Diary of a Mid-Life Career Changer

This next post was written many months ago when I was going through a very difficult time. And while I am proud to say that I made it out of the tunnel to the brighter side, I am still trying to accomplish some of the goals that were associated with that struggle. Transitioning into a new industry that is so different from your original line of work is no piece of cake. But it's even more challenging when you are in the midst of a mid-life crisis. It is only now that I am in a better place, that I feel I can share this experience with you. Perhaps you or someone you know is going through something similar. If so, I hope that my post can lend you a different perspective, and perhaps even give you the hope and determination that you need to press on to your happy ending. :)  

I never imagined that fear would grip me this way. That it would first paralyze me, and then grow powerful enough to make me want to run right back into the clutches of that which I hated and tried to escape. Changing careers was supposed be fun, exciting and liberating.  So why was I so terrified and traumatized?

Digging deep into myself for answers, I realized that the thought of working in my new field scared me because it brought me right back to the less rosy side of my childhood.  A place where I never did anything right, was never fast enough, and I talked too much. I’d spent many years trying to forget those bad memories and build a fortress of self worth.  At this point in my life, I felt too emotionally fragile to have my inadequacies shoved in my face. I thought, “I’m perfectly aware of them, so I don’t really need reminders, thank you very much!” What I did need was a nurturing environment where I could learn from professionals at a healthy pace. A place where quality trumps quantity, and conversation is appreciated and cultivated.  Yet such an oasis remained as elusive El Dorado.

At every false start and dead end, I wondered if I made a big mistake. My mind kept going back to the night before I enrolled in school. I was awakened from a deep slumber by a voice that simply said “NO”. The voice had a tone of authority and was quite matter of fact. I waited for elaboration, but I heard only deafening silence. My mind racing, I tried to first determine where the voice came from, and then what it meant. There was nobody awake upstairs. Nobody else was in my apartment. It wasn't even a voice that I recognized. “No, what?” I wondered.  As soon as I recalled the next day’s agenda, my heart sank. I considered that perhaps I was not supposed to proceed with my enrollment plans. But did the message mean, not that particular school, or not to choose this career? I felt conflicted as my usually on-point intuition didn’t give me any warning signs. In fact, my internal compass had already given me the green light, and here was this external force giving me a red light. I decided to trust my internal voice and pushed full steam ahead. More than a year and half and a lot of debt later, what I thought would be my dream career, turned into a fantastic nightmare with anxiety on every corner.

In my search for success, I had just added another failure to an ever- expanding list. Not just any failure, mind you, but one that highlighted some of my worst weaknesses. I pondered what life would be like now if I had obeyed that mysterious voice in the night. But perhaps it doesn’t even matter. Maybe this was some sort of karmic lesson that I was destined to learn no matter what. Was I meant to push through this challenge to overcome my weaknesses? To do so would certainly stretch my boundaries to new dimensions, and I could grow into an improved version of myself. Kind of like "Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger", right?  Or I could just accept and embrace my weaknesses as components of who I am.  I would then be free to skip this torturous lesson, happily ambling down the road on to my next scheduled failure. Surely, that would be easier. However, I suspect that life lessons are part of our individual destinies. We can choose to skip a lesson for a particular time, but we can expect that same lesson to rear its ugly head again and again, until we learn.