How it Feels to Change Careers Beyond Middle Age

Job hopping tends to be a way of life for young adults. Changing jobs can net faster promotions, bigger raises, and new challenges. Eventually, nearly everyone settles into the routine of a job that they enjoy and stick with it for one or more decades. This change helps to create stability in the income, security on the job, and a comfortable lifestyle.

Mid-life career changes may not be by choice.

However, there are times due to choice or circumstances when changing not only jobs but career paths can happen when you are beyond fifty and contemplating retirement. The changes can bring on emotions and new experiences that may be difficult to accept. In some cases, they may feel like a breath of fresh air.

Calm your nerves and keep moving forward.

Just thinking about the possibility of changing jobs can be nerve rattling and unsettling. It will mean facing new routines at work and possibly at home. You will have to overcome the challenges of learning how to deal with new people and master the requirements of the new job in a strange field.

Pay attention on your first day at the new place.

Your first day on the new job will confront you with figuring out how the ebb and flow of work happens. At the same time, you will need to become accustomed to new terminology, forms, offices, equipment, deadlines, and the list goes on. It can be overwhelming for the first weeks in the new career.

What do you want, a new job or a new career?

At some point, you have to consider whether to treat this adventure like a new career or just a job to bring in some cash. With careers, you choose which ladders to climb, who your competition might be, and what is needed to win the rat race. A job, on the other hand, only requires that you perform the tasks in front of you well to keep your position and earn a check on payday. If promotions come along that is fine. If they do not, that is also fine. Raises become an annual event based on longevity rather than advancement.

Job climbers tend to want to keep climbing.

If you have been a climber, this change from a career to a job may not be entirely possible for you to accept. Try as you might, the boss's job will still be a temptation to try for. Your coworkers will be seen as potential barriers to your success. They are either vying for your goals or their weak job performance is seen as having an impact on your ability to do your job well.

Relax and let someone else carry the problems for a while.

If you left your former career because you had tired of the constant strain of climbing, you will be content to enjoy just being one of the crowd. It may take a few weeks, but you will come to appreciate that someone else's neck is on the line for the success or failure of the department or company. You may find the need to decline advancement chances if you choose to avoid most of the pressures of a career.

Try to focus on where you are going instead of where you have been.

You may find yourself depressed and feeling like a failure that you have ended up at the bottom of the heap near the end of your working years. If this career change is starting over, it can be difficult. Start the healing process by recognizing that you have been given an opportunity to prove your ability to be productive and needed in a new field. Skills like leadership, management, organization, and decision making are highly transferable from one field to another.

Concentrate on using your crossover skills to move ahead in your new career.

You may have lost your position, but your skills should still be intact. Begin to develop your new career by building on these and other skills that you have. It will not take long until you are noticed and promoted. Recognize that "not long" can seem like an eternity when your paycheck is smaller that you need. It may require a year or more and a job change to achieve the advancement that you seek. You may need to acquire a license or certificate to make the move that you seek. Keep with it, and it will come.