34 and don't know where I'm going in life

mark1234567890

Morning all,

I'm now into my second week of being furloughed and starting to wonder where I'm going in life. When I first found out that I was being furloughed I thought it was great news as our second child is due in June and I was going to take unpaid parental leave for a month anyway to help with the newborn. Now I'll get 80% instead of 0%. However, during this last week I've been thinking about the future. I hated my job before and have wanted to change careers for the past few years but life has always gotten in the way. Now I have all of this time to think, but I have no idea what I really want to do with my job/career. I also doubt that I'm going to have a job to go back to in July anyway as I don't see many international students wanting to come to the UK anytime soon.

I currently work in TEFL and would consider myself to have a good life outside of work. I'm happily married with a healthy and happy son who is going to start at a good school in September. We rent a little flat in a nice village on the outskirts of a major city and are happy here as we have everything we need. We also have a decent amount of savings and are financially secure for the next few years. TBH my job isn't bad on paper, but it's not my passion and I want to change. But change to what? I've already worked in way too many industries to list here, but they've always been non-professional/low level.

My wife says I have no direction in life and I'm too old to be going through this (I'm 34 now, not 24). I can see her point as it does seem like family/friends around me all have their careers mapped out/are on some sort of trajectory. She wants me to map out a career plan during these weeks that I'm furloughed. But I have no idea where to start/what I really want to do. All I can think of is getting a job on a farm picking fruit.

Has anyone else been through this (mid 30's and going nowhere in life?) How did you find your path or way out?

Thanks

Dox

mark1234567890 said:

Morning all,

I'm now into my second week of being furloughed and starting to wonder where I'm going in life. When I first found out that I was being furloughed I thought it was great news as our second child is due in June and I was going to take unpaid parental leave for a month anyway to help with the newborn. Now I'll get 80% instead of 0%. However, during this last week I've been thinking about the future. I hated my job before and have wanted to change careers for the past few years but life has always gotten in the way. Now I have all of this time to think, but I have no idea what I really want to do with my job/career. I also doubt that I'm going to have a job to go back to in July anyway as I don't see many international students wanting to come to the UK anytime soon.

I currently work in TEFL and would consider myself to have a good life outside of work. I'm happily married with a healthy and happy son who is going to start at a good school in September. We rent a little flat in a nice village on the outskirts of a major city and are happy here as we have everything we need. We also have a decent amount of savings and are financially secure for the next few years. TBH my job isn't bad on paper, but it's not my passion and I want to change. But change to what? I've already worked in way too many industries to list here, but they've always been non-professional/low level.

My wife says I have no direction in life and I'm too old to be going through this (I'm 34 now, not 24). I can see her point as it does seem like family/friends around me all have their careers mapped out/are on some sort of trajectory. She wants me to map out a career plan during these weeks that I'm furloughed. But I have no idea where to start/what I really want to do. All I can think of is getting a job on a farm picking fruit.

Has anyone else been through this (mid 30's and going nowhere in life?) How did you find your path or way out?

Thanks

Your wife is heavily pregnant so probably her patience isn't quite as endless as it might once have been, but to say you are 'too old' at 34 is plain daft. You are likely to be working for at least another 30 years, so taking steps to find a job you'll enjoy and which provides for your family is eminently sensible. Get a job on a fruit farm; it won't impact on your furlough pay and you can find out if that's really going to be the dream job for life. Shouldn't take more than a few days to answer that.

Google on 'changing career at 35' and you'll get any number of helpful links e.g. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/0/new-decade-new-job-change-career-thirties/

Resist the temptation to point out to your wife that you are far from alone in your current undecided state. If you can somehow rope her in to the decision taking process, it could be beneficial in more ways than one.

jonnygee2

My wife says I have no direction in life and I'm too old to be going through this (I'm 34 now, not 24).

You have been working now for probably 10 - 12 years, you have another 30 - 35 left.

All I can think of is getting a job on a farm picking fruit.

Poetic as this is, it doesn't really sound like a 30 year solution either.

TEFL is an industry that will clearly be very hard hit by the current crises. Also, in almost any industry, there's likely to be a lot of skilled people looking for work in the near term future. So if you can keep your job through this crisis, I'd personally recommend doing so. I'm generally all for making changes to follow your dreams, but in times like these practicality goes a long way too. 

I think the main question you haven't answered is - what is the goal of the switch? To find something you like doing? To find something that makes more money? To make a difference to the world? 

43722

Advice Only.
I would not be looking to work on a Fruit Farm. Enjoy the furlough, be with your family. Long term, who knows. I think the NHS is going to be a big employer in years to come, with opportunities left,right and.centre. But whether that is for you is a different matter.
Good Luck.

steampowered

It might be worth spending some time thinking about what jobs you might be interested in, even if you are not yet qualified to do them. You can then start researching what skills/experience you'd need to seek to get there.

All you can do at this stage is come up with some ideas and try them out. If it works out, great! If it doesn't, no biggie - you can just find a different job.

Could be worth having a look around some jobs sites? As you've worked in different industries you'll have lots of transferable skills you could apply to other jobs.

theoretica

Think about the flavour of activity you like.  Do you get satisfaction from having finished and achieved something, or from ongoing nurturing of the same project?  From helping other people achieve or from doing things yourself?  

If you are connected with a university, they will probably have careers resources.  While geared to students and postgrads mainly you might find some interesting things looking through them.

lincroft1710

I think I would wait and see what happens or is available when the lock down is over. At the moment no one knows what the job market or the available work force will be. You have a wife and soon to be 2 children to provide for. I know you won't just jump ship for the sake of it, but any path you choose to follow will have to bring sufficient income and security as well as job satisfaction.

suki1964

Im 20 years older and I still don't have a clue

Not all of us are destined to have our futures mapped out, our stepping stones on how others perceive how life should be

Mr S has earned more money then you could shake a stick at in the past. If we had been ambitious we would be millionaires as more then one of our peers are  by now. I had a brilliant career in my 30s, we were rolling in it

But we spent what we earned and had a ball

We still do, earning NMW and now hitting retirement age

Some of us are just content with a great work life balance, doing the work we enjoy. We don't want to move up the "ladder: or keep up with the Joneses 

Be honest with yourself about what you want from life and make sure your missus is on board and sod what your peers are doing

You have one life. You are here for a very short time. If lockdown hasn't shown you that then nothing will

SadieO

steampowered said:

It might be worth spending some time thinking about what jobs you might be interested in, even if you are not yet qualified to do them. You can then start researching what skills/experience you'd need to seek to get there.

^^This. When my husband was made redundant aged 33 he decided to take the opportunity to change career (up until then he'd worked in retail and didn't want to do that forever). We sat down with a glass of wine and wrote a huge list of every job he could think of,  starting with ridiculous dream jobs, going down to ones he thought he'd be happy with, and then ones he'd be okay with if necessary but wouldn't really choose. It was fun (let yourself go crazy at the top of the list!) and really helped to clarify things for him. Then start working out what you'd need to do and how you can get there. For him it ended up being a path that required a Masters, which he did, and then a PhD which he started aged 35 (part time) which he is now about to complete 7 years later aged 41. So no way are you too old!! He is now working his first few months in his dream job, which he hopes to be happily in for at least 20 years! (Also, the list helped identify part time jobs to look for alongside his studies which complemented his area of study). The academic route is not for everyone but many career changes will involve needing to do some new training and/or starting at the bottom to gain experience. 

If my husband had thought he was too old when he got made redundant, and just gone for another retail job, we'd still be where we were. Do you want to think that when you're 40? Or do you want to be able to think "I'm so glad I took that step when I was 35, look at where I am now!" Of course we had to make sacrifices and it wasn't easy but we decided together that it was worth it - and now we are at the end of the tunnel we know it was the right thing to do.