a few years out of it that you can go back, also my particular skillset is becoming increasingly niche. I’m going to try my hand at developing mobile phone apps and see how that goes.

The grass is always greener….
My bil is a mechanic, hates it.
Now stop moaning you miserable bunch of bar stewards, at least you’ve got a job, etc.

Spent fifteen years in marketing/business development roles with some big companies, but got to the level where I was just spending all day in meetings and not actually doing anything – and besides the office politics was the pits!

What it did give me was a cushion of money to try something else, so I started with a year ticking off my ‘bucket list’ – got my Yachtmaster ticket, bought a house and rennovated it, learnt to paraglide, spent two months cycletouring New Zealand, three months on a boat travelling thru Asia and the Pacific, got married! Then, I set myself up in the marine business, as boats had been a passion for most of my life.

I’d like to be able to say that I was happy for ever after and retired a millionaire – but it didn’t work out that way. After three years of fantastic experiences but backbreakingly hard work, I had to admit to myself I wasn’t going to be able to make a living out of it. To top it off my first child was born, and I wasn’t at home much cos of the job.

So, I’m now on my third career, and have moved to Australia, and this time I tried to plan it a bit better – yes something I enjoy and feel good about, but also something that has a future and can support my family. I think I’ve found a better balance this time around. I’ll never earn as much as I did when working for the man, but then I’ve found my priorities are different now after all I’ve been thru. Gone are the luxury holidays, latest electronics, expensive cars and boats, and instead I enjoy the simple pleasures of camping with my daughter (now eight) and MTBing with my buddies.

Hopefully there’s a lesson for someone, somewhere in all of that… if you find one, let me know what it is 🙂

I’ve wondered about starting a thread like this many times recently.

Left university after doing a business degree (boring course, but loved student life) and just started applying for graduate jobs. There seemed to be loads of sales jobs and I ended up working for a distie. A couple of jobs on from that I’m no longer in IT sales, but still in sales. When I give it a good go I’m actually not too bad at it, trouble is it bores me to tears so I end up spending most days trying to look busy. I moved away from my last job as the OH got relocated for work and I went with her, the plan was for me to start doing something different – but the first job I applied for down here was a sales job and I got it, still at the company today.

What am I doing about it….. researching teacher training, business degrees would only lead to secondary business teaching – jobs are few and far between. So looking at primary teaching. The OH ended up hating the job we relocated for and retrained as a teacher, so I think I could do it.
Fall back would be postman, a driving job or something with less hassle/take home work – so hopefully I could have more leisure time (my dad’s a postie, would love his hours). I’m on reasonable money at the moment but it actually wouldn’t be too much of a hardship to tighten our belts a little and take a cut.

It’s just a big worry making that leap out into the unknown.

So who thinks they’ve picked the wrong career?

I do.

And w[b]W[/b]hat are you doing about it?

Moving to Whistler to be a bar man or some other casual based work. In my spare time I shall be a mountain bike bum by summer and ski bum by winter.

alex222 – that’s the long term plan for the OH and I too (but maybe not Whistler). Once Jnr has left school, the mortgage paid etc…. we’ll be the oldest ski bums in town 😆

I like the OP’s line, ‘suppressing my instincts.’ Im 27 and I work in sales. Which means that I drive all over the country which is sometimes like solitude and can be depressing as hell.

Me and the girlfriend are going to open a cresh so when we have kids in a few yrs time we dont have to pay dollar for child care and we’re/im the boss! On the side im going to run a data recovery business (for people who have deleted their files off their pc) because its a piece of cake.

I also make a charitable donation to the National Lottery of £12 a month. You gotta be in it to win it and sometimes i think you need to make your own luck.

Then i think about the game of life, scoring enough points in your bank account to buy enough calories etc…. and how life would be different (better?) it it were a socialist world we lived in.

I have occasional doubts.

I work in IT but I don’t actually do IT anymore, I order people about for the most part. I quite liked the getting my hands dirty. That was fun. Telling people what to do might be fun for some people, but I find it a little bit distasteful. Meh. It’s not worth changing my career over and if I started doing something else I’d have people telling me what to do which is even worse.

Yes, did an ONC and HNC in construction at college while working as an architectural technician (CAD) after finishing school. Got made redundant after 4 years and theres not a great deal of work about.

Still working in CAD but doing HV electrical substation Drawings, its very dull and easy.

Really want to get into something else outdoorsey just no idea what! And taking a paycut doesn’t sound great so just sticking at it currently :/

alex222 – that’s the long term plan for the OH and I too (but maybe not Whistler). Once Jnr has left school, the mortgage paid etc…. we’ll be the oldest ski bums in town

Can’t you just rent your house out to pay the mortgage? Take your kids to the Alps and let them complete their schooling out there. They will be forever grateful, as well as being multilingual and able to ski mountain bike like bosses.

I have the tedious job of applying the double sided tape to celebrity ladies cleavages to stop them falling out of their dresses, but I wish I had picked a different career…

Work is rubbish, thats why you get paid to do it.

alex – it’s a possibility. We’re generally not risky people, f*cking things up and realising it’s all a mistake is fine for the OH and I… but the idea of it all being a mistake and f*cking things up for Jnr doesn’t feel great. Plus the whole thing would be easier if we both had teaching qualifications and foreign language skills as it opens up a greater possibility to work while living abroad.

These are things we can work on over the next few years (well 7-8) until Jnr leaves school.

Work is rubbish, thats why you get paid to do it.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L_cGjQSR80[/video]

This has given me food for thought after the past two years of my life. It has also inspired me to do what I’m doing now.

I started in science, but decided I wasn’t suited after 8 years.
Then into technical sales for 30 years, which worked very well until late last year. I’m a good salesman with enough techy background to convince.

I’ve just turned 60, with enough cushion to live on, and can’t decide whether I’m retired or looking for the next step.

Are there any jobs around or does anyone have any idea of what to do next ? I can’t just twiddle thumbs all day….. or even ride the bike that much.

Fell into working in IT. First on a helpdesk and then working my way through more technical roles.

Did toy with the idea of becoming a teacher but after researching it, 10 years experience in IT, working for two of the biggest banks in the UK amongst others, meant fk all and I’d still have had to go to Uni to get a degree in IT or something.

So decided to just stick with it – earn good money and see how much I can milk out of it. Don’t enjoy it but pay day is worth it. Can work flexible hours around family stuff etc. Aim is to retire by 50, buy a place in France where I can rent out a couple of gites and spend the rest of my days sat by my own fishing lake, in the sunshine eating cheese and drinking wine. So far, I think I’m on course for that 😀