The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Ok anybody here done a career change? Know any good resources for counseling/assessment or just getting ideas for a new career?
There are all sorts of books and websites out there. Career Test is a decent website. My experience is that many resources are too specific since career paths often take unexpected twists and turns based on all sorts of factors.
I switched career paths a few years ago and it worked out really well. A lot of that was chance. I became a chef so many things will not be applicable. But some things that helped in retrospect:
I was able to get work experience before getting too invested. I got a basic line cook job at a local restaurant (probably not an option for many careers) and it gave me the chance to understand the work environment and skills required in the job. I took two years of school and was able to work in my chosen field at the same time, so while the job isn't a huge money-maker at the start, it's not an initial money sink either.
I switched to a career I enjoy and am good at. As someone who is (probably) older, you have a leg up in these areas since you probably know your preferences and strengths better than someone in high school. Use that understanding to your advantage.
Speaking of strengths, consider the mundane, day-to-day skills you will need in your career. Those are usually more important than the blatant advertised skills e.g. organization, time management, procedural thinking, customer service, flexibility, team work, stress management, creativity are all as important as being able to cook well for my job, and are required in order to grow. You can learn the skills specific to the job, but you won't get direct lessons on the soft-skills. Again, this probably gives you a leg up on some people who go into a career from school.
Consider the lifestyle. Physical fitness, whether you will be standing or sitting all day, doing the same thing or variety, etc. Those preferences and abilities are huge in the long run. They also put a lifespan on your career path.
School is useful for networking, learning is secondary. Being a student opens opportunities to work in better places and build connections with important people. People who wouldn't otherwise give you the time of day will pay attention to you as a student who demonstrates a willingness to learn and work hard, so use that to your advantage if you end up going to school. Culinary school was worth the money to me for that alone. Other careers will require you to go to school for accreditation, just don't lose sight of the other benefits.
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Yeah, I learned to code.
Why do to want to switch careers? What's the issue with your current one? It is important to understand yourself. I found working a simple service sector job far more tiring than programming, because it takes me a lot of energy to talk to normies all day. I didn't understand this about myself for a while, but it would have helped when choosing a career.
I don't trust any "career councilor" type person. The best way to learn about a career is to talk to someone who does it. In retrospect, I should have gone to meetups much earlier to get to know people and the industry. I would suggest doing that for careers you are interested in.
Honestly the problem with my current tech sales career is that I developed massive carpal tunnel/TMJ chronic pain issues from the stress. And now whenever I use a computer for work stuff or stressful things in general, I tend to get the pain again. So unfortunately I'm having to move out of the tech sector it seems, even though that's where all my experience/skill lies.
But even for non tech sector jobs, you will be doing you work on a computer. If you have a conditioned aversion to using a computer, it could be possible to train yourself out of it. Or if it's the stress, are there any less stressful teams/companies/adjacent jobs you could move to? Is tech sales inherently stressful? For programming, it depends on the team and company.
Tech sales is stressful as hell generally, yes. And as long as I'm not on a computer all day I'm fine. I'm on the Motte a lot after all.
Not all jobs require a computer, although increasingly more of them do. And yeah it does seem to be a conditioned situation... but not sure how to go about training myself out of it. Chronic pain is a difficult and nasty beast.
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Tech Sales;
Honestly, anything that hits all of that should be interesting and well compensating. Off the top of my head:
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I had a massive career shift about a decade ago, moving from my background and training to something almost completely unrelated. The reason for the change was primarily to switch cities and be with my girlfriend (now wife, this worked perfectly). I disliked what I was doing enough that even though it was a difficult decision, I was able to talk myself into it. Ultimately, the switch resulted in much higher compensation and much more enjoyment of my new work than my old work. There was no counseling or assessment to be done - I had spent two years in a long-distance relationship, it was time to fix that situation, and switching careers to something that was good enough to get the move done was an acceptable tradeoff.
The biggest piece of advice I could give my old self is that I should have been quicker to make that switch and more flexible about what I was switching to. Holding a career as an identity, for me, was a pointless waste of time that was based on personal insecurity rather than a genuine love of what I was doing. Switching careers added new skills, made me a lot more money, and offered opportunities for personal and professional growth. There was little or no meaningful risk involved - if I had disliked what I switched to, going back after a couple years would have not only been feasible, but I likely would also have had a better position thanks to the broader set of marketable skills I had acquired. Risk aversion in careers tends to be a mistake for people with skills that scale well across different companies and roles.
Yeah, I'm probably a bit too afraid of risk. Part of the issue, as I mentioned above is that I've developed chronic health problems and I'm plagued with the worry that they'll fuck up whatever career I switch to, as they fucked up my last one. Alas.
I should likely just go out and try something that seems like a decent fit with a future at this point, and be willing to switch down the road if it's not.
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