Welcome, dear reader! Changing careers can feel like throwing away the years you’ve spent becoming good at something. But recognizing what you’ve become over time makes it easier to explore another path, accept what you still have to learn, and give yourself a chance to build on the effort you’ve already made. That’s what we’ll look at today. If you missed the last edition on When Your Disciplined Lifestyle Has Left You Lonely and Lacking Social Connections, you can catch up right here.

Leonardo Da Vinci, *Lady with an Ermine* (1491)

My friend had spent years studying for a career, only to get into the dregs of practice and realize this wasn’t what he wanted. The hours didn’t allow much time for himself, and the prospect of spending the rest of his life that way made him consider other paths. But he’d invested a lot in his education and newly found career, and leaving meant giving up consistent income before he knew what would replace it.

So he stayed, while his reasons to leave grew.

A lot of people find themselves here. Some have outgrown their profession and are seeking something more fulfilling. Others are drawn toward an opportunity they can’t ignore, and staying in their current field comes with a financial compromise or a quality of life they can no longer accept.

We’ve been lied to. Careers aren’t everything. You don’t have to stick to something just because you’ve invested in it for a long time. It’s wise to take what you can from the experience and remember there are many other paths open to you.

Of course, there’s the trap of spontaneous but stupid action that might ruin your life. The point is to approach these other paths rationally, giving yourself enough time to discover what interests you, get better at it, and make a transition you can sustain.

take what you can from the experience

One reason changing careers feels like starting from zero is that we’ve learnt to describe what we can do through the profession and context in which we learned it. We become so accustomed to being a doctor, teacher, or accountant that it becomes difficult to imagine where else our abilities could be useful.

Medicine has helped me in terms of resilience, organisation, communication, and being able to consume, memorise, and recall a huge amount of information. Being a doctor comes with a lot of pressure, and going through the process changes your body and mind in how you handle the workload. It’s almost like military training. Vivere est militare, to live is to fight, I used to tell myself.

Coming into writing, I could put those abilities to work. The conscientiousness that makes you pay attention to little details in the hospital also helps you make an essay valuable, thoughtful, and entertaining. Explaining something complicated to a patient teaches you to make an idea digestible enough for someone lay to use. Keeping track of what has been done and what hasn’t at the hospital becomes useful when you have multiple projects, a business, and the rest of your life to take care of.

The hospital has also given me experiences through which I can stress-test the ideas the Stoics gave us. Those years give me something to write about and a way to judge whether the advice I’m giving holds up when practicing it becomes difficult.

Think about what your own work has required you to become good at. Perhaps you’ve learned to deal with difficult people, make decisions with incomplete information, explain things, sell, or keep a complicated operation running. You may take those abilities for granted because everyone around you is expected to have them. But in another setting, they could be a considerable advantage.

You won’t know every possible use beforehand. Some of mine only became apparent after I started writing. And that’s another reason to explore while you still have room to learn- you begin to see which parts of your experience help, and what you still have to develop.

I want you to know that you’ve invested years in developing yourself- not your career. And you’re allowed to put that investment to another use.

you can’t learn what you think you’re too fancy to know

I started taking writing seriously when I was looking for a side gig to supplement my income. I’d seen and heard of people earning a good amount from the internet, and I got interested in doing the same for myself.

It wasn’t easy breaking into the industry. Getting clients was hard, and the pay was little, though motivating because I’d earned this small amount just from writing, which seemed crazy cool to me. But the way I wrote was poor, so I had to take classes from journalists and editors to make my work better.

Other than the stability I thought it might provide, I was interested in the craft itself. I wanted to write beautifully, to make such profound sense that an idea would latch on to a reader’s mind, because I’d read a ton, had a great admiration for some writers, and wanted my work to bear the same cool signature.

This is how I got into other life-changing ideas, such as owning my work 100% and building an audience to get my 1000 true fans, whom I believed I could then live off. I saw the prospect of financial and time freedom, which propelled me further into doing my best work and doubling down as a writer.

But boy was I in for a shock. Medical school doesn’t teach you the art of marketing, building an audience, branding, launching a product, or writing. I had to learn all of that, and what helped me pull through was the interest to write and, more particularly, build a strong business around it that could help me make a living, keep writing.

Yes, some of the shit was hard. But interest and obsession can carry you through a great deal, particularly if you desire your work to do well. You also have to be the one to direct yourself because you’re responsible for what happens next. I had to learn to always take the initiative.

Humility helps because you might think something is easy until you do it and realize how hard things actually are. You can’t learn what you think you’re too fancy to know.

The powerful idea of turning obstacles into advantages also came in handy, because every problem I came across was an opportunity for me to learn. Sometimes I almost wished for things to go wrong just so I could learn from them and turn them to my advantage. That’s how even failure became a blessing to me.

give yourself the chance to discover

Initially, I saw myself as pursuing two vocations. But after some good results, I started seeing writing as preparation for a transition.

It’s through the intersection of writing as a creative act I can’t do without, writing as a chance to fine-tune my mindset, think critically, communicate, and discover myself, writing as a means of financial and time freedom, and writing as a craft, that I’m able to enjoy it so much. Each part gives me another reason to keep going.

That took time to discover. “Passion” is a loose, misleading term when it makes you expect to know beforehand what will hold your interest. This transition has to be something you’ve reasoned out through trying things and having them click enough to spark an obsession.

Some people want to pivot but don’t have an interest or inclination toward anything else. So they stay where they are. It’s not necessarily that they’re prohibited from exploring; sometimes they don’t want to go through the effort of discovery, and whatever time they get they want to use for rest and having fun. That’s understandable, especially when the work is exhausting, but eventually the possibility of another life needs some of your attention too.

A period of exploring is necessary, and it has to be guided while leaving enough room for discovery. We can find something useful or fun in some aspect of our current work, but that doesn’t mean we should stick with it when there’s a better option. It also doesn’t give us licence to wander around aimlessly, expecting magic.

I didn’t know enough about the career I’d studied for until I got into practice. That’s why it’s important to get into the crux and day-to-day of whatever you’re considering, so you can get an accurate measure of the life you’re choosing.

For me, the frustration included always answering to someone. I wanted more freedom to do things at my own leisure and explore the curiosities that interested me. I wanted ownership of my time and effort, and I was willing to learn what building that would require. You have to do what you gotta do.

decide to live your life

People find it difficult to leave for different reasons. Some feel they’ve invested too much in their education. Others are attached to professional status. Yes, some things are cool, but I’d rather be wealthy, free, and happy than be well known and respected while struggling with a life I don’t want.

Others are chained to family expectations and the plan their parents have for them. And even though your guardians may have the best intentions, it doesn’t mean you want the thing chosen for you just because you have the ability.

It may take some stubbornness and convincing. It may also take disappointing your parents earlier than you’d like. But it’s your life, and you’re the one who’ll have to live with the daily consequences of the decision. Do or don’t you’ll regret it.

Some love the security of a consistent income. That security is useful, and it can help you build what comes next. But nothing is so certain that we can depend on it for all eternity. Employers make decisions we can’t control and circumstances change.

The Stoics tell us to consider how much weight we’re giving a title, other people’s approval, and the fear of looking foolish while we learn. And in the end, our mortality gives these expectations their proper scale. We have a limited amount of time to do work we care about, sustain ourselves, and give expression to what we want from our lives.

give the work enough of yourself

What matters most from the outset is discipline, effort, and time. This might mean missing some social events for a period or reducing them to a cadence that allows you to get your thing off the ground. It might mean living below your means while building a cushion, so that when you break off, you have room to find your footing.

Working within constraints of money and time can build the discipline, frugality, work ethic, and creativity you’ll need in the next stage. You’re also developing the character that will have to sustain the work after the excitement of beginning has passed.

I’d carve out regular time to explore these other paths. Where it’s possible, two hours a day gives an interest enough attention to begin showing you progress. Establishing a routine creates opportunities for discoveries and gives you evidence about whether you should to continue.

If you can find a job that maintains your sustenance while giving you more time to work on your thing, that may serve you better than a high-paying job with little room for manoeuvrability. You also have to leave enough room to recover. Burning yourself out in the middle of the transition makes the whole undertaking harder to sustain.

This grind might take three to five years. But if there’s a chance to build a thriving business and a life you’d prefer, that time deserves to be weighed against the possibility of living lesser than ideal and regretting what could have been.

Haruki Murakami still had considerable debt when he asked his wife for two years to write. He’d been running his bar and had already published work, but he’d come to see himself as someone who needed to commit fully to a project and find out where that effort could lead.

In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, he explains that he could accept failure. But he couldn’t bear it if he had done the work halfheartedly. He told his wife they could open another little bar if writing didn’t work out. She agreed, and that’s how he committed himself.

For someone building a business alongside employment, consistent income that competes with their salary can be a sign to pour more time into it.

a hell of your choosing

This won’t magically solve your life issues. Everything you decide to go after will be hard, and you’ll have to settle on a hell you’re comfortable with. Building something of your own brings responsibilities you may have never considered while wishing for freedom.

But it’ll be your nice little hell. A hell of your choosing.

There’s value in being courageous enough to take seriously those 3 a.m. revelations about the life you want, then putting them through the work required to find out whether they can come true, bear fruit. You can honour the craft, improve it, and seize opportunities to showcase it. You can keep learning until things begin to make sense and you’re making progress.

You don’t have to stick to something just because you’ve invested in it for a long time, . Take what you can from the experience. If you haven’t found another path, have the courage to explore until you find something worth pursuing, then spend a good amount of time getting better and learning what you have to.

Give yourself the chance to find out what you can make of it.

‘Til next time. Have a good day ahead!

P.S: If we’ve helped or touched you in a way, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Or support our free essays, writing and research with a one-time donation of your choosing by clicking the button below. Be part of our great cause.

Donate

If you already donate or subscribe, I appreciate you more than you know. You help us make practical philosophy available to people who need it, including those who can’t afford a paid subscription.

With love,

Antonius Veritas, M.D

How to Change Careers Without Starting From…