Hello everyone! I’m in my early 30s and after a decade+ of pursuing a career that sucked the soul out of me, I’m finally pursing psychology to become a psychologist. For the next 2-3 years I’ll be ok but that doctorate stage is what I am thinking about.
I don’t have any dependents (partner or child) but I would want this. I’m saving aggressively to self-fund for all my qualifications – counselling, MSc and eventually doctorate. I’m currently in the counselling + MSc phase.
However, I am now nervous. How do you make it work while pursing this long educational path while pursuing personal pursuits? Has anyone made it work? Thank you so much.
I’m so scared but I feel like I’ve done the “make parents proud career” and I’m finally doing what I want to do. I just feel sad it might take all of my 30s and maybe early 40s. I already didn’t have much of 20s due to work. I’m grateful I know what I want to do until I die but sad I didn’t have the courage before.
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I moved companies throughout the years and then decided to apply to my old company but to an entirely different role. I did not have formal education in that new field but I tied whatever I could with my historic experiences and created a parallel with the skills they were asking for. The hiring manager liked me, thought I was pretty logical and honest about my skill set and on top of that spoke to people from the company I worked with in the past who all echoed that I was a great worker. I got the job that way.
Note: if you live in Europe I know that they’re more strict about this stuff (harder to work a job you don’t have a formal degree in) but in the USA hiring is governed more by market forces ans how you are able to sell your experience and tie it to what they’re looking for
Also, careers like psychologist probably require more formal certifications so this is not entirely perhaps relevant to you
I radically changed careers at 42 (just last year!) but I didn’t endure the long education. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have my own long tunnel with seemingly no end, but I couldn’t let that even distract me for a moment because not doing it just wasn’t an option. I had already decided to do it, and weirdly—I overthink everything else. I will give myself paralysis over deciding what to do for dinner, but with this it was as natural as breathing and when I’d think about not succeeding, the avocado pit in the bottom of my stomach would bounce around reminding me how miserable I was in my current spot and under no circumstances would I allow me to talk myself out of a happier tomorrow. Future me is counting on Right Now Me.
Future you is counting on Right Now You.
I “changed” careers last year, in that I was a screenwriter before and now I’m a novelist…who is suddenly getting tons of paid work as a screenwriter. Shifting to being a novelist was a HUGE change. I worked two jobs for 8 months in 2023 to save up enough money to give up both jobs and just write full time. I have since used all that money to get started–moving to a cheaper city, editing my stuff, etc–BUT I am also a profitable and well rated author now, so I feel it was worth it in the end.
The toughest thing you can ever do is become the architect of your own life. It takes a lot of courage to declare what you want and not let anyone else sway you to take the easier or more traditional path.
But life is too short (and too long) not to take that chance. What’s the alternative? Spend the next 30 years working in a job that doesn’t fulfill you? One that slowly leeches away your will to live and which could disappear at any moment?
There’s a great book I recommend a lot to people called Choose Yourself by James Altucher. He talks about how we see results where we put our energy (the grass is green where you water it).
One thing that really stuck with me and fueled my career change was something he said, which is that if you are forced to prioritize the wrong job/lifestyle/etc, you’ll see successes where you put your energy but they won’t feel like successes because they’re not what you truly want or in the direction you want to go. This was happening to me all the time. I was getting promoted, I was getting raises, I was wowing industry colleagues and whatever…but those things aren’t what I considered successes and so I was constantly frustrated and unhappy.
Now, I’ve published 6 novels in 13 months, I own my own time, I don’t have a boss, I get to write what I want, and every single element feels like a triumph because stories are what I love to do. Every little success I experience reaffirms my trajectory. It’s a lot of work but it doesn’t feel like it because it’s what I enjoy.
I had a baby in nursing school! It’s possible. Life is not a straight line. It will work out. Day by day