Hitting the reset button: Tell me your stories of starting over from scratch

In My Humble Opinion
61

Going back to the OP: Are you considering a job reset, or a life reset?

It doesn’t sound like you have a career now, and by “career” I mean a skill set which is slow to acquire and not very portable to alternative uses. By that definition you can have a career which involves a lot of different employers, but doing essentially the same sorts of work, perhaps with increasing dollops of management tasks and money as you move on/up.

I’ve had 4 career resets over my life; two voluntary, two not. And the latest was at age 45, five years ago. I’ve moved across the country each time. What has been constant is my overall lifestyle and my wife.
The one major advice I would offer on career resets is to consider the likely earnings / seniority curve of your field. If you’re trying to go into something that doesn’t pay much because you value your free time or your art or whatever more than money, that’s fine.

But if you are looking at pay as a major discriminator of potential careers, then this matters.

Many lawyers make good money. But most make their serious money after 20 years in the field. IOW, the career is structured with too much work for too little pay up front and too little work for too much pay at the end.

At age 40, you won’t have as much of a long tail to enjoy as somebody who’s 25.

Specific example:

At my last career change I considered going to Chiropractic school. I have no medical background, but was always interested in medicine, and as hokey as chiro is, it looked like something I could get through the schooling and out the other end before I was 10 years older and $500K in debt.

But when I ran the math, the length of school & the cost (including lost earnings while in school) were still such that my break-even point was about age 65 over staying with career skills I already had. And I intend to retire no later than 60, period, amen, even if it has to be to a double-wide instead of a McMansion.

So I stuck with something I knew, and so far that’s been working great.

In fact, I changed careers last time, instead of just jobs in the career precisely because I was then in a career with a particularly strong defered comp aspect & starting a new job at the bottom of the deferral curve again made no sense.

The other side of career profiles is to consider how many people actually make the headline results. There are hotshot lawyers making $200K after just two years. But there are probably 500 of them in the whole US. The rest of their year cohort (all 10,000 of 'em) are making $50K/yr, many working 3000 hrs/yr for it. Except for the 5% who are unemployed or have changed careers again.
If you are considering a life reset, my main thought would be to ensure you’re running towards something, not away from something.

When you’re running away, anywhere that’s not *here *is good. But there’s no assurance you’re not heading towards something not much better than where you are, just different. That’s a lot of work for not much payoff.

Take the time to understand where you want to be, then go there.

And by “where”, I mean geography, personality, lifestyle, job, whatever. You can change any or all of those more or less independently of the other.

At age 40, you’ve got about 1.5-2x as long ahead of you as you do behind you. If the past has turned out unrewarding to date, that’s sure no reason to double down by doing it again for another 20+ years.
*Pace * the poster above me, one of the advantages we have as adults over our teenage selves is we *can * (not will) make much better decisions because we can gather a lot more data & make better use of it.

My wife decided to be a lawyer at age 12. She’s 53 & is still a lawyer. She has never accomplished any of the things that made her want to go into the law, and while she’s not “burnt out”, she’s only in it for the paycheck now & would love to do something else. Said another way, her career is killing her soul.

Don’t go there. Take the time to really understand what your proposed future entails before you commit to it. If you’ve always wanted to live in Alaska, make sure to visit in Feb as well as June.

I grew up on the beach & would love to become a beach bum again, as I was at age 12. But going back to where I grew up I see easy-going “beach bum” culture has been largely replaced by “drug-addled street bum” culture mixed with “yuppies drowning in mortgages just to live in the sun” culture. Neither of which is attractive, nor leaves room for what I’m looking for in between them.

I’m all for exploration. If it’s geography you want to change, get an RV & plan to spend a year on the road finding your spot. But don’t make a big fixed investment of time or money (e.g. school or house) until after you’ve explored.

62

Just wanted to say, I’m 38 and just started a Masters of Health Law. (I won’t be a lawyer when I graduate but the subject dovetails well with my current work experience). I can’t underplay how hard I am finding it academically after fifteen years away from tertiary study (as well as trying to run a household and work in a challenging job and run a small business selling antiques on the side :-)) but I can’t underplay how rewarding it is. Even if I manage an Epic Fail (EF)* on my first assignment, the experience itself will have been worth it. Being a Masters, there are a few other mature age students in my class but to a tee, every-one has been very welcoming and helpful - professors and students alike. Actually, one of the students who has a Law undergrad degree has been helping me out where she can.

Anyway, just wanted to say, jump into the volcano.

*please, please don’t let me get the EF…

eta: I never posted in your other thread but I wanted to say, I’m sorry for your loss

63

I’ll try and keep it as short as possible (and sorry in advance for the changes from future to present tense etc :D). My last boyfriend (5 years ago) broke my heart and destroyed my soul…well more like shredded, pureed it on high and torched it actually. So, I moved to hell…errr Texas for 9 months to be with my mom and help her through a serious illness, I also went because at the time, I believed it was the only way to make a clean break from Luke without weakening and going back to him again. I sold everything I owned except for my computer and my clothes and went to became a stranger in a strange land (and boy WAS I, Texas is…different).

When I moved back home, 9 months later, with my heart and soul bandaged and still in intensive care, all I had were my computer and clothes. I moved into a tiny efficiency apartment in a bad part of town, (not the worst part of town, I was actually in a bad part that was on the outskirts of a much nicer part, but still, a HORRIBLE nasty little place).

I had called the university before I came home, and they had a 1 credit class open for me (I teach in the PE dept). So I did have a teeny job waiting for me when I arrived. My apt wasn’t ready until 3 weeks after I got home, so I bunked in with a friend until it was. No car, no furniture, barely a job (only about $1800 per credit per semester), and an apartment equidistant from just about any shopping or other useful location anywhere in the city.

After I got home, I got an interim job at a local chain gym “McworkoutsRus” as a manager on duty, (basically an assistant manager with all of the responsibility of, but none of the support from, upper management). Top 3 of the WORST jobs EVER! I swear, nearly every day some idiot member with a hugely overblown sense of entitlement nearly drove me to climb the clock tower with my Uzi (okay, I don’t really have an Uzi).

I also signed up with a local version of “Kelly Girl” and worked temp jobs. So, I’m about 3 months home, I have three jobs and I take the bus everywhere (real classy eh? I don’t know about the towns you all live in, but nothing screams “LOSER” more than riding the shame train here in good ole Anchortown). So, I’m working but am seriously poor! My apartment is tiny and the complex it’s in is populated mostly by screamingly inconsiderate and classless neighbors ( pet poop that never got cleaned up, screeching children left completely unsupervised in the outside yard amongst said pet pop, nasty place!).

Meanwhile I’m applying like crazy to positions within my field. My old job does have a position for me… In FAIRBANKS! Ugh, I sadly turn it down, though I would have loved to have gone back to them. What a great little company (but probably would have been a bad idea, a REALLY bad idea because my old boyfriend still worked there, and when I first got back home, I still wasn’t over him).

Eight months later, one of my old coworkers from a different company calls me and tells me they have a part time tech editing job open and that they desperately need help (ummm, not my “real” career but I’m a fair hand at tech editing and I figure hey, get a foot in the door right?).

So, I go and am interviewed. The two main managers find out my background and hire me for a position within my real field (environmental sci-tech) instead of the one I was there interviewing for, my poor friend/coworker doesn’t get a single minute of my time, I immediately go out to the field where I belong! Whew, life is finally looking up. One of the best parts about finally having a real job again was that I could quit that horrible gym! Oh man, I wanted SO badly to be able to tell a few of those insufferably snotty members off! But I am stupidly determined to try and never burn a bridge, so I gave them the most notice I could possibly stand (I would also have loved to have quit on the spot as soon as I got the “you’re hired” letter from my company, but I didn’t I gave them 10 days).

Fast forward nearly 4 years to present day, my regular job is awesome and gets better every year. My classes at the university have grown from that one little credit per semester to around 5 or 6 credits a semester, depending upon enrollment. After I’d been at my company for about a year and a half, I was able to buy a little condo. And though I’d had a vehicle recently, it had had to be “put down” shortly after I got it, so just last fall I finally bought a real vehicle (one that will likely stay running), though as soon as classes are over for the summer I plan on going back to taking the bus to work (SO much more convenient than the nightmare parking downtown, and cheaper too! I ride for “free” since I’m university faculty, yes even though I hate it and it’s kinda “loserville-ish”).

As to the going back to school? I would LOVE to, I keep taking classes here and there in vain attempts to complete my degree, but I spend so much time working AT school and my regular job, (and the classes I need fall during times I can’t really afford to take them), that I haven’t had a chance to do that yet (yet!). This summer I am going to do some serious reorganization and financial crunching and see if I can’t make some serious inroads into this, so that come fall, I can at least start completing my degree. ARgggh, I only have about 29 credits to go…

64

You’re not too old, you just feel that way! When I did my start from scratch, I was well into my 40s and recovering from a major life setback (romantically speaking).

Funny thing, though a lot of what I went through (post above) was truly unpleasant, here’s the weird thing…

A lot of it was oddly …freeing…and kind of fun actually. There’s something kind of fresh and exciting about being completely unencumbered by possessions and responsibilities. (at least for a SHORT time! :D).

Go for it, having seen you post here over the years, I think you’re the kind of person who could make a really good go of it!!! :slight_smile:

65

Say it twice! :smiley:

66

I’ve no doubt she could make a go of it.

The question is, should she?

You don’t have to do everything you can do.
Let us know what you decide.

67

My father went back to finish high school in his late 50s, graduated from Regis University with a BA in English when he was 62, taught high school and college level classes in the Colorado prison system for a decade, and at the age of 80 still teaches as a substitute two or three days a week. All of this after retiring from a 35-year career as a police officer.

I was in my late 40s when my journalism career imploded (largely my fault, but I had a lot of “help.”) My wife and I lost our home (which we’d just moved into) and had to spend everything we had in savings to re-sell the house in a down economy (south Oregon coast, late 1990s) and move back to our hometown. We ended up flat broke, having cashed in all of our retirement just to make ends meet for the first year we were back. I took phone calls in a call center for seven years while we rebuilt some financial stability. We started from scratch in a 2-bedroom apartment with a exhausted old van and a beater pickup.

That was just over 10 years ago; now we live on 4 acres in a new home, have just returned from a week in Hawaii and are planning trips to Las Vegas this summer and the Caribbean next Christmas. Our retirement portfolios are restored (although as battered as everyone else’s in the current economy) and at the age of 57 I’m about to finish my master’s degree in English, hoping to get a teaching gig in a small college somewhere.

Yeah, you can start over. It’s hard – my wife and I both have worked full-time plus part-time jobs, and we sacrificed a lot of personal “down time” over the past decade just to get back what we’d lost. But it was worth it. And as we’ve rebuilt our life together (including a few sessions with a career counselors, a marriage therapist and a tough-love money advisor) we’ve built a stronger life that isn’t as vulnerable to those things that destroyed what we had before.

68

I would agree.

I considered becomming a lawyer in 2004. In retrospect, it would have been the worst idea ever. Instead of spending 3 years working, making money and advancing in my career working as a consultant, I would be $100,000+ in debt, coming out of law school into a crap economy only to work as a first year associate in some law firm (if I was lucky). And from working directly with law firms for the past 4 years, I pretty much determined that being a lawyer actually sucks.

These days, “lawyer” has become a sort of shorthand for “I don’t know what the hell I want to do for a living but I think they make a lot of money and it sounds prestigeous so I’ll do that”.

69

I cleaned the slate between high school and college when I went to a community college. Those two years which resulted in an associate degree – that was the best decision I’ve ever made. I can’t imagine going from high school straight into a huge sprawling university. Hit the reset button: Go to a community college first!

70

I don’t remember if you told us what your job is, but other than the financial costs of school, what are you worried about giving up by starting a new career?
And actually, I’m about the same age and I would totally “start from scratch” in a minute if I could figure out what the hell I wanted to start.

71

Not much.

I’m the VP of a very small manufacturing company. It’s an easy job and I’d be likely to have it as long as I want it and the company is in business, but the latter in today’s economy is not great odds.

My skills are very piecemeal and centered around this one job, so I’m not hugely employable if I lose this job.

And I took the job and stayed in it because I needed the money to pay for my husband’s medical expenses. I couldn’t make more money immediately, and I needed every cent.

I no longer need that level of income. I don’t have any responsibilities other than my cats. I have a house I dislike in a town I dislike in a state I dislike in a climate I dislike.

72

House part is fix-able

Do you hate your job?

73

It’s all fixable.

No, I don’t hate my job. I don’t trust that it will still be there next year and it’s boring as fuck.

74

I know this is easy for me to say because it’s not my ass on the line, but . . .

I think you should decide where and what you think you want to be, and you should go there and do that. The ability to do this is the one small upside of a horrible, horrible situation. If it doesn’t work out, so what? Move on and find something else.

To me, the analysis isn’t just where you’re heading to, though that is of course most important, but also where you’re coming from. The life you’re living is the only life you have – so far as we know or can prove – and if your job doesn’t feed your soul, your location doesn’t feed your soul, and you are not getting resources or opportunities from your job/location to work on the side at an advocation that does feed your soul, then – why are you still there? For grocery money? You’re single, you have few debts and few obligations; groceries will work themselves out so long as you’re willing to work.

So, yeah, I say go for it – in a rational way. Research careers, research educational programs, research locations. Be willing to move anywhere, even BFE for a few years, if that’s where the school is.

And if you like library science and law, consider becoming a law librarian. You can make a good living and law librarians are AFAIK still pretty in demand. I believe there are a number of programs where you can get your JD and MLS jointly, though you’d have to research that.

Keep in mind your own personality when evaluating other people’s advice. It’s only “pretty sweet” to be a tax lawyer (big firm or not) if (a) tax law interests you and/or (b) you don’t care if your job is interesting if it compensates you well enough. Personally, you couldn’t pay me enough to do tax law because I think it’s boring as shit.

Civil rights law is, like constitutional law, one of those areas that lots of people have interest in but where there’s not a lot of jobs in that field as such. You can do con law by defending the government in civil suits, which is the way I did it, and you can do civil rights law by taking ADA cases or landlord-tenant cases, but these are not the glamorous sort of cases people think are “con law” or “civil rights law.” More to the point, the pay for being a crusader (or a government lawyer) tends to be . . . let’s just say “less.”

75

Milk that cow until you can’t and then eat it for dinner. You can always take classes while you’re working if the job is so easy. The economy is tanking so now is a good time to stockpile money and invest in your education.