My Journey : Changing Careers After 50
One of the articles I read when I was thinking about changing my career path was on Monster, a web site that offers advice on job search, career advice and hiring resources.
It was called “The After-50 Career Change”.
https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/the-after-50-career-change
Yes, me, after 50 trying to find something different to do that will make me happier, fulfilled, and give me more flexibility than my current job.
Here are a few of the key points:
1. Know Yourself. Explore your personality and what you need to be happy. This information is key to making good career decisions.
This should have been easy, since at my age, one would think you would know yourself.
But how often do we sit and think about what will really make us happy?
Especially in a career?
Didn’t we always work to make money to keep up on our house payments, food on the table, put money into savings, maybe have enough left over to buy ourselves something fun and frivolous?
2. Take Time to Think. Chances are you’ve had little free time or the inclination over the last 20 to 30 years to take stock of your life. To avoid the “I wish I had or had not…” syndrome that happens to so many older people, take time now to determine what you want to do with your years ahead.
Yeah, this one is so true…at least the inclination to take stock of your life.
That seems like something people do when they are dying. But to be honest, it really helped.
I have made a lot of good decisions in my life. I actually pride myself on being really good at making the big, hard decisions with clarity and not vacillating.
But changing careers? What did I really want to do when I had been doing the same thing for the last 30 years?
Making a list really helped me. Things I was interested in, that were important to me.
3. Deal with the Fear. Change is never without stress and anxiety. Talk to your spouse, children, friends, relatives and colleagues about the changes you’re going through, and seek their assistance and support.
It is scary, frightening, stressful, and I can’t explain how many times I thought…
…“Naw, you’ll be fine with what you’re doing now until you retire.”
I talked to my husband. Really talked through what I was feeling and why I needed a change.
Verbalizing your thoughts is SO cathartic!
4 Be Realistic About What You Can Do. Put away your dreams about becoming the oldest president of the United States. Set realistic goals, and enjoy the success and rewards that can come from achieving them.
Well, I guess unless you are Donald Trump!
Realistic goals help.
But also, don’t sell yourself short. I found myself doing that for many years…
…”Oh, I can’t do anything different. I don’t have any qualifications for anything else.”
We all have attributes that can make us great at more than one thing. The most important thing as we get older is to be happy doing what we are doing.
I know I have lived more than half of my life now, and I sure want the second half to be amazing, filled with memories of things that I enjoy.