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If you’re lucky, you still love your career after 20 or 30 years. But many people in their 40s and up derive little or no joy from their work and yearn for a new start.
For those midcareer zombies who go through the motions while pondering a career change, there’s hope. As Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Adam Johnson (“The Orphan Master’s Son”) says, “It’s true. In America, you can reinvent yourself at any turn.”
Perhaps you dream about opening a lakeside bed-and-breakfast, turning your photography hobby into a business or selling CBD-infused coffee. Can you transform that dream into reality?
Yes, but it’s incredibly hard. At least that’s what the experts say.
“For most people who leave a job later in their career, it’s not a well thought-out decision,” said Mary Rogers, creator of the “Experience 50” podcast. “It’s impulsive. It’s more of an emotional, last-straw decision where they’re desperate and they want more control” over their professional life.
The idea of embarking on a whole new career might sound exciting, but “it just doesn’t happen that way” for most people, Rogers adds. Obstacles stand in the way, from surviving on far less money to obtaining health insurance on your own until you qualify for Medicare.
It’s easy to romanticize the notion of ditching an unsatisfying line of work for something more meaningful. Celebrities urge you to follow your passion—from the late Apple AAPL, +0.07% co-founder Steve Jobs (“…the only way to do great work is to love what you do”) to actor Bradley Whitford (“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen…Make your own future”).
Rogers, 56, offers a less dreamy but more practical road map for career renewal. As a first step, she suggests exploring ways to tweak your existing job to make it more gratifying or at least more tolerable.
“Go to your employer and say, ‘I’m looking for more flexibility in my work,’” she said. “Ask if you can be considered for other positions in the organization. Or if you can work from home or mentor new employees.”
Modifying how and where you do your current job might not spark a renaissance of passion for your work. But incremental gains can inject a shot of newness into your routine while enabling you to retain your health insurance, 401(k) and other employer-provided benefits.
If you’re determined to leave, mitigate your risk. Armed with years of expertise in your field, you might propose serving as a consultant to your organization. Perhaps your employer will commit to pay you for a set amount of hours while you enjoy a freer, more satisfying lifestyle.
“Still, you might miss the status you enjoy in your workplace if you leave,” Rogers warned.
Not to keep quashing your dreams, but there are two additional concerns for older workers weighing a career overhaul. First, you’ll almost surely take a short-term (and possibly permanent) financial hit by abandoning your longtime profession to start afresh in a new vocation.
“If you change careers, your 30 years of experience becomes useless,” Rogers said. “What’s the cost of retraining and the time to learn a new skill? Speak to your financial adviser about how long you can last without a paycheck and how much you can dip into your savings.”
Second, mastering new technologies can prove vexing. Even if you’re tech-savvy, you may need to adapt to unfamiliar software or learn other tools.
“When [older] people leave their job, they are surprised by how much they don’t know in terms of technology,” said Penny Shuff, managing partner at Second Act, a recruiting firm in Muskegon, Mich.
“You probably won’t make as much money, so that’s humbling. But you also need to speak the tech language of the industry you’re going into. You have to know different mobile platforms,” she said, and that takes time and patience.
